Salinger's poignant narrative of American youth in the modern age, The Catcher in the Rye, reveals the phony adultism of society through the jaunts of Holden, a troubled adolescent with an inability to leap off the "crazy cliff" into the cruel world of adulthood.
What follows is a passage from The Catcher in the Rye, or something like it...
The passage begins like this:
Listen: Holden Caulfield is alone in his dorm room.
It ends like this:
Eustacia Vye
Listen: Holden Caulfield is alone in his dorm room.
He is about to read a book and is enjoying the cosy atmosphere of his room. The heater is on, for a change. Holden takes off his coat and tie, unbuttons his shirt collar, and throws on his red hunting hat. He had bought it earlier in the day on a trip to New York.
The trip went like this:
The fencing team went to New York for a meet with McBurney School. Holden was the goddam manager of the fencing team. A very big deal. Holden left all the foils on the goddam subway. The meet was a dead event. It did not occur. And so on.
Holden bought a hat at a sports store, this was around the same time he realized that he had lost the foils. The red hat was only one dollar. The dollar was a common type of currency in the United States at the time that Holden Caulfield bought the red hunting hat. The dollar was a piece of special paper in the shape of a rectangle. It was a short rectangle, not a tall one. Both sides of the dollar were filled with all sorts of baroque trash. The most confusing of which was a truncated pyramid with an eye on the top. Coming in a close second was the motto of the country, E Pluribus Unum. This was printed on each dollar. It meant "From many, one," in a language that was no longer spoken. It was as if the government was saying "In nonsense is strength."
Anyway, Holden got a lot of shit from the team about leaving all the foils on the train. They made fun of Holden the whole way back to Pencey. It was pretty funny, in a way.
Holden sat down in his chair to read his book. The book he was reading was Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen. This was not the book he intended to read. The library gave him the wrong book and he did not notice 'til he got back to his room. Holden thought it was going to suck, it didn't. It was a very good book. He says. Holden claims to be quite illiterate, however, he still reads a lot. His favorite author is not Kilgore Trout. Holden has never heard of Kilgore Trout. His favorite author is actually his older brother D.B., who happens to live in California. I do not know the size of his penis. Holden had a younger brother, Allie, but he died of cancer. So it goes.
D.B. gave Holden a book one time. It was by Ring Lardner, who just happened to be Holden's second favorite author.
The story went like this:
A traffic cop falls in love with this very cute girl that's always speeding. Her breasts are larger than average. The traffic cop's penis is on the small side of normal. The traffic cop is already married, so he can't marry her or anything. Then the girl gets killed, because she's always speeding. So it goes.
That story killed Holden... well not actually, a lot of things killed Holden, but he never seemed to die.
The type of books that Holden likes most are ones that make him wish he was friends with the author, and could call him up on the telephone whenever he felt like it. These types of books aren't very common. He says. Holden wouldn't mind calling up Isak Dinesen, only she's dead. So it goes.
Holden says that Of Human Bondage is a good book, but he wouldn't want to call up Somerset Maugham. He's not the type of guy he'd want to call up. He says. Holden would rather call up old Thomas Hardy, he likes that Eustacia Vye.