Book Report

I finished reading J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye today, and though I still haven't quite processed the book's deeper meaning, it was most definitely an entertaining read. In fact, I'm just gonna' have to share some favorite quotes with you:

"She had some Navy officer with her that looked like he had a poker up his ass...then she introduced me to the Navy guy. His name was commander Blop or something. He was one of those guys that think they're being a pansy if they don't break around forty of your fingers when they shake hands with you. God I hate that stuff."
(After laughing hysterically at this part, all I could think about were the guys in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University. Don't get me wrong, I had a ton of friends in the Corps and respect the tradition, but let's be honest...some were way too intense for their own good.)

"The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where is was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south...Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone."
(I was just imagining all the moments/people in my life I would like to put in a glass case and be able to go back to at any given time.)

"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score...Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them--if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry."
( I especially like that last part about poetry...all of these beautiful cyclical relationships that are so profound without saying a word. Sometimes labels ruin things--they make things like history and poetry seem too intentional, which I think was Holden's struggle with school throughout the whole book.)

Ok, those are pretty much all the profound thoughts I have to offer...it's way past this literary scholar's bedtime. More keen insight headed your way in the near future...
on deck: Fat Girl by Judith Moore.