If you read my sister's blog, then you know that we're attempting to read all of the books on the Time Top 100 list. I think it was her idea, but I'm game. (Even if it means I have to re-attempt the monstrosity that is Infinite Jest.) Anyway, I just finished my 27th book from the list, Catcher in the Rye. It's pretty embarrassing that I escaped the American educational system without reading the book, but I think that my other 26 books read kinda make up for it. I also had NO idea what CitR was about, before I read it. Somehow, over the course of my education, I got the idea that it was about a boy who lives in sewers. (That idea came from the same place that created the idea that my grandpa worked at a forest preserve; no, really. When I was little, I thought my grandpa worked at the forest preserve. I can even still point out the building he supposedly worked in; but I was wrong, because he worked for the union.)
Anyway, I did know that the main character's name was Holden Caulfield and I knew that he hated phonies. I'd gleaned that much from a short lifetime of talking about books, reading books, and just imbibing pop culture like mad. Frankly, that's about it. Holden Caulfield hates phonies. The plot of the book. Done.
It's not that I didn't like the book, because I didn't not like it. It's just that I didn't particularly like the book. I liked the title reference; the poem: "If a body meet a body...." I thought it was one of the more emotionally resonant parts of the books. I also enjoyed the parts of the book where Holden interacts with Phoebe, but other than that, I was mostly bored. I probably could have written a paper about the book in high school (or college) but I wrote a lot of papers about a lot of mediocre books. (Once, I had to write a paper comparing the book Emma to a book about Paul of Tarsus. Coincidentally, one of the professors teaching the class (it was a tandem) wrote the book about Paul. That was the hardest paper I ever had to write.)
CitR is a classic, of sorts, and that's it. I'm done with one.
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