[!@#$%!]

KEKES--

i don't know that you're that spoiled-- you have a job, for fuck's sakes. i know you wish you were, but you aren't. you have to work.

one of the notable things about holden is that he's rich and pampered-- rich enough to attend some prep school and never have wanted for any material things in his life. which makes it hard to sympathize with him at some level, but then when you realize he's also rich enough to have a better jacket than the guy who's going to try and fuck the girl holden likes, and he's oh so alone in the world, oh so special and misunderstood, you say, okay, maybe, fine, i pity him, the freak, one of us, one of us (you've seen that movie? freaks?). he talks about some sort of hormonal problem. in a way he's right-- whether the hormone thing is literal or metaphor, he's stuck in some stupid place refusing to grow up. he doesn't have the balls for it-- literally, metaphorically-- the hormones.

now i'd say fine, the world is a fucking rotten place, when you're all goodness it must hurt to make the compromises grownups make-- but then you realize the little fucker looks down on people from classes below him. the taxi driver. the secretary that he dances with, in particular, he's such a dick in the way he thinks about her. holden caulfield thinks he's beyond the evil of the world but in fact he's a classist little shit. he's no better than anybody else in particular. in many ways he's actually worse.

if at some point he actually realized that, he came to realize that his shit also stinks, one could say, hey, fuck, there he is, yet another ape achieving self-knowledge, but no, he wants to be the catcher IN the rye and stop the little kids from going over-- he wishes he could keep everyone stunted as some sort of overgrown children. just like jesus commanded. "be like children." well. fuck.

in a way, you can see why his book is so popular. anybody wounded teenager who is disgusted enough or unequipped enough to cope with the universe will see holden as their little hero. but to me he grows up to be like buster bluth-- from arrested development. there, buster the monstrosity holden caulfield grows up to be. so yes, in the way that the type is getting to be so popular, meaning, there are more and more buster bluths every day, holden is winning-- he's stopping the little children in their tracks.

now the story is pretty great, as a kind of anti-bildungsroman (i hope i spelled that right), there is drama and the style is great, and when the book came out it made quite a sensation with the language. so the stuff is well written, and after all is said and done, yes, any angsty teenager will be able to connect with something in it in spite of differences in social class, language, nationality, whatever. because everybody goes through that in some way and even if you're supposed to overcome not everybody does, and not even those who win in the end always feel like they are winning. growing up is tough for all. and he captures some of that, and for that he is good.

but ultimately i like it better as the film adaptation known as igby goes down. that somehow worked better for me, because in the end… nah, i won't spoil it, if you haven't watched it-- let me know if you have. plus, there's sookie sapperstein.

anyway, beyond catcher in the rye i've read nine stories (nine stories i think it is) but i recall little of them, only the bananafish one, and found it also dismal, a kind of quitter's repetitive twitch, and so i never made it to franny and zooey. maybe i'll borrow it from the library out of curiosity of something.

alright, i'll reply to the nietzsche stuff later because you're right, he's scary-- but the right kind of scary, i'd say. seeya.