#am salinger

[yemaomeow]

It is so important that everyone who has read Catcher in the Rye understands that all Holden Caulfield wanted from like was for one genuine person to simply sit with him and listen while he spoke. He just wanted to talk. To be heard. To not feel like he was alone. Everyone in his life, and this is important to realize- including himself- has failed him, but he still has hope that people can prove themselves, and that kids can grow under care and be protected even if he isn’t. He just wants to be shown care. He wants to see how genuine people can be, and he wants some of that genuineness to be directed at him so he can show some in return too. Because despite everything Holden Caulfield is, he is not a phony. He’s just a boy. And he didn’t have to feel so disgusting, insane and horrible all the time, but the people around him made it that way, so he searched for things that wouldn’t and wondered about such seemingly pointless things while being “bitter”, but in reality, he was just coping. He was trying to understand. He was trying to keep more hurt away, but it just kept coming. Someone who has their trust broken so many times will start to doubt everyone by default and break other’s trust in them- that’s all it came down to. Holden reciprocated what he knew: trauma.

[realbeefman]

some of y’all clearly don't understand what it's like to avert your eyes when your friend starts changing in front of you and your heart starts pounding in your chest and you could say something, SHOULD say something, tell her to change her clothes in a different room and admit to this freakish attraction that you know she doesn't feel, ruin the friendship by coloring every moment of casual intimacy with the knowledge that you are a pervert who wants more, that you are a threat. you don’t say anything. and you look up and watch the pale expanse of her lower back from the corner of your eye as she pulls on a white blouse, and something lurches in your stomach and you laugh at the joke she just told even though you weren’t really listening to the set-up. later on you will feel sick and guilty and cry alone in a bed that feels empty, but for just a moment, you are laughing with a beautiful girl who loves you, and it doesn’t matter if it’s wrong

[evilrobotdog]

Wat do you guys know about Franny and Zooey. Anyone

[wutheringmights]

I wanted to read one last book to close out the year, so I shopped through my bookshelf for a small little novel I could read in a few days and ended up pulling out my copy of The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger (CITR).

I never read CITR in high school. My AP teacher had the privilege of being able to assign us non-state standard readings and took full advantage of it. And in college, professors just assume you've already been forced to read it. But, nope. Not me.

I actually bought my copy many years ago from Goodwill when I lived in [redacted city], then proceeded to forget about it until now. I only mention this because my copy is apparently the UK edition and doesn't have so much as a synopsis on the back. So beyond knowing a little bit about the misinterpreted poem scene and that everyone HATES Holden Caulfield, I had no idea what this book was even about.

And... holy fuck.

This book is AMAZING.

At first, I just thought it was funny. I was enjoying how much of a shit head Holden is, and all the ways he is such a teenager. He's insightful, but draws some of the dumbest conclusions you have ever seen. He thinks he's so suave and cool, and it's so clear that everyone thinks he's a loser. He wants so badly to be thought well of by his peers while not respecting any of them. I love how Salinger writes his narration, how he branches off into little anecdotes about barely related topics.

But at some point, I just got so sad for him. I'm not sure where exactly it hit me, but at some point you can't help but see how tragic he is. He truly is in so much pain and has no idea how to process any of it. He's traumatized and has been failed by every adult in his life. No one is helping him.

But for a character that has such a reputation for being a manipulative man, he really does seem like a child who is scared to grow up. I was surprised to find out that the titular catcher in the rye monologue was about wanting to protect the innocence of other kids. With the way people discuss this kid, you would think he was conspiring to kill, well, John Lennon.

By the end of the story, when he's with Phoebe at the carousel and he's feeling happy for once in his life, I was crying (or as Holden would say, that killed me).

I then proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes staring at the ceiling, just trying to make sense of it all.

It's such a shame that this novel has been so thoroughly marred by its controversy. I tried to talk to my sister about it afterwards, and she just got really hung up about how she always thought Holden Caulfied was a "psycho" and "one-step away from being a school shooter."

Which, no? Did we even read the same book? Are we still talking about the same kid? He's a brat, but he's not out there to hurt anyone one.

I'm not sure how I would have felt about this book had I actually read it in high school. On one hand, I had a hefty respect for classics when I was a teen and would never dare claim that any one of them is terrible or stupid (except The Great Gatsby). But on the other, I think that a teacher that tried to teach this novel as Holden being a character who has profound thoughts and sees through the veneer of polite society (like apparently how it was taught to my brother)... I mean, I would have believed it but adult me certainly doesn't agree.

This book definitely lays a blueprint for Robert Cormier's entire catalogue, and I was obsessed with his books in junior high. So I probably would have inevitably liked CITR.

I'm glad I waited until now to read it. Teenage me wouldn't have understood everything in it. Older and (hopefully) wiser me does, and she will defend Holden Caulfield with her life.

[johndoe-lesbo]

📝 Are the healthy coping mechanisms in the room with us right now ? 👓

[wexhappyxfew]

have not posted any individual pieces focused on francis montez, resident co-pilot of silver bullets, but she’s been on my mind as of late because (1) relationships between pilots and co-pilots mean everything to me, (2) going from cpt birdie faulkner to lt annie bradshaw after birdie’s harrowing loss has been traumatizing for her and (3) she feels the only person that understands her for some reason is a certain tail-gunner who does quite a lot of staring (and her name is marianne salinger)

[doll-days]

So, I accidentally connected two dots and made a meme…

Image ID: Two muscular arms giving each other a handshake. The arm on the left has text saying “Tex McCormick,” the main character from Tex. The arm of the right has text saying “Holden Caulfield,” the main character of The Catcher in the Rye. On top of the handshake says “Literally hiding in the closet at some point in their respective novels,” referring to scenes in both books where Tex McCormick and Holden Caulfield literally hid in a closet.

[cloudsoupp]

citr fandom be forgetting my boy d.b., bro deserves better frfr 😔👎

[juniperhillpatient]

girls who are the intersection of the final girl & the villain my forever beloved. I love you monstrous girls who are both a victim of a cruel world that would feed on you & objectify you & also cruel enough to bite back

[rosalinesurvived]

New thought: Griffin and Abraham themselves are the symbolical banana fish

In JD' Salinger's novel "A Perfect Day For Bananafish" the titular bananafish were metaphors for two things: 1: materialism and 2: wartime soldiers' personal experiences.

Number 1: When bananafish enter the holes in the ocean they consume the bananas in there and gain an obsession for them, eating so many that they're too fat to get out, and die.

Number 1 is all Abraham, his obsession with his drug and "justifiable" revenge on the soldiers that bullied him in Vietnam/Iraq.

Number 2: They also represent soldiers who went into war (the feeding holes) and then consumed so many horrors that they were mentally unable to reintegrate themselves back into society, some (many, actually, I've seen some stats and Holy shit) committing suicide out of trauma and guilt.

Number 2 is all Griffin, entering the war as an innocent and then losing himself to drugs and then going into a catamose state before being killed by the other version of bananafish, Abraham

[hardoncaulfield]

I've never heard anyone say anything positive about Catcher in the Rye so it was never really on my list of books to read but the way you wrote about it made me curious. Anyway just finished reading it (finished it on my way to work this morning, cried on the bus) and I loved it, just want to give Holden a hug :( Just wanted to say thanks for recommending it!

I think a lot of people have formed ideas on the book itself from the reputation its gotten through association with its readers - most famously it's implication in Mark David Chapman's murder of John Lennon. It became one of the earliest 'red flag' books, which is understandable but unfair, because the book itself is this very raw story of a teenage boy who's so alone and emotionally vulnerable. And the thing is that Salinger spends basically the whole book saying 'isn't this horrible, here's this bright and witty and troubled young man who's desperately seeking understanding in a hostile society, wouldn't it be good if he were able to find people who loved him and helped him to be more open to the world?' and then people who haven't even read it dismiss it as like, the handbook for future incels.

Idk, I think it's a difficult and painful story, especially bc it's narrated from Holden's pov, but it's wonderful, isn't it? It's genuinely a life changing book, one of the most important things I've ever read. I'm so glad you liked it

Also like hmu if you want the pdf of Salinger's short story 'this sandwich has no mayonnaise' which is from the pov of D.B, it was written before catcher was published so the chronologies don't exactly line up but it's great, it's so sad, it broke me

[tuttertime]

tagged by: @tasticbastard

last song: single girl by dimber

currently watching: i’m a virgo

currently reading: with teeth by kristen arnett

current obsession: i’ve been trying to get back into writing again but tbh my current obsession is planning projects i will not finish (including but not limited to a silkscreen design, two zines, and a comic)

tagging:

@bitethebullets @bagelbastard

[postersbykeith]

[whats-in-a-sentence]

I didn't sleep too long, because I think it was only around ten o'clock when I woke up.

"The Catcher in the Rye" - J. D. Salinger

[divinesymmetry]

nobody hmu, just reread my most hated book of all time and hated it a little bit less😔

[ssmokyquartz]

reading franny & zooey and zooey annoys me sooo much jesus christ what an insufferable character