OT: Has anyone read Catcher in the Rye?

[Sasha]

I know it's a long shot, but I can't for the life of me find the section where he actually describes himself as *being* a Catcher in the Rye, even though I've got the book right in front of me and read it a couple of years ago.

Can anyone guide me to it? I really need to find it...

[ZhouJiaQuan]

its been a couple years but i remember it being near the end of the book last chapter somwhere i think...

hope this helps...

peace

[Sasha]

I think it's near the end, but I didn't see it anywhere in the last chapter (mind you, I didn't see it in any of the *other* chapters, either). What I thought I remembered was it being the very end of one of the last chapters, not the very last one.

[ZhouJiaQuan]

its been a couple years but i remember it being near the end of the book last chapter somwhere i think...

hope this helps...

peace

[ZhouJiaQuan]

oops i posted again when i didnt mean too,

well um i dunno then.

[eulerfan]

I don't remember where it is in the book but I can remember how it went. There's this song with lyrics, "when a body meets a body coming through the rye." That made him think of himself in a rye field catching errant children about to run off of a cliff or something. So, seems the lyrics would be offset or something and easy to find.

Maybe not but that's what I'd look for.

[eulerfan]

Or italicized or something. Skim for that. I really don't think many authors would put song lyrics in plain text with just quotation marks.

[Nevermind]

Eulerfan is pretty accurate. I remember the character Holden Caufield reminiscing about a song with the lyrics, "if a body, catches a body coming through the rye". Or something like that. He had this vision of himself as the "catcher in the rye". He felt that the only people he could trust and who weren't phony were children. So he envisioned himself as the catcher who would save them from being corrupted as they grew older. At least that was my interpretation. I read that book like 15 years ago in high school. Afterwards, I found out that the book was very popular with stalkers such as Mark David Chatman who often referred to himself as Holden Caufield. He killed John Lennon because he felt he was "phony". A common gripe that the character in the book had about people. They also found a copy of the book in the belongings of John Hinckley Jr. who attempted to assasinate Ronald Reagan.

[ZIM]

"...Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

-p. 115, & later mentioned again p. 173

[GeneChing]

Not planning to assasinate anyone, I hope...

[guohuen]

If you'd ever meet JD you'd lose your facination with that book rather quickly. He's a foul tempered oaff that rarely bathes or washes his clothing.:(

[KC Elbows]

Either the book is good or not. The celebrity behind it doesn't matter to me.

However, I've heard the same. His lawyers nitzed a website that did a Holden Caulfield quote a day engine, because he doesn't give permission for those sorts of things.

[@PLUGO]

Waaaayayyy back when I was in 8th grade (circa 1982?)

A subsitute teacher CRACKED and came to school in combat fatigues and Shot Gun... a 22 I believe.

He held most of the school hostage but eventually let them all go...

a buddy of mine was the last to leave the 15 hour seige. While sitting along side Mr Wicks he was handed a well worn copy of Catcher in the Rye. Mr Wicks told Bryant to read the book and to understand what this ws all about. He then had Bryant close his eyes while Mr Wicks put the shotgun to his own mouth and pulled the trigger.
Bryant Ran out of the school running into the Covert SWAT team that had infiltrated the coridors.
We where all over the News long before Columbine... but the incident never made it to the Sunday Night Movie...

[KC Elbows]

ghthomason,
You never have elements of yourself in your stories?

I know that the goal is to write yourself out, but usually this means your biases. I often find little elements of myself all over my stories, and of other people I've known. Never whole, like one character being exactly like Gene(hey, nothing against Gene, but sales might not happen if my stories always had a character who had seen most models of the Excursion pulled by people's popes), but instead, there will be maybe a trait of mine mixed in with a trait of my old roommates mixed in with a trait of my dogs. Not usually on purpose, it just happens.

Recently, I discovered Hemingway's character is all over his works.

Anyway, just curious. There really is no wrong, only what works.

At the same time, I'd agree that an interesting author might not be an interesting person in at all the same way, and it's probably not productive to learn about a fiction by looking at the author for the answers.

[ZIM]

Never really saw the point of the book myself!

Then again, I don't really see the point of having kids, either, so maybe I've got a fundamental flaw or something. :D

I write, but nothing of me is in it <-lie

[eulerfan]

Anybody seen Deconstructing Harry by Woody Allen? It came out after the whole Sun Yi(sp?) thing. It was almost like he was saying, "Okay, okay, I know that I suck as a human being. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy my movies. My movies are still good."

[KC Elbows]

Oh, I fully agree with your original point that the story should be able to stand on its own, and that the creator's personality shouldn't influence critique. Just continuing the conversation about writing ourselves out of stories.

I've just read Catcher, so it's almost too fresh in my mind to discuss what I thought it was about. To me, it seemed to be about coming to adulthood being the surviving of a series of bad judgement calls, and understanding why those calls were bad. Holden wishes to be the catcher in the rye because he wished he had had a catcher in the rye, but the reality is, at some point, everyone must make those decisions on their own, and hopefully someone will be at the cliffside to help before a bad decision becomes fatal.

ZIM,
I think I've got the same fundamental flaw.

Ming Yue,
Yep, and anecdotes are fun on their own, so when you're done reading the book, it's interesting to know something about the author.

[KC Elbows]

Eulerfan,
Haven't seen it. I have a hard time with Woody Allen stuff. IMO, Woody Allen has the same difficulty that Quentin Tarrantino and , to a much lesser extent, Hitch****, had. The inability to recognize that their screen presence is not the equal to their directing.

The reason I can watch Hitch**** is that his presence only distracts for one short shot, meaning there's only one very short shot that isn't as masterful as the ones around it.

Tarrantino can't keep himself out of his, and Woody has the same problem. It sucks, because they're both great DIRECTORS, but their acting fails them. Now, if Woody Allen had Gene Wilder's screen presence, I could watch more of his movies, but he doesn't.

IMHO, neither Woody Allen nor Quentin Tarrantino would survive their own casting calls were they not the directors. Or Spike Lee, for that matter.

[ZIM]

I tend to think that placing yourself within a story is the mark of an immature writer, in much the same way that beginning poets have to get past whining about their own adolescent love to find a true 'voice'.

Hemingway was full of cr@p, as soldiers in WWII report. His fundamental flaw was he was a braggart [and suicidal and alcoholic and.....] If he could've gotten just a little more over himself, maybe he would've lived longer.

[KC Elbows]

OF, FOR GOD'S SAKE, IT'S ****ING ALFRED ****ING HITCH****!!!!

[KC Elbows]

Hemingway's a weird one. My first inclination was to dislike his writing, but recently, I've come to like it. Hills like white elephants was sort of my primer to understanding his style.

[Xebsball]

With all due respect, Woody Allen makes some amazingly boring movies

[eulerfan]

You know, I don't think Catcher in the Rye was all that great, either. However, if you want to teach high school boys about literary technique, there's no better choice than that book. The boys can identify with the character and the literary techniques are heavy handed. They are practically offered on a silver platter.

"Holden wore a hunter's cap. What do you think that means, Micheal?"

[KC Elbows]

Maybe I'll rent that one this weekend. Deconstructing Harry. My wife likes his moves quite a bit.

What's the one where he's a blind director? Is that one any good? She wants to see that one.

BTW, have you ever seen Woody's old stand up? He's quite the writer, really.

[KC Elbows]

I mean my wife likes his MOVIES. I have no idea how she feels about his moves.:D

[eulerfan]

I haven't seen it. It's his latest, right?

I think his short stories are his best work. Some of the funniest stories I've ever read.

[eulerfan]

Originally posted by ghthomason
The point of any book is to show how a certain group of people behaved during a certain period in time--no more, no less. I think Catcher does that pretty well, especially when you compare it to his contemporaries.


Oh, okay. You see, I didn't know that. We need to alert sci-fi writers that their books are pointless. ;) :D

[eulerfan]

Honestly, I would wager that, were you to go back in time and tell Dostoeyevski that the point of his books was to show how people in his time behaved, he would say something to the effect of, "That's nice. I have to go. See you around."

I mean, I really don't feel comfortable saying what the point of any book is. But I really doubt it's that.

Unless it's to better understand the human condition and one can do this by seeing how people behave in certain time periods and recognizing the universality.

But, books have done SOOOO much for me, it almost seems like it would be a slap in the face to reduce them to historical registers.

[KC Elbows]

I tend to think style also plays into this. Salinger adopted a conversational style for Catcher that no one had at that point. His speech was youthful(for the time). Hemingway had skills at writing dialogue, especially tagging it, that were notable.

It is very rare for someone to be remembered for their art thirty years later just because they wrote about something new. Style has advanced steadily. Usually, style plays a role in a writer's fame. Usually.

Euler,
Yes, that was the newest one I know of. I'll check out the one you recommend. Hopefully, there's not too much heavy math in it.;)


In general,
But I thought the point of fiction was to touch the heart?[EDIT- I'm going with Euler's definition of defining the human condition] After all, it can never be reality, so fiction as history is flawed. It's like a magic trick. The purpose of a magic trick isn't to make a coin appear, but to do it skillfully, and to make people give you money, impress chicks, and get press.

As for sci fi, sci fi is as close to literature as philosophy is to life. Depending on the writer. Or the philosophy.:D

[ZIM]

DOESTOYEVSKI!!!!!!!!!! YEY!!!!! [Tolstoi, OTOH, is boring as heck. He goes on for pages and pages about "Ivan got a new tractor", and I'm saying "Leo, why'd he f**k her? Cmon!"]


Unless it's to better understand the human condition and one can do this by seeing how people behave in certain time periods and recognizing the universality

Thats a historians job. Thats what the Greeks thought, anyhow. Recognizing the universalilty, finding what is good and evil in all societies, reporting it back for the improvement of their own society....

[KC Elbows]

Maybe the writers job is to tell a 'good story'. Like the good grappler, only more real.:D

In my experience, every time I let any other notion of what I'm doing get in the way of writing the best story I can, it's schlock. It's nhb wordsmithing. The moment any message or duty gets in the way of the story, it has to go.

I just don't think we'll find one definition or goal.

[eulerfan]

ghthomason,

Didn't I say that I couldn't agree with your point UNLESS you meant that showing this behavior gave insight into the human condition? I granted that one possible interpretation of your statement.

So, if I was missing your point and it's actually different from that, the distinction is subtle and you need to explain it to me some more. Because it looks the same to me.

[ZIM]

Historians should record facts and dates.

Indeed, that is one approach. But there's no interpretation going on within it. At a basic level, this is what archivists do. Historians should intrepret facts and dates.

Curiosity: why do some books transcend the limits of Zeitgeist? This is meant as a follow-up ? to the premise supplied, not a stab, or anything. :)

[eulerfan]

Originally posted by ZIM
DOESTOYEVSKI!!!!!!!!!! YEY!!!!! [Tolstoi, OTOH, is boring as heck. He goes on for pages and pages about "Ivan got a new tractor", and I'm saying "Leo, why'd he f**k her? Cmon!"]



Thats a historians job. Thats what the Greeks thought, anyhow. Recognizing the universalilty, finding what is good and evil in all societies, reporting it back for the improvement of their own society....

Eww, don't like Tolstoi. He was too religious, too.

But, I don't think insight into the human condition is solely the job of a historian. Again, I can't say what the point of art is. I've gotten too much out of it, too many important things, to nail it down. Different authors are trying to do different things. They each have their own point, I think.

I can see how one could find one main point in reading books. For them, art has that one purpose. I think that thing can be insight into the human condition. I don't have a problem with art being that for somebody.

[ZIM]

But, I don't think insight into the human condition is solely the job of a historian

Never said that. The Greeks also had a great tradition of playwrights and poets to inform them. I think they viewed everything through that lens, but thats just me talkin'. :)

My edit was swamped, so i'll repeat here:
Curiosity: why do some books transcend the limits of Zeitgeist? This is meant as a follow-up ? to the premise supplied, not a stab, or anything.

[KC Elbows]

I don't agree with your assessment of art vs. entertainment. There is little art worth mentioning in which the goal, message, theme, or what have you interfere with the story. That is why I say all things are sublimate to the aesthetics of the story. If the theme is unclear, or heavy handed, this is bad aesthetics, and thus, bad art.

I was not meaning to say that deeper meaning should not be a part of the story, just that anything that was not organic to the story must go. Otherwise, it cannot be good art.

This also extends back. As soon as the story gets in the way of the theme, there's problems.

However, I can agree that most great fiction is linked to it's time, but I do not agree that that was the goal of the writers, nor do I think that a writer using this as a guide can create art.

i.e. by virtue of being a great and being from a time, a great writer creates a work that speaks of his/her time. Really a coincidence, not an organized goal. How could it be the product of another time?

[KC Elbows]

Then we both understand each other.:)

There's a major difference between those writers. Good choice of authers. One is good. One is schlock. Schlock is like easter chocolate. You'll have it on easter, but the rest of the year, you don't eat the waxy stuff, it's just not good enough. However, Crichton fails to get his stories out of their own way. He fails to follow what I think good writers do, which is let nothing get in the way of the story, including itself. Crichton's stories are...well, you have to really want to suspend disbelief. And his characters are mouthpieces for his own ideas. It's bad, bad art.

[eulerfan]

I'll tell you one way that art transcends simple insight into the human condition. For me, at least. Personal growth.

I'm about to get real Freudian. He believed that most of your thoughts are subconscious. There is a constant dialogue between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. Sometimes, things speak not to your conscious but to your unconscious mind. Much great art does that for me. I can read books and not understand them but also know that I somehow got something out of it.

I think a lot of great art can clarify the dialogue between the conscious and subconscious mind. Sometimes, it's like I am ready to know something on the conscious level and my subconscious is just waiting for somebody to say it.

[KC Elbows]

Jung was big on that as well. He spoke of numinous meanings beyond conscious thought.

[ZIM]

I'm about to get real Freudian

now now, no need to be offensive. :D

There is perhaps another sense, among many many others: Art shows a way to be within the world, perhaps in contrast to the 'technological, everything is just stuff to be used' POV.

Art, and esp. great Art shows the value of the OTHER person's world, allowing us to experience it as directly as possible. This is true whether it be Van Gogh's painting of peasant's shoes, or Hemingway's short stories, or Mozart.

Sometimes, for some ppl, this is why [IMHO] heavy-handedness is a problem. Eliot is a great poet, but too religious to take directly. Tolstoi, again, same problem. And JD's works can be seen like that too. Teasing these out is the task for the reader/viewer, what have you.

And thus, I've answered my inquiry for myself.

:)

[eulerfan]

The educated man tries to repress the inferior man in himself, not realizing that by so doing he forces the latter into revolt. CW Jung


Great strides were made by me as a result of this quote.

[eulerfan]

Originally posted by ZIM

Art, and esp. great Art shows the value of the OTHER person's world, allowing us to experience it as directly as possible. This is true whether it be Van Gogh's painting of peasant's shoes, or Hemingway's short stories, or Mozart.
:)

Absolutely. Many books have greatly heightened my capacity for empathy. I've just gotten SOOOO much from art. I can't say what the point of it is. It's too big.

[eulerfan]

Not the first, or even second, time I've made it in this thread.

[KC Elbows]

Eulerfan, you used to have a quote in your sig that got stuck in my head. Something about the more someone is trying to sound profound, the less profundity they're working with, or something like that. It's depressed me for a while since I read it, because that tends to be me sometimes, but that's the concept that's changed me most recently. It's motivated me to read and experience some things I hadn't stopped to before, so that's a good thing, but I'd like to be able to attribute the quote to its originator.

[ZIM]

But I just want to say: how nice it is to talk about this, rather than going on for another 53 threads about Iraq. And this is NOT an invitation to begin doing so!!!

Not Kung fu, maybe, but so what? Very nice. :)

[KC Elbows]

Have a good one ZIM, and yes, it's fun talking about this.


ghthomason,
See, I think schlock is still art, just bad bad art, but I can see the reluctance to use the same word to describe Catch-22 and I Know What You Did Last Summer. ;) :D

[eulerfan]

"Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water."

-Nietzsche

[Chang Style Novice]

literature is great, great stuff. But be careful thinking about it as being the same as art. Not only is it true (as has been pointed out) that not all literature is art, but not all art is literature. Or maybe it would be clearer if I substituted 'linguistic' for 'literature' in that last phrase.

One of the minor miracles of the english language is that we have a word to describe something that can't be described by words, "ineffable."

Some things are ineffable. Color, for example, or timbre cannot be adequately explained to someone without the capacity to experience them. If you know someone who is completely blind or deaf and has been since birth, you can find this out on your own. What does "Green" look like? Well, you can say that it looks like what you get when you mix yellow and blue, but that only begs the question. You can say that a shade of green is more yellow than blue, or more dark than light but again without a point of experiential reference, it's meaningless.

Okay, now I'm more or less rambling aimlessly, so I'll just return to my first point. Not all art is subject to a literary style critique, because it may contain ineffable elements. So be careful saying art when maybe some more specific word would better suit your meaning.

[eulerfan]

art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art art


:D

[Xebsball]

:o oh dear, art is the good ****e

http://www.deviantart.com
http://xebsball.deviantart.com

[KC Elbows]

Get off our thread, ya friggin painter.:D

I'm still calling Crichton bad art.

Although, I will be first to admit, CSN, I have no idea what you mean by something not being called art if it cannot be open to literary criticism. I know you boys like your absinthe, but please, sober up enough to explain to me.:p :)

[KC Elbows]

Hm. So, art is basically anything with meaning imbued by a person called an 'artist' or something equally pretentious?

So one could be a good painter, but a bad artist?

I think I follow now. Thanks. Seems kind of meaningless though. What if excluding meaning had deep meaning? Then it's art, but it's not.

No, I'm still calling Crichton bad art. Entertaining/propaganda is a meaning, even if a shallow one.

[Chang Style Novice]

GH - Problem is, green could mean money, go, marijauna, ecology, unripe, or any number of other things if you look on it as a metaphor. In and of itself, green only means how our nervous system interprets a particular range of wavelenghts of light. And at the extremes of that range, you'll get rather little agreement about whether they should be counted as green. And if you don't have the equipment to precieve wavelengths of light, you'll lack any clear idea of what that means.

KC - I don't think I ever said that. Some images are for all intents and purposes literary in nature. Some, however, are not. Some works are more or less usefully interpreted by litcrit techniques. I'd say it's almost impossible to discuss Franz Kline the way you'd discuss a novel. It'd be pretty easy to discuss Adolphe-William Bouguereau in those terms.

And **** yeah, Crichton's godawful.

[Xebsball]

American Beauty is one of my favourite movies, i almost came on my pants, even though its not pr0n.

[KC Elbows]

CSN, Then I guess I'm still not following, unless it is meaning behind the work that you are referring to. I would think that art, both visual and literary, must have ineffable attributes to be good. Why should Holden Caulfield work as a name? Can't really say, but for many, it does. There is no written fiction that doesn't have ineffable elements, for reasons of archetypes. Archetypes are, in the end, ineffable, at least in their relations to us. Even the lamest. Even Crichton. So I think I'm even further from understanding the limits on what must be called art.

Do I need to suck paint from a brush until the truth strikes me or something?

[Chang Style Novice]

And as long as we're yattering about this, I may as well repeat my long time discomfort with the term martial arts. Some people use it as if martial arts was a branch of the fine arts that just happened to involve whupping the poop out of people. No, I can't buy that. I can't even buy it as a branch of the liberal arts. I can see it as a branch of say, industrial arts, but that doesn't make a lot of sense either - only in terms of the fact that martial arts is more about building skill and refining technique than it is expression, innovation, or understanding.

Really the branch of art that martial arts belongs to is only it's own. But that's cool - it is that big, important and diverse enough to merit such a large piece of cultural property.

[Chang Style Novice]

KC - I'm not sure what you mean by that post at all. All I initially intended to do was say that while literature is certainly art, art isn't neccesarily literature, and that different media require different tools to interpret. If you think I've said more, please tell me what you think that is, so I can see if I meant that.

And I don't recommend sucking paint from brushes. Lots of paint has lead and cadmium, and other not-healthy-in-the-least stuff as pigments. There's fair reason to believe that Van Gogh got as nuts as he did by ingesting too much of that stuff.

GH - Exactly! The word green is a signifier and nothing more. The quality we call green can therefore not be communicated except by its own manifestation, a manifestation that depends on an optical sensor and a nervous system to interpret that signal. Anything else is just vague hand waving.

EDIT

of course, I understand completely if you guys want to discount the opinions of a starnosed mole.

[eulerfan]

This thread has taken a sharp turn towards nowheresville.

We are officially arguing for the sake of arguing.

(bangs gavel)

That's my ruling.

[KC Elbows]

CSN,
Oh! Thank you. I was about to suck paint from a brush a la Van Gogh(I was actually referring to him). I get it, you were making sure that we all knew that art covered other fields as well. I've been feeling rather obtuse lately, so I thought there was some deep hidden meaning. Pardon my psychoses.

Hey, the blue is pretty good!

[KC Elbows]

Now that I understand, I'm not arguing anymore! I promise!

[Xebsball]

You know i found this camera my family been taking pictures with since a very long time.
Originally my mom had bought it, before she even met my dad. So the thing is from the late 70s, older than me and bro, it still works. I took some pictures yesterday, they gonna look cool once i reveal them.

[eulerfan]

Ahhhhhh. The coups de grace!

I'm going to check out some live bands this Saturday. It's been a while.

[KC Elbows]

Noooooo!

Evil GotQi threaders.

I won't let this die. I'll save this crumby thread. I'll be like some guy on a cliff side, saving...I dunno, saving something, but that'll be me. I'll save it from you phony gotqi threaders.

[eulerfan]

KC, you're ultimately going to come to the conclusion that you don't want to get on the merry go round. You'll just sit on that bench and watch as your sister rides it. :D

[KC Elbows]

You knew Mark David Chapman, didn't you?;)

[eulerfan]

Weren't the Beatles an influence for Manson?

[KC Elbows]

Isn't this a creepy start for tennis?

[eulerfan]

What do you mean by 'tennis'?

[KC Elbows]

Did I say 'tennis'?

[Sasha]

Oh my... This thread went places I wasn't expecting.

I might find it interesting, if it weren't for the fact that it's covering very similar ground to the essay I'm supposed to be writing (which was why I needed to quote the passage). I have two different definitions of art which is a bit confusing. My favourite one goes something like 'A rational manipulation of passion which originates from, and is driven on by passion.' Though the definition I'll probably use for the essay will be the more general sense of anything at all that was made for passion's sake.

As far as the purpose of it, I think it is only in making a positive impression on the observer.

But I really can't be bothered to kick up the settling dust, considering I'm about to try to write a 5000 word philosophy essay in one weekend saying that philosophical essays are 99.9%useless (oh, the bitter irony), and that literature is a far better medium for the conveyance of ideas.

For the record though, Catcher in the Rye is my all time favourite book ever. I've only read it once, and even skimming over it again to find quotes for my essay is playing havoc with my emotions. All I can say regarding what people have said about it here is that saying 'the point of it is so and so' is to infinitely underrate the book. It has so much to say about so many things, and Holden is the best fictional character I've ever known.

Ultimately though, I take a fairly standard post-modernist view that the only point is what you take from it. If someone can point you to something you hadn't seen in it, great, but no-one can tell you you're wrong about it.

Anyway Zim, I'd already managed to find the second reference, and I'd forgotten the first, but we've obviously got different editions. Mine has exactly 190 pages (page 1 is the first page of the story - the previous ones aren't counted), and the reference I've found is pages 155-156, finishing halfway up the page (about 4 paragraphs) from the end of chapter 22. Could you be (much) more specific about where the other reference is? Bearing in mind I probably won't know the order of events in the story, so although it's probably worth giving me the context, the chapter number/proportional location within the chapter will probably be a lot more helpful.

[ZIM]

Anyway Zim, I'd already managed to find the second reference, and I'd forgotten the first, but we've obviously got different editions. Mine has exactly 190 pages (page 1 is the first page of the story - the previous ones aren't counted), and the reference I've found is pages 155-156, finishing halfway up the page (about 4 paragraphs) from the end of chapter 22. Could you be (much) more specific about where the other reference is? Bearing in mind I probably won't know the order of events in the story, so although it's probably worth giving me the context, the chapter number/proportional location within the chapter will probably be a lot more helpful.

I'd be glad to help, but honestly I'm no expert on the editions, nor on the story....I do know that the one with the horse on the cover had different pagination. Let me look it up. :)

"The cars zoomed by, brakes screeched all over the place, his parents paid no attention to him, and he kept on walking next to the curb and singing 'If a body catch a body coming through the rye.' It made me feel better. It made me feel not so depressed any more" p.115
Page numbers refer to the Little, Brown, and Company edition (c. 1951). The previous quote was from p. 173.

Anyway, this is chapter 16. Chapter 22 contains the psychotic vision of catching the kids, when he's starting to lose it for real.

[Sasha]

Ahh, got it. Thanks a lot :)

(page 104, just for my own reference, cos I haven't got a pen handy :))

[Sasha]

Didn't use the quote in the end :rolleyes:

Out of curiousity, would anyone be interested in me posting the essay I *finally* finished on here (it's about 5800 words)? In all honesty, it's one of the most arduous things I've ever had to do and you'd probably have to be fairly academic to find it anything other than incredibly dull... + the written-for-assessment style means there're a lot more quotes and references than there really need to be, since the examiners always seem to respond well to that.

But it's about literature, and as people have said, it's nice to see some OT threads that aren't jokey links, or debates about Iraq. And frankly, having suffered through the experience of actually writing the **** thing, it's a bit depressing to think that the only person who's gonna read it is some dispassionate examiner who'll give it some arbitrary mark and then file it away for all eternity. And I do think it makes a few good(ish) points on the elitish nature of academia, even if I do say so myself ;)