Dulce et utile

Well dear readers, people say that we need an amount of time to swallow a book, to assimilate it. I had enough time, I guess. Or maybe not… What I mean is… How can you assimilate a book as “The Catcher in the Rye”? It really “knocked me out” as Holden would say.  Not so very long ago, I have read another novel, “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, and I have learned something that it will be useful for my final reflection.  

A book should content quality of information, at first. Next, it needs to be amusing. And the last but not least important, it must unleash actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two. Paraphrasing Horace in his Ars Poetica, it must be “dulce et utile,” both enjoyable and instructive.

Personally, I believe that each reader can take advantage of this book, in many ways. It contains lessons and perspectives of the world that are interesting. Moreover, to search in Holden’s mind and to know his internal urges is quite exciting. He’s a particular person and his words can freeze your blood more than once. The writer, Salinger, is a very influential guy.

Dulce, dulce. Again, more than once I have found myself completely inside the story, completely caught up.  The story takes you away like the flow of a river; easily one is following the plot and the characters. The narrative is catching and natural; for instance, Holden’s personality is elsewhere, his dialogs and thoughts are represent by the way he speaks, his idioms, his essence.

What else? I have found beautiful quotes all along the book.  For instance, “don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start losing everybody.” This one appears as the final thing that Holden advice to us…  Moreover, I felt identify with Holden, in many ways, actually. Surfing the web I discovered that Holden has the same personality as me (INFP according to the MBTI Type Indicator), and also the writer J. D. Salinger. For that reason, the book helped me to feel understood in many forms, and notice that there are things that do not pass only through my mind, but also other minds.

By the end, I feel that I will come back many times to “The Catcher in the Rye,” and now is in my personal list of favorite books. I would recommend it to everybody, not as merely entertaining but an experience, an introspective and fully trip to your wishes, fears, contradictions, falsehoods and hidden realities, adolescent’s disputes and much more.

Definitely, dulce et utile.

Until next time. 

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About final revelations...

After his clandestine visit to her sister Phoebe in his house, Holden achieve to get away successfully without anyone noticing his presence.

Having no place to go and no money, he walked down to Mr. and Mrs. Antolini’s apartment. Mr. Antolini was a sophisticated guy, a pretty heavy drinker and an intellectual. Afterwards, they had a conversation about why Holden flunked his subjects and was kicked out of school. Mr. Antolini, in his casual philosophical style told him that he had a feeling that he was riding for a kind of terrible fall, a feeling that he was dying nobly, for some highly unworthy cause.  After that, he gave him a paper with a message that was written by a psychoanalyst named Wilhelm Stekel…

Here’s what he said: “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

He continued advising Holden, and concluded that he should come back to school, past the disagreeable situations, because once he got to past it, he will be closer to what he want, to the kind of information that will be very dear to his heart.

Holden stayed to sleep there, but he had a surprise during the night. He woke up because he had caught Mr. Antolini patting him on the head. That really perplexed him, and he ran away of the apartment wondering if Mr. Antolini was a pervert or only liked to pat people.

”How do you know you’re going to do something until you do it?”

Freaking out, Holden is completely bewildered about his life. He imagined plans to escape and live in a cabin in the middle of the forest, with no people, no situations or things. His lunatics’ ideas had sense for a moment, so he decided to say goodbye to Phoebe and meet her near her school.

Phoebe appears with a suitcase to surprise of his brother. She would not let him go, at least, not alone. That was not in Holden’s plans, so inevitably they fought.

By the end, they go for a walk where they find a carrousel. This is a decisive moment for Holden… He observes his sister enjoying the play, and express that is happy, happy for the first time in the whole book. He is captivated for the innocence of a child, but old enough to refuse the invitation to go with her. The guy is standing there, accepting that he is not part of the ritual but still had the not blinded eye that works for spectators of beauty.

Picture: http://es.forwallpaper.com/wallpaper/carousel-557450.html

One thing I like a lot you mean?

Something that really caught my attention was the relationship between Holden and his sister, Phoebe. 

Holden went to his house only for visit her, in secret, because his parents were out at that time.

He and Phoebe had a gorgeous conversation. But, why was gorgeous? They did not say anything extraordinary, however, was the first time that Holden felt himself talking to another person in the entire book. It felts as a natural and spontaneous stream of consciousness by Holden, as I was reading him, but finally, face to face to Phoebe.

Our main character always says that she is only a girl, but half of the times she can understand exactly “what the hell are you trying to say.”

Suspicious, Phoebe noticed that the presence of Holden before Wednesday was strange, and guessed that he was kicked out of school.

“Daddy will kill you! Oh, what did you do it?”

In short, Holden supported that Pencey was one of the worst schools he ever went to and furthermore was plenty of phonies.

After all his explanation, Phoebe declared probably, the truth and Achilles’ heel of his brother.

 

“You don’t like anything that’s happening.”

 

Bomb. Try to deal with it. “Because you don’t. You don’t like any schools. You don’t like a million of things. You don’t.”

 

“Name one thing.”

 

Holden couldn’t concentrate, and finally, he answered that he liked his brother Allie and doing what he was doing right now. Sitting there with her, and talking, and thinking about stuff.  But the problem was, according to Phoebe that his brother was dead. Holden yelled that he knew it, but you don’t just stop liking people because they are dead, especially if they were a thousand times nicer than the people you know that are alive at all.

Wow, you know that you are reading a good book when you need to stop and take a deep breath to continue. Certainly, at this point, as Holden will say, the book “killed me, it really did.”

“- I like now. I mean right now.

-That isn’t anything really!

- It is so something really! Certainly it is! Why the hell isn’t it? People never think anything is anything really. I’m getting goddam sick of it.”

Next, Phoebe inquired him to name a real thing, like a scientist or a lawyer. He answered in a way that might take away the masks that people daily wear. He said that lawyers were all right, but it doesn’t appeal to him. Why? It is all right if you are a lawyer and you go around saving innocent people. But they usually don’t do that. They make a lot of dough ad play golf and play bridge and buy cars… Even if they go around saving guys’ lives and all, how do you know that they did it because they really wanted and not because they only wanted to be a terrific lawyer, with everybody congratulating them?

By the end… “How would you know you weren’t being a phony?” Do we want to succeed for being better people or do we want to succeed only for appearing and demonstrating that we are good people, great hot-shots?

Is the world an entire fake, a circus, a simulacrum, a competition?

I don’t know the answer. But may be never, sometimes or always?

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Where do the ducks go in the winter?

Holden, Holden, you are so crazy about what happens to the ducks in Central Park that leave in the winter... Until now, you had asked the same question to two taxi drivers, the first was a touchy man, and the second could barely understand what you mean. The taxi driver said that Mother Nature will take care of you, given you the weapons to survive in the worst conditions. Why? What are you so worried about it? It is simple. What happens when winter arrives? What happen to us when we grow up? When we know that we are losing the gorgeous gift of innocence, the capacity to see every single aspect of life as new and fascinating?  When we are so bored and knocked by reality? Do we stay there freezing in the lake, or do we fly to the south looking for the warm that we had lost?

Maybe, if the winter arrives, you will go to New York to see what is going on. Doing whatever you want. Meeting people that you do not want to meet, or you really want to see, or that you could not had imagine that really exist. 

"If you really want to know the truth, I am virgin. I really am."

Holden had found a guy in the elevator that proposed him a throw with a prostitute for five bucks. 

"Okay, I said. It was against my principles and all, but I was feeling so depressed I did not even think. That is the whole trouble. When you are feeling very depressed, you cannot even think."

When the prostitute arrived to Holden's room he lies her telling that he just had a surgery and he does not feel very well to do anything. Then, Holden asked her name and if she felt like talking for a while.   They talked for a short time, because she was a lousy conversationalist. After she was gone, he put on his pajamas and tried to sleep. But, suddenly Sunny (the prostitute) and Maurice (the promoter) come back, and tried to swindle him defending that he owe five bucks else to Sunny. They had a big fight, Maurice knocked Holden and Sunny took the five dollars from Holden's wallet and left. 

"I did not sleep too long, because I think it was only around ten o'clock when I woke up. What I did do, I gave old Sally a buzz."

He called Sally, a girl who was smart and pretty with he used to go out with. Holden invited her to go to Broadway and watch a matinee because it was Sunday. She said that she would love to, so they established an appointment. Then Holden goes around the city and has breakfast. In the cafe, he met three interesting guys, and had a glad conversation together. After he finish his breakfast, he goes around the park and Broadway remembering his sister Phoebe and thinking where does she could be at that moment. 

Holden is spending intense days in New York, waiting for the moment to he supposedly has to go home. He remembers me that song by The Beatles, "Nowhere man", for he seems lost, confused, and vague. But at the same time, as J. R. R. Tolkien said, probably "Not all those who wander are lost."

"He's a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Doesn't have a point of view

Knows not where he's going to

Isn't he a bit like you and me?"

Nowhere Man - The Beatles

Isn't he a bit like you and me?

Picture: https://isardasorensen.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/ducks-galore-in-icy-central-park/

About phonies and run away to New York

Holden wrote a composition for his roommate Stradlater, the one who "spent around half of his goddam life in front of the mirror," in order to do him a favor. This guy, went out with Jane Gallagher, a girl who Holden likes, so then Stradlater and Holden had a big fight.

Holden decided that was enough of Pencey Prep and took a train to New York, unless he has to leave the Prep, anyway.

He arrived to New York, and is certainly desperate to call someone. Whoever. He starts analyzing who he could call, but there is no one appropriate. He thought in Sally, a nice girl that he used to go out with. Holden remembers what Sally's mother said once "She once told Sally I was wild. She said I was wild and that I had no direction in life."

"I'm the only dumb one in the family."

Holden seems to adore his little sister Phoebe, he expressed that we should see her, and we never saw a little kid so pretty and smart in our whole life. Nevertheless, he declined to call her, because his parents could answered the phone. He tell us that his brother Allie, who died years ago, was a wizard; and his brother D.B. is a genius writer in Hollywood.

"I'm so damn absent-minded."

Holden took a taxi and forgot telling the driver that he was going to Edmont Hotel. He tried to carry a conversation with the driver, who is not pretty interesting about it.

"The one thing I hate to do is go to bed when I'm not even tired."

Once in the hotel, Holden decided to go down to the lobby to see what was going on. There was a bar and a "terrible" band playing. That night, Holden met three girls that are in there thirties, two who are ugly and a blonde one, who was very pretty.

Holden danced all the night with the blonde girl, who was an amazing dancer. However, he was disappointed, because the ladies were ignorant and could not carry a conversation.

All the night long, Holden tried to establish a connection with other people. Although, he noticed that everybody live in their own world, and it is almost impossible to find someone to get in touch. By the end, he spent a nice evening, but he felt alone. At this point, he remembered his ten-year old sister Phoebe, because "if you tell old Phoebe something, she knows exactly what the hell you are talking about."

A pretty song that Holden danced with the blonde girl 

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Getting to know Holden Caulfield

To get started, I would like to mention something that I share with Holden Caulfield, the controversial main character of "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. 

"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."

You are right Holden, you are right Salinger. I really want to get into the book and talk with you, or at least imagine that I can call to Salinger and chat for a while. But I have something better. Reading an awesome book with deep thoughts, and spend a great time.

So that, Holden Caulfield tell us that he would not start presenting himself as David Copperfield's style, and "all that boring kind of crap." He goes straight into action, and starts criticizing everything and everybody around him, even himself. 

He wears this particular red hunting hat, "with the peak around to the back and all." And we can notice other particularities about him. At first, he was kicked out of school four times (sometimes he just quit school, just like that), and his history teacher asked him "do you feel absolutely no concern for future, boy?" but, apparently, no. Holden confess us that he is the most terrific liar that we ever saw in our lives. Moreover, that he is quite illiterate, but reads a lot. These specific things, which let us know much about his personality, are keys that engaged readers. Holden seem to be a calm guy, but there is riot in his mind. As Stephen Hawking said, "quiet people have the loudest minds." Holden admit that he is quite a nervous guy, so we can wait everything. 

According to him, life is a game when you look on the side where all the hot-shots are. But, what happen "when you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what is a game about it?"

Do you know something else about Holden? He is not a hypocrite. He is not unpleasant with others, but is that kind of person that analyzes everything, and can decipher traits, gestures, words and thoughts. Probably you do not know anything about him, but he can know all about you with a look. When his roommate, Strandlater, a handsome and selfish guy, asked Holden for do him a favor, Holden thinks "Just because they're crazy about themselves, they think you're crazy about them, too, and that you're just dying to do them a favor. It's sort of funny, in a way."

Rebel and frank, Holden's voice was the voice of a generation that had screamed from the inside.

Picture: http://www.prooffreader.com/2013/09/word-cloud-catcher-in-rye_9.html