Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

So I decided to reread this book!  The last time I read it I was an angsty teenager.  This time, when I started I was feeling low and I was all, "Yeah, Holden, I can so relate!" but then by the halfway point I was like, "SUCK IT UP HOLDEN, OR YOU'RE GONNA GET A PURSE-SMACK.  AND DON'T BE THINKING THAT THE BEATLES PURSE IS GOING TO HURT LESS BECAUSE IT IS SMALLER.  IT IS MORE COMPACT AND IT WILL HURT TWICE AS MUCH."  Sooo yeah.  Long story short, it's been removed from the 'classics'/'books everyone should read' shelf and will be moved down to the regular shelf.  It's still a little cruel that it has to be next to a Goosebumps book, but oh well.  These things happen.
So tell me you know what this is about.  An angsty teenager fails out of school and goes back home and stuff.  It's another twenty-four-hour deal.  Fun times.
If you like South Park you've probably seen the Catcher in the Rye episode.  I think it's absolutely hilarious, even if that makes me sound like a bad person.  See, the Catcher in the Rye was once--and actually in some places it still is--considered a really controversial book because of the swearing and references to sex.  Listen.  Margaret Atwood is dirtier than Catcher in the Rye.  So Mr Garrison explains that this is the book that made Mark David Chapman kill John Lennon.  Butters finishes the book and he starts going crazy, like "Must... kill... John... Lennon", and he takes a knife out of the drawer.  He goes to his dad and asks him where John Lennon lives, and his dad says that John Lennon is dead, of course.  So he's like aww, man! and goes back to his room.  ...Okay, it's funnier on the show.  (And all the episodes are online, so...)
And we were discussing this one day in Intro to Lit and Mrs CF was talking about how scared she was to read it because, in her words, "Every weirdo is found with a copy of Catcher in the Rye!" She's worried that if she reads it she'll go insane or something.  I can relate, I'm scared to read Nietzsche for the same reason.


Sooooo let's go.
First, people tend to put this book's opening as one of the best book openings ever.  Here's the opening: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth" (1).  Excuse me?  That's not best.  It's new and different, but come on here.  Pride and Prejudice.  The Hobbit.  A Tale of Two Cities.  Just to name a few.  I highly doubt Caulfield had a crappy David Copperfield-esque childhood.  Also, Caulfield, don't compare yourself to David Copperfield, or your book to his.  Call me touchy, but that book is fantastic.  Let's be real with ourselves, Holden.

One of the first things--people--Holden talks about is his older brother DB.  He says his brother is an author and that one of his best stories is "The Secret Goldfish"--a kid buys a goldfish but won't let people look at it because he paid for it all by himself.  I wonder of JD Salinger actually wrote this story--though perhaps under a different title.  (There is actually apparently a book called The Secret Goldfish, but it was written in 2004.) And I'm thinking that perhaps this story might supposed to be symbolic or something, but to be honest... I'm not sure how.  I have trouble taking this book seriously.
I also wonder if DB is supposed to based off of an author JD Salinger knew, or just authors in general--DB moves up to Hollywood to presumably write scripts, and Holden says that he's become a prostitute.

Okay yeah, one of the most annoying things about Holden is when he says a fact--or what he believes to be a fact, and the next sentence is "it really does", or he'll state a belief or opinion, and say, "I really believe that."  And I just want to be like, "WELL OBVIOUSLY HOLDEN, THAT'S WHY YOU SAID IT!" I get that he's supposed to be an unsure teenager and wants to be sure we don't think he's a phony too and all of that but honestly, stop.  I could smack you upside the head.  Upside the gray part.  BAM.

"What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by.  I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them.  I hate that.  I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it.  If you don't, you feel even worse" (4).  He means that people are saying by, making some kind of fanfare or something to show in some way they are aware that you're going.  This I agree with.
Also, that sad good-bye and bad good-bye made me think of Shel Silverstein.  Sorry, it's too late to unthink it now.

"'He just kept talking about Life being a game and all.  You know.'  'Life is a game, boy.  Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.'  'Yes, sir.  I know it is.  I know it.'  Game, my ass.  Some game.  If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right--I'll admit that.  But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it?  Nothing.  No game" (8). / "His opponent, the big blond boy, already knows this; there is a touching gallantry in his defense.  He is so sweet-naturedly beautiful, so nobly made; and yet his classical cream-marble body seems a handicap to him.  The rules of the game inhibit it from functioning.  He is fighting at a hopeless disadvantage.  He should throw away his useless racket, vault over the net, , and force the cruel little gold cat to submit to his marble strength.  No, on the contrary, the blond boy accepts the rules, binds himself by them, will suffer defeat and humiliation rather than break them... He will fight clean, a perfect sportsman, until he has lost the last game.  And won't this keep happening to him all through his life?  Won't he keep getting himself involved in the wrong kind of game, the kind of game he was never born to play, against an opponent who is quick and clever and merciless?" (53). This is from Isherwood's A Single Man, when George is watching the two tennis-playing teenagers.  Anyways, I see where Holden is coming from.  I know exactly what Holden is saying.  It's not so much that I disagree with him, it's just that after a while he gets annoying.  I get antsy, you know?  Like, GET TO THE BLOODY POINT ALREADY!  He just drags and drags after a while.


"People never notice anything" (9).


When he's leaving Mr Spencer: "After I shut the door and started back to the living room, he yelled something at me, but I couldn't exactly hear him.  I'm pretty sure he yelled 'Good luck!' at me.  I hope not.  I hope to hell not.  I'd never yell 'Good luck!' at anybody.  It sounds terrible, when you think about it" (16).  

So Holden bought an orange hunting hat with the flaps and all in NYC.  This kid Ackley starts ragging on him for it--saying it's a deer shooting hat.  Holden responds with: "'Like hell it is... This is a people shooting hat... I shoot people in this hat'" (22).  Call me crazy, but I actually saw it as a really cute scene.  The way I imagined him saying it... Kind of like a little kid.  It sounds little kiddish, the way he words it... Anyways, this might be why the book ends up in the possession of serial killers or inspiring them or what have you.  Problem: phonies.  Solution: shoot them.  It's the only reference to shooting I see... And instead of just quietly getting agitated by 'phonies' and trying to ignore them and avoid them, this passage could be the "Wait!  I have a better solution!" passage.  I don't know.  I'm not a serial killer. I'd make a pretty poor one at any rate. (PS. Aspiring serial killers out there: Holden is not being serious!  He is kidding.)

"He was always asking you to do him a big favor.  You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he's a real hot-shot, and they're always asking you to do them a big favor.  Just because they're crazy about themself, they think that you're crazy about them, too, and that you're just dying to do them a favor" (28).  Holden is talking about his roommate, who asks Holden to write him up a composition--even though Holden has failed out (though Holden is very talented in English and actually did pass that).  Holden does end up writing him a very nice piece about his dead brother's baseball mitt, but the roommate thinks it's stupid--so Holden just tears it up and throws it away out of agitation.

"Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad" (52).

So Holden leaves school, but instead of going home he wanders around NYC.  Eventually he goes to a club and starts talking to a lady... "The band was starting a fast one.  She started jitterbugging with me--but just very nice and easy, not corny.  She was really good.  All you had to do was touch her.  And when she turned around, her pretty little butt twitched so nice and all.  She knocked me out.  I mean it.  I was half in love with her by the time we sat down.  That's the thing about girls.  Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them" (73).

He also get agitated over the people clapping over the piano player--the player was trying to be really show-offy, and in doing so, he really screws the number up, The people were stupid and not realizing he was a screw up, and were clapping and all--Holden says if he was an actor or a piano player he wouldn't want these people to think he was good.  "I'd hate it.  I wouldn't even want them to clap for me.  People always clap for the wrong things.  If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet" (84).

And Holden sees a college fellow telling a girl about a fellow who committed suicide on pills while giving his girlfriend a feel.  He's shocked at that behaviour, and I don't blame him--there's a bit in Factotum where Henry sees a sailor doing pretty much the same thing to his girl.  I want to say that the sailor's victim was eaten by alligators or something weird like that, but yeah.  Tried and true way to pick up ladies?

"People are always ruining things for you" (87).

"It's no fun to be yellow" (89).

"One of my troubles is, I never care too much when I lose something--it used to drive my mother crazy when I was a kid.  Some guys spend days looking for something they lost.  I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much" (89).

"You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn't any brains" (92).  Hehe.

Also, Holden describes a book he read about a fellow named Monsieur Blanchard.  Just for future reference: the book in question is (according to KGB and Amazon.com) is Warped in the Making: Crimes of Love and Hate.  Hm.  Seems interesting.

Holden also complains about how Catholics apparently are always trying to figure out if you're a Catholic too.  He's talking about how he met a fellow at one of the schools he flunked out of who he was having a great conversation with about tennis and stuff, and the kid clumsily brings up the subject of Catholicism--he asks Holden if he knows where the local Catholic church is.  Granted, the kid could have just been asking an actual question--you know, "Do you know where it is?" and so on.  Holden is a little bit of the unreliable narrator, so everything is bound to be slanted by what he thinks, and he could have just laid his own take on the situation--the definition of the situation and all of that.  Still, whether Holden was right or not, he says you could tell--it seemed like you could tell--that the boy would have enjoyed the conversation even more if they were both Catholic.  "That kind of stuff drives me crazy.  I'm not saying it ruined our conversation or anything--it didn't--but it sure as hell didn't do it any good" (113).

Holden starts driving me nuts about when he starts complaining about actors.  I understand his complaints about actors who are too good--whose acting attempts to be real end up being too real and end up looking ultra-rehearsed anyways.  But then he talks about how he's always worried because he's scared even good actors will do something phony in the next instant.  That bothers me.  Everybody has a bit of arrogance, I admit that.  But jeez, chill out!  He's like the super-hipster.  HE IS THE ORIGINAL HIPSTER.

And Holden goes to the museum and starts talking about how he's always loved it: "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.  Nobody'd move.  You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole... and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket.  Nobody'd be different.  The only thing that would be different would be you.  Not that you'd be so much older or anything.  It wouldn't be that, exactly.  You'd just be different, that's all.  You'd have an overcoat on this time.  Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner.  Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger.  Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom.  Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them.  I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean.  And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it" (122).  I totally know how he feels.  There's something incredibly reassuring about going to museum you know like the back of your hand and having it be the same, even if you haven't been there for a few years.  For example, I could probably go through the Peabody museum blindfolded and still be able to tell you exactly where everything is (except for that new caveman bit and the room that has monthly exhibits, of course)... But like the dinosaurs, the ancient animals, the contemporary animals, the birds... I guess the crystals and geodes too, but I never much pay attention those things... Oh, and the kid's room!  But I'm too old for the kid's room.  But I could describe that room in perfect detail if need be.  I need to have kids so I have an excuse to go into the kid's room... Or borrow kids.  I like that better.  So... Yeah.  (Of course, it goes both ways.  When they change something it can be shocking and even devastating, though fortunately they've mainly changed the geological exhibits, and like I said, I'm not exactly invested in those.)
...He goes on and says... "I kept walking and walking, and I kept thinking about old Phoebe going to that museum on Saturdays the way I used to.  I thought how she'd see the same stuff I used to see, and how she'd be different every time she saw it.  It didn't exactly depress me to think of it, but it didn't make me feel gay as hell, either.  Certain things they should stay the way they are.  You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.  I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway" (122).  (Phoebe is his little sister, by the way).

"If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?  Nobody" (125).  Men, this goes for you too.  (PS. Holden goes on a date!)
On his date, he starts attempting to explain what about society and people he's so fed up with.  The girl of course doesn't get it, but it made me start thinking.  I mean, they're the normal our society and culture is stupid blah blah blah that anyone can spit out, but then Holden starts talking about going off to live in the woods.  Now, let me back up a little.  A few months ago, the book Into the Wild happened to come up in conversation during Intro to Lit.  Every kid--except me--hated it.  I admit that Christopher didn't act smartly--in fact he acted the opposite of smartly--but I still liked and admired him.  My teacher adequately ripped him apart, especially on the fact that it never explains why he was so agitated and had to leave.  In the movie they have to make up things.  She actually had a really good phrase to describe his unexplained feelings, and I can't remember what it was... It was like "cul de sac ennui", or something.  I sort of thought about it, but I put it out of mind for whatever reason, probably too busy to think about it really.  But, when I read this part... my first thought was automatically, oh my God, he's Holden Caulfield.  Which ended up sort of ruining him in my eyes--he's not some Christ figure, he's not some big hero or idol, he was just a confused, disenchanted kid who didn't know what to do--so he did what he did.  So... Yeah.  I'm not saying that this book inspired Christopher--it isn't even mentioned--but I guess that maybe it proves that Salinger got the teenage brain down pat.

Anyways, the date flops because the girl is basically a phony in Holden's eyes.  Truth is, she's the one doing the thinking--well, I see both sides.  Yeah, it's good to do spontaneous things.  It's fun.  It's life-changing.  But at the same time, Holden is like, let's just get up and go!  Move somewhere far away, I have $180, and all of that... Which is a stupid decision.  Anyways, Holden gets agitated for her thinking things through, and tells her she's a pain in the ass, and yeah.  There goes the date.  So Holden leaves, drinks some more, and decides to sneak into his house and visit Phoebe.
"I'm not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about.  I mean she's only a little child and all.  But she was listening, at least.  If somebody at least listens, it's not too bad" (172).
Anyways, the title comes from the fact that Holden misheard that old bit, "If a Body Meet A Body"... He thought it was "If a Body Catch a Body".  He tells Phoebe that that's what he wants to do--he imagines that there's a big playing field of rye on a cliff somewhere.  There's thousands and thousands of kids, and if one starts veering off-track, he can catch the kid and keep them from falling off the end.  I don't... I don't get it.  Last time I read it I was all, "Holden's such a great guy, protecting those kids!" But now, I'm missing something maybe.  I'm just like, that's great Holden... But it's stupid as hell.  Maybe there's some fantastic display of humanity or symbolism or something I can't quite get. Maybe it's supposed to be symbolic of him keeping kids from veering off in life like he seems to have or something.  Maybe he feels like he's fallen down a precipice.  And at the same time... It's like, what makes it so great?  I mean, when someone is in trouble, most people's first inclination is to help the person out.  I would stop kids from falling off a cliff too.  Why are we throwing Holden a big party?  Everybody gets excited over this part and I just respond with what I've just written--you know?  Maybe I'm just particularly obtuse today.

So Holden tells Phoebe he's going to leave, and Phoebe offers him her Christmas money.  He feels guilty about it the next day and goes to her school to leave a note for Phoebe.  While he's there, walking in the hallways: "I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another 'Fuck you' on the wall.  I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or something.  It wouldn't come off.  It's hopeless, anyway.  If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the 'Fuck you' signs in the world.  It's impossible" (202).

"Don't tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody" (214).


So... There's the book.  Like I mentioned, it's being moved to the regular shelf, but it still is worth a read so your hipster friends don't beat you up.  Well, maybe not the hipsters in your life, but I'd read it at least to say you've done it.  Really, you look like a dunce if you've made it out of high school without reading this.  It's not half-bad, but Salinger has done better.  So... Yep!


MLA citation: Salinger, JD.  The Catcher in the Rye.  Bantam Books: New York, 1981.
(This is actually sort of disappointing.  I thought this edition was much older... Though it does look like it's from the seventies, so I guess the date makes sense...)


Actually, have I explained what phonies are?  Okay, we're not done yet then.  Phonies are those people that you feel better than, whether you actually are or not.  They're the sort--well... Hm.  They seem like they don't get 'it' or 'you'.  People that maybe blindly follow society and the 'big man's' ideas without question.  So, a hipster would probably say I'm a phony.  Like I said, Holden Caulfield is the original hipster.  I don't have a better way of putting it.


Also, on an unrelated note--I love animated shorts from film festivals and all of that.  On a whim, I searched for one that scarred me for life as a child.  I was both pleased and horrified, of course.  Enjoy!   It was nominated for something in the Sundance film festival x years ago too, I guess.


Last post's cryptic song lyrics: Blame it on the Tetons by Modest Mouse
This post's cryptic song lyrics: I save my grace with half-assed guilt and lay down the quilt upon the lawn, spread my arms and soak up congratulations

Don't come closer or I'll have to go

Hey guys! I recently read another book of John Green's (of youtuber fame) entitled Looking For Alaska. Good, good, goooooooooooood book. Fantastic. (I've decided that people don't use that word enough today. Let's bring it back.) To illustrate exactly how good it is, I fell asleep reading it. Usually I can pull away from a book before I pass out. But oh! John Green held me with his vice grip and would not let me g.... uh. That looks weird written out. S--sorry, John... But I would recommend the book. A good read, indeed.

Anyway, let's meet our protagonist, Miles, soon to be renamed 'Pudge'. He is transferring high schools to a boarding school, leaving behind a nonexistent social life and taking with him a love for last words. (Oh, hi John! My favorite may be, "Tell them I said something!" This is also the one of the only two John Green videos I've ever watched, for the record.) So, he meets a bunch of cool cats, like the Colonel, ALASKA, Takumi (aka, the "motherf---ing Fox", and my favorite character) and a bunch of other people who you'll meet if you read the book. Anyway, please note that Alaska is a human girl, and Emile Hirsch is not involved. This is not a rewrite of Into the Wild. (No one is laughing!? You guys! Comedic gold!)

Let me say this now: Alaska embodied basically 95% of the traits in people that I hate. I know what happens to her and all, but before thus I was like hey, Alaska, shut up. And SPOILER: just saying, if a friend of mine died I'd probably just be upset. I wouldn't make a mystery out of it...

"'God will punish the wicked. And before He does, we will" (71). Go, Colonel, go!

"'The Colonel takes all this honor and loyalty sh-t pretty seriously, if you haven't noticed'" (73). I wish more people took that sort of stuff more seriously. What an impeccable world we'd live in! A world full of bolly days, ostentatious British accents and funny chuckling--oh, and top hats. Is that really what would happen? I don't know. But get me my top hat just in case. (I'm having a very top hattish week).

Alaska has terrible taste in Vonnegut books. Cat's Cradle!? Well, at least it wasn't Hocus Pocus. And I guess the pictures in Breakfast of Champions would be hard to see in the moonlight. And Galapagos... Actually, I don't think Vonnegut is a very 'read by moonlight' sort of author, but I guess that's why John Green and I aren't married. (Aside from several hundred other reasons.)

"'Can't wear it to the opera,' said the Colonel, almost smiling. 'Can't wear it to a funeral. Can't use it to hang myself. It's a bit useless, as ties go'" (150).

SPOILER! "Someday no one will remember that she ever existed, I wrote in my notebook, and then, or that I did. Because memories fall apart, too. And then you're left with nothing, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow" (196). / "And I will die, and you will die, and we all will die, and even the stars will fade out one after another in time"--Jack Kerouac

"We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so cannot fail" (221). Dear John Green, I love you.

LAST WORDS:

"You seem to be feeling better this morning." Henrik Ibsen: "On the contrary." (Dies)

"Now comes the Mystery"--Henry Ward Beecher

"I've had eighteen straight whiskeys. I do believe that's a record"--Dylan Thomas

"Born in a hotel room, and--God damn it--died in a hotel room"--Eugene O'Neil

"I am not a coward, but I am so strong. So hard to die"--Meriwether Lewis

"It's very beautiful over there"--Thomas Edison

I need a book of last words. Anyway, Green's little bio thing says his favorite quote is Wilde's: "Either this wallpaper goes--or I do." I always thought what he actually said was "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death." Or something like that. According to Wikiquote (which I remembered I could easily look up because, duh, I have Internet!) he said: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go." So we're both kind of right. I'm willing to share this. Wiki Answers says it's not his very last words. Several sites agree with Green. Well, there's only way to find out! Get the TARDIS.

PS. In case if you're still wondering: I found Alaska. You don't have to look anymore.

PPS. Into the Wilde?

Goodbye stranger; it's been nice

You know what book I finished recently and wrote an essay on that I just handed in today? Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Good God. What a smfff book. It was alright... it had important points... and I could have killed myself while reading it. It's just one of those. So I won't be going through it. I know, you're saying, "Shankespeare, you are being a wiener right now. It doesn't matter if you didn't enjoy it! Press on, brave soldier of fortune!" I'm not sure exactly what you're quoting right now (if you're quoting something--which it certainly sounds like) but I just wrote a TWELVE-PAGE PAPER ON THIS BOOK I HATE. The only part I really liked was when this drunk guy plows into the main character and starts saying weird things like "I'mtheseventhsonofaseventhson" and that he was born with a caul and was raised on cat's milk and stuff. For you normal folks, being a seventh son of a seventh son means you're a werewolf (or being born on Christmas day. I have written a whole theory as to why Jesus was a werewolf and why exactly it makes sense). Being born with a caul makes you a vampire. Or being bitten, or if a vampire stares at a pregnant mother (the child is born a vampire) or if you're womb-cursed. Or excommunicated, supposedly, but I think that automatically makes every Episcopalian a vampire, and so far, I've been sorely disappointed.



Also, he refers to a black-and-white silent film (Birth of a Nation) which was pretty cool... I mean, not the fact that it's an incredibly racist film. Just the fact that he referred to it, you know? Old black and white films you know? Though when the book was written it probably wasn't that old... FINE. When I write my book, I'm just going to rip jokes off from Marx Brothers movies and no-one will know because they're 80 years old now. And if someone happens to call me on it? Homaaaaaaaaage.




So! What I will be writing about is a book I actually enjoyed (enjoyeds?). It is Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. The book is written about a true chain of events--A young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless (alias Alexander Supertramp) left school, left his family, and took basically nothing with him into the Alaskan wilderness. I enjoyed the story itself--not so much how it was written--and even the movie. What I mean about not really liking how it was written is that Krakauer started or still does, write in a style... uh, of journalists. It's kind of hard to explain... but you can tell. Or, maybe just I can tell, because I took a journalism class last year. Eugh. Anyway, spoiler alert: Christopher dies. Don't get mad at me--Krakauer reveals this on the second sentence eight pages in. Sooo. Yeah. Now that I've depressed you, read on!:





"I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life." This is from Tolstoy's Family Happiness, which I have not read, but it was found highlighted in one of the books that were found with Christopher's body.

"No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny" (23).

It's thought that McCandless's infatuation with Jack London is what led partially to his walking into the Alaskan bush. Apparently, they were very romantic views of the wild--and by 'apparently' I mean they definitely are. According to Krakauer, Jack London spent "just a single winter in the North" and went on to become an obese drunk who killed himself in his CA estate. Yikes. Kind of ruins my image of Jack London, that's for sure. I'm not going to agree with Krakauer and say that McCandless "conveniently overlooked" these facts; I'm going to say he just didn't know. They would have broken his heart if he did.

A man named Ronald Franz took McCandless in for a short time. He was a leather... tanner? Leather smith? He made leather belts and stuff, that's my point. But he was very inspired by all the the things McCandless talked to him about and told him, to the point of Franz selling his home and moving onto McCandless's campsite, "awaiting his young friend's return" (58). When he discovered McCandless had died: "'When Alex had left for Alaska,' Franz remembers, 'I prayed. I asked God to keep his finger on the shoulder of that one; I told him that boy was special. But he let Alex die. So on December 26, when I learned what happened, I renounced the Lord. I withdrew my church membership and became an atheist. I decided I couldn't believe in a God who would let something that terrible happen to a boy like Alex'" (60). And, later on: "'...bought a bottle of whiskey. And then I went out into the desert and drank it. I wasn't used to drinking, so it made me sick. Hoped it'd kill me, but it didn't. Just made me real, real sick'" (60).

Many Alaskans, after Krakauer wrote an article on McCandless (in 1992, of course) many Alaskans wrote in saying how foolish he was/seemed. And true, McCandless was VERY under prepared. He didn't even have waterproof boots originally, and was carrying something like a 25-pound bag of rice. And books. So... well... he had a very, very, very romanticized view of the Alaskan wilderness. I don't believe he was stupid, just... naive. What he was doing would be okay if he was, say, Jack Kerouac. Kerouac tramped around Mexico and California. Obviously, those places aren't anything like Alaska.



"'I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax'" (87). Everett Ruess wrote that to his brother before he disappeared into the wilderness--in his case, the desert. In Utah, apparently, near Davis Gulch.



"Everything had changed suddenly--the tone, the moral climate; you didn't know what to think, whom to listen to. As if all your life you had been led by the hand like a small child and suddenly you were on your own, you had to learn to walk by yourself." Remember when I read Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and I couldn't find the quote I loved in it that was in Into the Wild and was ultimately the key factor in why I decided to read Doctor Zhivago in the first place? Yup. That's the one! It's about growing up, obviously. How you're suddenly an adult and on your own... something I'm not exactly clamoring for.

"For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy"--GK Chesterton

"The father is taken aback. What he usually says, in such a confrontation, is 'I changed your diapers for you, you little snot.' First, this is not true... and second, it instantly reminds Sam II of what he is mad about. He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that's not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it, he is insane because when he loved you, you didn't notice"--Donald Barthelme

"HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED"--written by Christopher Johnson McCandless in his copy of Doctor Zhivago, found with his corpse

"I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOOD BYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!"--written by Christopher Johnson McCandless shortly before death



Well, there you have it. The unspoken question--one that becomes more apparent after seeing the film--is if he really shortened his life, or in those few short months he lived more than most do. I'd like to say he lived more than most. Quality over quantity.

Curiously, this struck an interesting chord with me: shortly before reading this book for the first time, I heard about how my grandfather (my mother's father, Charles) went into the woods himself. He apparently hated my great-grandmother, as he was stubborn and unyielding and she was controlling and nasty. Before he left, he said he'd come back in two years--and he did come back, exactly two years later, on the same day and everything. Of course, Connecticut is a lot different from Alaska. It's not the same hardly, but he did live in the woods and scrounge and steal food and live off his wits. In fact, so the story goes, after not getting adequate food for a week he finally managed to steal a chicken. He had taken his dog with him, and the dog was hungry as well (you'd think the dog would have been eating bunnies or something, but no) and it stole the chicken. He took a shovel to the dog's back... well. It didn't have much to do with anything, but it's one of my mom's favorite anecdotes about her father. I wish I had met him.


(I've been really busy this month! You'll probably get maybe two more updates this month, but seriously, it took me NINE days to write this all!)

You're face to face with the man who sold the world

I just got back from wandering around North Haven--Did you know EB games doesn't take DVDs anymore? What the hell, man. And Barnes and Noble e-mails that say there are sales are lies. LIES.

Anyway, I finished Doctor Zhivago too. I decided not to write about it for my school project, though it would be sublimely easy: You're supposed to write about how the main character changes. In the beginning, he's nine years old. In the end (spoiler!) he's dead. But! It was a pretty good book. Like I said, Pasternak is a very eloquent fellow, and can make even arbitrary things sound and seem quite majestic and beautiful.

One thing that always surprised me a little is how the underclasses are referred to as peasants, even into the 1930's. The word brings an image of Medieval beggars, and very easily it's my imagery to fault, but it's so strange that even in a 'modern' age they should still be known as peasants, and still living in villages that, to description, sound very much like Medieval villages. Odd.

"'Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple knot as in an intestinal obstruction.'" Oh snap! Rome got served! I just picked this because Rome is considered the 'ideal' civilization and not only was it hit pretty hard on the head... well, look, that's actually a pretty good unromantic view of Rome. Really. And, I guess eloquence doesn't always mean beautiful. For the record.

"All the strong are dominated by the weak and ignoble."

Man, I can never read books about the military again. There's a long section where a general is trying to get his troops, you know, pumped by giving this long speech about how great the country is and how you must fight for it, even if you're your parents' only child. And all I could think of were lines from Catch-22 criticizing war, and patriotism. In Language and Comp we learned about logical fallacies--one of which was 'flag-waving' or using patriotism so your target group will agree with you. And, you know what? Not to belittle anything or offend anyone, but it is a logical fallacy. Really, it doesn't make any sense. "'What is a country?'" Huh, I wish I could include the whole quote, but it appears Wikiquote sucks. Just--just pay attention to the Sacrilegious Old Man when you get to him.

"'And about that deaf-mute, we're fed up hearing about him. Everybody goes on and on about the deaf-mute. And what have you got against him? Just that he was dumb all that time and then he suddenly started to talk and didn't ask your permission? As if that were so marvelous!'" I am not sure why I should favor so this passage.

"...an unshared happiness is not happiness..." I believe it was in Doctor Zhivago Christopher Johnson McCandless wrote this, and I guess it must have been around here. Maybe not, but I'd expect it to be in affirmation: "HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED".

"Everyday life struggled on, by force of habit, limping and shuffling." There's something about that "by force of habit" I like. This bit works well on its own, and also if you continue the quote around the whole paragraph-- "Everyday life struggled on, by force of habit, limping and shuffling. But the doctor saw life as it was. It was clear to him that it was under sentence. He looked upon himself and his milieu as doomed. Ordeals were ahead, perhaps death. Their days were counted and running out before his eyes." I--I'm morid, a--aren't I?

"'It has something of Pushkin's uncompromising clarity and Tolstoy's unwavering faithfulness to the facts.'" Both Russian authors, obviously. I've never read Pushkin, but I find it kind of funny that Tolstoy should be described in such a way--War and Peace, at the time of its publication (I don't know if it still is, though, I only read reviews that were printed the same year of its publication) was criticized heavily for unfaithfulness to facts, and that Tolstoy was making up his own facts for "his conveniance" and the story's conveniance. A criticism that stands out is the fact that Napoleon randomly spoke Russian and then would go back to French. I mean, there was more, it was a long review, but that's the biggest point. I remember being like "Well, duh, it's a Russian novel..." but, you know. Maybe this is sarcasm here, but I don't know Pushkin, so I can't be sure.

"Near him, touching him, were hell, dissolution, corruption, death, and equally near him were the spring and Mary Magdalene and life. And it was time to awake. Time to wake up and get up. Time to arise, time for the resurrection."

"'Look at all these stations. The trees aren't cut, the fences are intact. And these markets! These women! Think how wonderful! Somewhere life is still going on, some people are happy. Not everyone is wretched. This justifies everything.'" Nothing is universal. Not everywhere is wretched, no matter how wretched one place may be. Vice versa, no matter how pleasant and wonderful one place is, there is a wretched and raggedy counterpart.

"But was this the way to win back lost love? For that you had to move mountains!" This was noted because of the fact that it reminded me of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Just the way the sentences are structured reminded me of each other--Because the interenet hates me, I shall paraphrase. "But even the X could not create a woman from clay. For that, you needed a rib." I like the sentence itself, but I like this one too, and paired together, I am quite enamored.

Okay, so background on the next one: Zhivago sees his love for the first time in quite a while, and they are quite unfamiliar to each other: "This was the only form of intimacy that still remained between them. And how distant, cold, and compellingly attractive was this women to whom he had sacrificed all he had, whom he had preferred to everything, and comparision with whom everything seemed to him worthless!" --->"Once you have loved someone this much
you doubt it could fade despite how much you'd like it too" (Fade Together, Franz Ferdinand) Well, for the record, they do suddenly fall back into each other's arms briefly. But I guess it's shocking, seeing someone so dear and beloved suddenly so distant. I hardly ever wonder about old friends in that manner, and I... I don't really have an old boyfriend to wonder that about. But. That commentary--it just grabbed me.

"'It isn't just that I don't love him--I despise him.' 'Can you know yourself as well as that? Human nature, and particularly woman's '"[HAHAHA!] "'is so mysterious and so full of contradictions. Perhaps there is something in your loathing that keeps you in subjection to him more than any man whom you love of your own free will, without compulsion.'" I am under the deepest belief that hate really is quite similar to love, a different type of love under a different name. Because really, say you have made an enemy of a classmate: you are constantly on the lookout for them, and when you see them, your heart skips a beat, you get excited and emotional. You react strongly upon seeing them. If the hate is deep enough, you are constantly talking about them, even if it's in ill terms--it is still constant. If it's deep enough, you are constantly thinking of them and such. And... oh man. I just totally lost my train of thought. Oh, damn. Well, my point was going to be--I think--that that's very similar to affection, right? And as lost as you are when you lose a significant other or some such, that's how someone losing an enemy must feel--why do you think people are so slow to apologize? They'd like to hold onto their object of hate, to the point of needing as desperately as a lonely person clings to love.

"'Just like something out of Jules Verne.'" Uh, so, how's about being my best friend? Any name-dropper of Jules Verne is a friend of mine!

All right, up next is the end, which is one of the most detached upsetting endings I've ever read:
"One day Larisa Feodorovna went out and did not come back. She must have been arrested in the street at that time. She vanished without a trace and probably died somewhere, forgotten as a nameless number on a list that afterwards got mislaid, in one of the innumerable mixed or women's concentration camps in the north."

...

So, I skipped the poetry at the end. So it's possible I've missed some major messages or something deep, but I've never had it much for poetry. I just don't really understand it. I mean, sometimes things jump out at me, but most of the time I just don't have a head for it. I wouldn't know if it was any good or not had I been interested enough to read it, in any case.

Anyways, the book itself: It's an enjoyable book. I can't imagine carrying it around and it meaning as much to be me as it did to Christopher Johnson McCandless, but it's certainly a book I would be proud to have on my self. I'm not quite sure if it would go in my classics shelf (which technically doesn't even exist at the moment) but it would certainly have a place on my bookshelf.