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

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

Wooot! I have actually been reading, guys. My pleasure reading has been going fairly slowly, but I've read a few plays for my drama literature class--Oedipus Rex and The Bacchae specifically. However, in those classes we have to write a forum-esque response to what we read and I don't want to just copy and paste that for obvious reasons, but I also don't feel like trying to write something completely new. (You're not missing that much, anyway--my notes for Oedipus Rex are pretty much "Funny story, that's your mom you're sleeping with"--that's actually one quoted. My notes for The Bacchae all pretty much regard Pentheus' death and are thus all "That's really brutal... gross... I think I'm going to be sick..." Really. I read Uzumaki for God's sake, and I still found it disturbing!) So, because I wrote responses for those first two, I don't have to write anything for Lysistrata, which means I'll write a response here because that's more fun anyway.

This play is pretty much about ending the war, I believe the war in question was the Peloponnesian war. Anyway, the women are sick of it, their husbands are always away. So they decide to stop it. And how so? By withholding sex. The men will be so desperate to have sex that they will end the war and make a peace treaty just so that they can get it. Keep in mind, this is a new comedy--basically that some fantastical unrealistic idea will be a success and fix whatever problem is going down. Of course this isn't realistic because there are always prostitutes, and we know Spartans aren't frighted of homosexuality.

And keep in mind, this is a society that degrades women. (Look up Apollo's defense for Orestes murdering his mother.) So, they play is going to reflect a lot of that--and also makes a joke out of the face that the women have a better idea of how to run and unite all of Greece than these warring men. Lysistrata makes a very good analogy for it in carding and spinning wool. (It's pretty much Aesop's story of the brothers with the bundle of sticks, only with making clothing instead.) Aristophanes actually got in trouble often for being so kind to women in this respect and satirizing and disrespecting the government. But, anyway, two examples early on of the Greek treatment of women: "The way we women behave! Really, I don't blame the men for what they say about us" (108, lines 8-10). And:

Lysistrata: ...Only we women can save Greece!

Kalonike: Only we women? Poor Greece!

(108, lines 23-24).

Ah, and there are a lot of double entendres. This is pretty much what a group of fourteen-year-olds would write if they were advanced Grecian playwrights. There are jokes regarding dildos, pubic hair, metaphors that are clearly sexual (the men carry torches, the women pots), penis jokes... Well, I'll put a few of the funnier ones up here. Trust me, they're hilarious. My roommate thought I was crazy because I was just chuckling to myself while reading it...

"You lay a half-inch of your stick on Stratyllis, and you'll never stick again!" (112, 98).

"Oh God! Oh my God! I'm stiff from lack of exercise. All I can do is stand up" (119, 11-12).

"Herald: ...Ah'm a certified herald from Sparta, and Ah've come to talk about an ahmistice.

Commissioner: Then why that spear under your cloak?

Herald: Ah have no speah!

Commissioner: You don't walk naturally, with your tunic poked out so. You have a tumor, maybe, or a hernia?

Herald: You lost yo' mahnd, man?

Commissioner: Well, something's up, I can see that. And I don't like it" (121, 5-11). This is like a Marx brothers sketch if awkward arousal was involved/socially acceptable.

So the women make their oaths to do away with sex, though they're clearly troubled by it--at first, the women wouldn't even agree to the idea. While their making their oath, Kalonike has a little outburst where she says the idea of not having sex alone is killing her. Women, at the time, were thought to be completely ruled by 'nature'--that is, their sexual impulses. Actually, later in the play the women take hold of the Acropolis where the money was stored, because no money=no war funding, and start trying to make excuses to leave because the lack of sex has apparently driven them mad.

Lampito is the female representative of Sparta, characterized by her accent (Spartans sounded like Rhode Islanders, by the way) and apparent huskiness that is implied by the text--anyway, she says finally that peace should come before sex, and Lysistrata compliments her, she says her statement was "Spoken like a true Spartan!" (109, 120). I thought this was kind of ironic, as Spartans aren't actually known for their peaceful ways...

"After all, we've got a reputation for bitchiness to live up to" (111, 213). Yay mediocre translations!

"But if you must shake hornets' nests, look out for the hornets" (114, 85-86).

The men are also quite indignant at the women saving them--again, Aristophanes satirizing the legal system by saying how stupid it is, that even women can work and plan better than the male government. Hope you like your libel suits!

"Let us look like the innocent serpent, but be the flower underneath it, as the poet sings" (116, 14-15). This is the first male line I've quoted--they want to scare the women from the Acropolis, but not harm them or scare them and be 'flowers', that is, lovers. The use of "innocent serpent" is interesting enough, but I mainly quoted it here because Lady Macbeth in her Shankspeare play (guess which play!) says almost the same line: "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent underneath it." Of course, Lady Macbeth is, I believe, giving her husband advice for murder, not for getting into bed with somebody. (Shanksperian slumber mysteries? I think they'd be popular.) But, with Shankspeare in mind, he was heavily influenced by these Grecian and Roman plays. His plays actually use the same framework the Roman Seneca used in his plays. LOOK AT ME, LEARNING THINGS IN COLLEGE! Damn, girl.

Okay, so when all the ladies are going "man-crazy" a woman, Koryphaios, asks Lysistrata what's wrong (Lysistrata eventually tells her that this is what's wrong).

"Lysistrata: To put it bluntly, we're dying to get laid.

Koryphaios: Almighty God!

Lysistrata: Why bring God into it?--No, it's just as I say."

(117, 10-12).

It reminds of a scene in I believe Factotum when Chinaski is having sex with some lady. She starts screaming "Oh Jesus, yes!" or something akin to that and while Chinaski she's yelling this Chinaski kind of asks himself: How does God always get into this? or again, something akin to it. It's a pretty funny scene, so... yeah. (This scene might actually happen in Post Office, but let's face it, that doesn't make a huge difference, does it?)

One of the girls, Myrrhine, goes through with the plan on getting her husband really, really aroused and then ignoring him and all. She gets up for a pillow, for a coverlet, for perfume, and so on. All the while, the husband in severe distress and incredible horniness is crying out some pretty hilarious things in his anguish: "This girl and her coverlets will be the death of me" (121, 86-87) and "God damn the man who invented perfume!" (121, 97). Well, I thought it was funny. He also refers to his man-bits as his "little prodding pal" (121, 105) and talks to it like it's a separate entity. Look. Maybe deep down I just happen to be a fourteen-year-old boy. Because I am cracking up just rereading it. STOP NOT LAUGHING!

There's a little footnote explaining a reference to the battle of the 300--which I added a note to remember the six hundred slaves who fell with their masters too. Nah, no biggie or anything. Whatever, it's g.

The Commissioner, thinking fondly of one time when everybody was really drunk: "Couldn't tell the difference between Drink to Me Only and The Star-Spangled Athens" (125, 20-21). YAY, mediocre translations!

...Yup. It's pretty much that. Lots of jokes about sexual functions and arousal. Well, eventually the men agree to work out a peace treaty and I'm sure everyone goes back to their homes and enjoys lots of sex. Except for Aristophanes; he got to enjoy the big house. DON'T DROP THE SOAP! (Did they have soap back then?) DON'T DROP YOUR... uh... laurels? Well, whatever. This play is hilarious and is meant for the fourteen-year-old boy within us all. I actually find it kind of funny that this play is more similar to today than, say a Victorian play. The more things change, the more they stay the same? Well, anyways, I'll team up with ancient Greece and write the Victorians a letter: "Dear Victorian era, sex really is funny. Please get a sense of humor. Also, total dick move what you did to Oscar Wilde. I hope you feel bad now, BOSIE. The Greeks are looking at me like what but they'd agree with me if they knew. Especially the Spartans. --Angela & Also the Hellenes PS. Your cravats are way cooler than togas, though. I admit it." You know, now that I think of it, that really is weird. The Greeks would have been all, it's okay, Oscar! Let's all party. Naked. Oh wait, I'm thinking of the Romans! Oh those Romans and their orgies. (I actually don't know how Romans felt about homosexuality...)

Anyway, just some notes: My copy of this play has apparently been toned down because it is in a textbook for college students (what? How much bawdier could this possibly get?).

The numbering probably also looks crazy to you. I did it as page, line numbers. Also, in this version it restarts the line-count after every new scene starts, or a strophe or antistrophe happens.

Also, speaking of strophes, you know how they break up the Grecian (and possibly also Roman) plays? You know what breaks up sentences? Apostrophes. BAM, etymology, bitches! High five for me!

Answer to last post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: Let it Rain by OK Go (Fun fact, I wasn't even thinking of the Noah thing. I was just thinking about Mahlah and whatshisbucket the Nephil.)

This post's cryptic song lyrics for Emma: He's been trying with limited success to get this girl and get into her dress, but every time he thinks he's getting close, she threatens death before he gets a chance

(HINT: This song is the reason why I've been wanting to read this play for like three years even though I've literally never known anything about it but the title and author before I actually read it.)

I guess the good times ain't wrong, just killing me

Hey! I read Bukowski's Factotum and Post Office over the last day and a half. Quick reads. Anyway, I was debating on not posting at all, since I still remember (sort of) my Post Office post. But I'm not as wussy and timid as I would in those first few tremulous months (is tremulous a real word? Am I using it correctly?) so I feel it will be even better than ever before. Also, I realized what an idiot I was before. Last time I spent two paragraphs wondering which came first. In Post Office, he talks about his parents' funeral. And sleeping on park benches and working at a dog biscuit factory. He's also says he's almost 50. In Factotum, he stays at his parents' home for a brief stint, he has a 2 am job at the dog biscuit factory and sleeps on benches and WWII ends halfway through. Which came first? Uhduhhhhhhhhhhhh.



So, I like Bukowski. Even though he's super gross sometimes, mainly when he talks about Chinaski wiping himself and doing a bad job of it. Or just in general. No thanks. Facototum is basically Henry Chinaski wandering around, drunken, gaining and losing jobs, gaining and losing women. Yep.



"'How much money we got?' They looked through their pockets. They had a nickel. 'Well, what are we going to do?' 'I don't know. Let's start walking.' I watched them walk off, out of the park, into the city" (23).



So, like I said, early on Chinaski takes a short stint back at his parents' home. Instead of going out and looking for a job (as he is an ex-college student) he listens to "symphony music" (25) and smokes his father's cigarettes and is voyeur to the sexy housewife across the way. Hmm, sounds like someone named Alex de Large. Just saying...



"'Well, you see, I've been painting. A painter, you know? I've run out of money. Can't sell the stuff.' ... 'Cheer up. Maybe you'll be famous after you're dead'" (42). Wow. How... reassuring. I'm relieved now. Looks like I can always dream...



"'Why do you want to work in a ladies' dress shop?' 'I've always liked ladies in ladies' dresses'" (56). Hehe. Can you imagine if someone tried that today? You'd probably get cops called on you.



"'Have you ever been in love?' 'Love is for real people.' 'You sound real.' 'I dislike real people.' 'You dislike them?' 'I hate them'" (60). Of, Chinaski is being cynical, as he is 97.999% of the time. But this conversation for some reason stands out to me, I can very easily picture it. Chinaski, scowling, giving Gertrude (who asks him if he's ever been in love) a dull, uninterested (but somewhat nasty) look from over his solder, hand on a half empty shot glass with a cigarette tucked in between his fingers, spilling ashes on the bar top.



"'Don't worry, baby,' I'd say, 'the next hard bump we hit will turn the lights on.' ... Jan would bounce up and down, trying to hold on to her bottle of port. I'd grip the wheel and look for a bit of light on the road ahead. Hitting those bumps would always turn the lights on. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but we'd always get the lights on" (96). So yeah. This is what I'm going to pretend is symbolism. The bump being something, well, bad happening. Chinaski losing yet another job, say, but after--something always arises. Though he goes through jobs like a wildfire, there's always something else. So, the light, would be--uh, jobs? Crud. I sound stupid. But the point is, I feel when Jan finally leaves--and I believe the car goes with her--he's done. It's over for him. *



"I kept telling myself all women in the world weren't whores, just mine" (140). Okay, so there's more humor than literary points or what have you. But Bukowski is a pretty humorous guy, if not laugh-out-loud hilarious at the very least tongue-in-cheek. Or chuckle-worthy. Chuckle chuckle.



"Then I gave him a look straight out of 'Casablanca'" (158). Oh hey, reference to an awesome movie. On an unrelated note, my dad was reenacting scenes from Casablanca today, replacing Sam with Rod Serling. As in, Humphrey: "Play it again, Sam (etc)." Rod: "Do you know who the hell I am?" It was pretty hilarious.





*Here comes the end, so spoiler alert!: Chinaski goes to a strip club and watches a really sexy dancer. He has less than a dollar in his pocket, no prospects, drunk, nothing. It ends with "I couldn't get it up" (205), you know, for this sexy dancer he's watching. This is me, again, pretending I can find symbolism: his not being able to, uh, 'get it up', would be his inability to fix his life, you know, get his life out of the gutter. Does that sound ridiculous? Maybe. But, that's how it seems to me, and at this point, he's nothing. He's a ragged hobo, practically. He's not even interested in the girls. He's done. I always feel like he just went into some alleyway and died, and that was the unwritten ending. I mean, it just felt like such an... such an end. You don't even need to describe more, because you know he's going to end up dead in an alleyway within weeks, or more likely, a few days. So... yeah. The fact that he didn't die and turned up in Post Office always weirdly disappoints me. Like, for the most part, I've made my peace with that fact, but it still kind of feels like a cop-out. Like sometimes when you want the main character to live, but you know it would be total BS if he actually did and you'd end up hating the whole book/movie/TV show/radio program. Yup.



There's evidently a movie based off this book. Intrigued. Hitting that up, most likely tomorrow, if Netflix stops hating me. Which is unlikely. It knows I am not Jenna. "I'm sorry, I can't let you do that, Angela." Gbrgrsgrfffghhhh. Crud.

And now comes Post Office! This is funnier than its predecessor, and also ten times stranger. The people Chinaski delivers mail to--they're crazy. The people he works with are mad. Anyway. As you can guess, Chinaski is, in this book, working in a post office. He's, as I said, almost 50 if not 50 by the book's end. This may or may not be his last hurrah, as it has no 'obvious' ending. Actually, I feel like the end if sort of a cop-out as well. But also, I have no clue if this is the end of Chinaski's 'series'. As it was written in '71, I kind of doubt it. But. All that is for another time!

Ah, early on Chinaski happens to wander into a church that has showers and such. (Do all Roman-Catholic churches have showers? Is that why I'd be surprised by that?) Chinaski, always an alchie, drinks the wine, you know, the wine for communion. Then he debates on taking a shower, but eventually decides not to as he imagines what the headlines would look like if someone were to find him: "MAILMAN CAUGHT DRINKING THE BLOOD OF GOD AND TAKING A SHOWER, NAKED, IN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH" (22). HAHAHA. Can you imagine? Though I'm not sure why the 'naked' moniker is necessary--don't most people shower naked? No? Am I doing it wrong!? Crud.

One incredibly sad bit involves an elderly mailman named GG. He had worked so long on one particular route that the kids loved him, he brought candy for them, the parents knew he was a nice old man. A new woman moves to the neighborhood, is unaware of this behavior, and accuses GG of child molestation. Poor guy, that would happen. All of the scenes with him are pretty depressing, as he's so old that he's literally just slowing down. What's even worse, is no one seems to care but, of all people, Chinaski.

"'All right now, you've got a good job. Keep your nose clean and you've got the security the rest of your life.' Security? You could get security in jail. Three squares and no rent to pay, no utilities, no income tax, no child support. No license plate fees. No traffic tickets. No drunk driving raps. No losses at the race track. Free medical attention... Free burial" (66). Well... he has a point...

Ah, yes. You remember when Palin made her comment about Russia? Apparently she's a Bukowski fan: A postal office head is trying to get the mailmen revved up to work. As he claims, "'EACH EXTRA YOU STICK BEYOND DUTY HELPS DEFEAT THE RUSSIANS!'" (76). (Keep in mind, this was written and set during the Cold War.) But, before he tells them that, he shows the men a map of the world--paying special attention to Russia and Alaska's proximity. As he says, "'That's Alaska!" And there they are! Looks almost as if they could jump across, doesn't it?'" (76). Hehe.

My absolute favorite scene is when Chinaski decides to celebrate his job by making escargot for his then-wife, Joyce. She gets sick eating them because she is disgusted by them--moreover, by their "'tiny little a--holes" (87). It's just so funny. And, of course, Chinaski's comeback to that is hilarious as well--the best part is most likely when he shouts "'ASSHOLES COVER THE EARTH!'" (87), though his whole spiel is hilarious. I can't even do the scene justice. If nothing else, at least read this scene whilst in your local bookstore. I literally laugh so hard I cry.

The scene that makes me most angry is close by as well. Joyce mistakenly buys a mentally retarded dog. Now, the dog is a handful, but any dog would be. It still loves her, as she should it. What makes me so mad is that she's in her stilettos, and the puppy wanders up to her a licks her ankle. She kicks it in the stomach with the pointy end of her shoes (the front). I can honestly say few things I have read disgusted or angered me more than that passage. Every time I read it I just want to jump in the book and slap her. What a disgusting worm of a human.

"'What's the sin in being poor?'" (111).

Chinaski, making the move on yet another woman, asks about her husband. She's divorced, and she says he was 'no good', as all he ever did was drink and bet on horses. It's very clear she doesn't know Chinaski that well....

"Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love" (155).

Anyway, as for the end--have you ever read The BFG by Roald Dahl? And at the end, you remember, it's revealed that the BFG himself 'wrote' the book. That's basically what is implied at the end of this book. I mean, that Chinaski 'wrote' the book, not the BFG. What a cheap ending. But maybe I'm just angry that things were turning out okay for Chinaski. I am pretty terrible. **

I watched the entire Twilight Zone series over the past three weeks. It is amazing. If you have never seen The Twilight Zone, go. Now. Now. I mean, it's not like I ever had any doubts about its awesomeness. I've just experienced it all now. Of course, there are lemon episodes--the last episode made me not mourn The Twilight Zone's end--that one where they sell the car that tells the truth to Stalin (or another powerful man of the USSR at the time) because he just happens to be in the sticks of the US--'Black Leather Jackets' was a pretty dumb episode--the one that I swear 'Jumanji' ripped off of--et cetera. But truly, the good outweighs the bad and Rod Serling you're a genius, bro.



**I told Robby D I preferred The Road to All the Pretty Horses and he asked me if I like infants roasted on spits. Uh, yeah, who doesn't? You know how I roll, G. Uhm, I mean, D.