The Knight on the Carousel
Have you had a similar experience? You feel as though your reading speed has slowed down. You end up re-reading the same sentence over and over. You’ve read a full page, but retained no additional knowledge. You wonder if you have adult ADHD, or have gone dyslexic. But then, you come across some books for the younger audience and you feel like you’ve become omnipotent, like you’re on Adderall. You’re not reading words and lines, you’re reading the whole paragraphs and pages. You skim the page from top to bottom and that’s enough to process all that is happening. So you know your brain is okay, it just so happened that the kind of text you now see just got greatly harder, letters smaller, and line height shorter. These kind of text demands my brain to operate at a certain higher capacity.
Reading The Catcher in the Rye was a very unique experience. I’ve been trying to identify the essence of it and this is the best I can explain it. It is that my brain was operating at a much lower capacity than when I read other classics. It was odd, because, I must have had an expectation of the utilization rate for a novel and it required much less than that. At the same time I knew that there must be something profoundly significant about this book given its reputation. This was a side curiosity that occupied my mind during the read. Why is this book so famous and why is it such an easy read? A similar experience would be when I first saw modern art. In my head profound pieces are expensive pieces and they come from at least hundred plus years ago, but what is this Roy Lichtenstein or Keith Haring or Banksy stuff and why are they also over a million dollars? Holden Caulfield is no Atticus Finch or William Stoner or Winston Smith, he’s just a delusional highschool kid who tells a very entertaining story and gives me a good laugh. What more is there? Well, you read, and you shall find out.
Recommendation for Readers
Written from scratch by Meston Ecoa
No assistance was received from any form of Artificial Intelligence.
No Spoiler Summary
contains no spoilers
16 year-old Holden Caulfield is expelled from Pencey Prep boarding school. It is four days until Christmas vacation starts and he will return home for good. The spontaneous, moody soul does not sit around until that day. Guided by sudden changes of heart, he goes out, wanders around. It is about whom we all were once, the adolescent and the world seen from their eyes
One Paragraph Review
contains no spoilers
If all classics were this funny and this easy to read, there would be a lot more readers on this planet. J.D. Salinger masterfully portrayed the adolescent. He got the speech right. He got the daydreams right. He got the personality right. But ultimately what makes this a significant piece I believe is that everything collectively suggests a key characteristic of the young. Their thoughts got bigger, but experience still lacks. I used to think I could be indistinguishable from an adult. Not always, but at least get by a number of times. Sure this is my first time at a convenience store trying to buy liquor, but adults would have their first times doing something too. No one likes their martini shaken, not stirred right from the start. Adults would have their first times at a bar, their first martini and numerous first cocktails before their preferences got refined. Then why should my first time seem any more apparently “minor” than theirs? This was my logic. But now I am in my late-twenties. I can tell a 16 year-old from an adult in a split-second glance. It’s in their tone, their posture, their eyes. They could be tall, but without wrinkles everyone knows they are minors. What’s more apparent than their inexperience in purchasing liquor, is their inexperience in doing anything for the first time. Hidden beneath the smoking, the swearing, the sex crave, the act tough speech, the confrontation, lies, shyness and diffidence, they try to understand the world, make sense of it in some way. They haven’t yet found purpose in life, the purpose worth of dedicating a lifetime to. They try to explain themselves. They are self-conscious, curious, and scared.
Some Information
• 277 pages, 74,100 words
• Vocabulary level: Easy
• Library of Congress Genres: Bildungsromans
• Goodreads Genres: Classics, Fiction, Young Adult, Literature, School, Coming of Age
• Meston’s Rating: 4.0
Full Summary
contains spoilers
There isn’t much going on the narrative end. No buildup. No suspense. Holden is wandering about in New York. This is the story of his two day adventure without any jumping of timeline. More takes place in Holden’s mind than his footsteps. But here I will highlight the events chronologically that happened in the physical world.
Saturday PM
• Holden got kicked out of Pencey Prep. He goes to his history teacher Mr. Spencer’s place to say farewell. Mr. Spencer gives him some life advice but Holden is not enlightened.
• Holden comes back to his dorm. His dorm neighbor Ackley comes to his room. Holden feels bothered.
• Roommate Stradlater came back from the game. Ackley leaves the room and the two talk about Stradlater’s date while he is getting ready. Holden is shook as he finds out that his date is Jane.
• Holden does Stradlater’s writing homework. English is the only subject he didn’t fail. The assignment was to describe a house, but Holden writes about his deceased brother’s baseball mitt.
• Stradlater returns from his date. Holden is upset by the thought of him and Jane having gotten intimate. Holden insults Stradlater. Stradlater beats him up.
• 11:30 PM: Holden goes to Ackley’s room and makes conversation. Ackley is bothered by his presence and wishes he leaves. Holden decides not to wait until Wednesday, when Christmas vacation starts, but just leave now. He leaves school, with a good amount of money that his grandmother gave.
Sunday AM
• Holden takes a train to New York. He meets a mother of a fellow Pencey student. He lies extensively throughout the conversation.
• He arrives at Penn station. He plans to stay at a hotel until Wednesday. He checks in at Edmont Hotel. He is feeling lonely and wonders whom he could call. He ends up calling a random girl, an acquaintance of an acquaintance.
• Holden goes to the night club of the hotel, Lavender Room. He tries to get liquor, but they can see that he is a minor. He gets coke instead. He makes talk and dances with the three girls visiting New York. They can also tell he is young.
• He sits in the lobby and thinks about Jane.
• He takes a cab to Ernie’s, a nightclub in Greenwich Village.
• He can get drinks at Ernie’s. He listens to some music, runs into an acquaintance, and leaves because he doesn’t want to make conversation with her any further.
• He walks back to the hotel. The elevator man asks if he is interested in having a prostitute come over. He consents.
• Sunny shows up at the door. He shies away from having intercourse. He pays the five dollars which is the price the elevator man said, but she insists ten.
• Sunny comes back with the elevator man. He beats Holden. He takes five more dollars. Holden takes a bath and goes to bed
• 10AM: when he wakes up. He calls Sally Hayes and schedules a date. He checks out, goes to Grand Central Station and deposits his bags at the storage. He has breakfast and makes conversation with two nuns. He donates ten dollars.
Sunday PM
• 12PM: He walks to broadway and gets tickets to the Lunts’ show. He also gets the record “Little Shirely Beans” for his 10 year-old sister Phoebe.
• He walks to Central Park to see if he can find his sister there. He doesn’t find her.
• 2PM: He takes a cab back to Biltmore to meet Sally. Holden thinks she is beautiful. They see the show together. They then go ice skating at Radio City. Afterwards, at the bar, they have a fight, and the date ends.
• He kills more time watching a movie and walks over to Wicker Bar at the Seton Hotel to see his acquaintance Carl Luce. They talk for a bit and Carl leaves. Holden is desperate for company.
Monday AM
• 1AM: He drinks more liquor listening to live music. He is drunk and it is cold outside. He wanders around. He decides to walk home.
• He sneaks into his home. His parents are away for an event. His talks with his sister Phoebe. She teases Holden that their parents are going to kill him when they find out he has been kicked out again.
• Parents come back. He borrows some money from Phoebe and without getting caught, sneaks out again. Holden goes to Mr. Antolini’s place. He is a former teacher from a previous school.
• He gives Holden some life advice. Holden sleeps on his couch. He wakes up in the middle of the night to find Mr.Antolini patting his hair. Holden jumps. Holden wonders if he is gay and leaves immediately to head back to Grand Central Station.
• He retrieves his bags and falls asleep in the waiting room.
• 9AM: He wakes up. He decides to leave New York for good. He sends a message to Phoebe’s school. Holden wants to meet her to return the borrowed money before he leaves.
Monday PM
• 1:25PM: They meet at the museum. Phoebe has packed her belongings to run away with her brother. Holden concedes that he will not run away. They go to a zoo and he watches Phoebe riding the carousel.
• He goes back home
