Hear ye, hear ye! I have yet another riveting update to share with you regarding my obligatory summer reading book, The Catcher in the Rye. Last we left off, we discovered that the brooding teenage Holden has a good reason to be sad: his younger brother died of leukemia. Flip forward a few more pages, and we are planted into a flashback involving Holden and one of his classmates. Holden and Stradlater (the alpha-male classmate dude) get in a rather nasty fight about a girl, and Stradlater drew blood. Holden and Stradlater obviously feel bad about the whole thing, and seem to just want to move on rather than hold any grudge. It's hard to say what Holden really wants out of this relationship with Stradlater, because they were previously something that could have been interpreted as friends. I guess Holden's just having a hard time.
Enter Ackley, the questionably hygienic "older" kid that no one seems to like. Holden, ever the gentleman, is at least moderately polite to Ackley, most of the time. After some antagonistic dialogue with Ackley, Holden heads off campus to the train station. On the train, he meets the mother of one of his classmates and acts all adult-like with her. Holden eventually arrives in New York, where he goes cruising for chicks at some random bars. Surprisingly enough, he does meet some (significantly older) women, but they don't hit it off.
Holden awkwardly hitting the town reminds me of the Hogwarts students romping around Hogsmeade, except the Harry Potter kids seem to know their place a little better than Holden does. Both Holden and Harry Potter and co. seem like they don't really know what they're doing outside of school, but Holden seems a little more streetsmart.
I'm not really a rebellious kid, but I can understand what Holden is trying to do. His taking off and hitting the town is an attempt to seem grown-up, wild and interesting. We can all relate.
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