happy birthday, j.d. salinger

Happy Birthday, J.D. Salinger

Thursday, January 1, 2009

J.D. Salinger casually discussed school-age alienation well before American society seemed to have any clue about the concept. To pay tribute to the man on his 90th birthday today, I reread my dad's old dilapidated copy of "The Catcher in the Rye." Much like the story itself, Holden Caulfield's thoughts continue to ace the test of time.


1. Page 20: "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."

2. Page 59: "Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away."

3. Page 72: "I think I really like it best when you can kid the pants off a girl when the opportunity arises, but it's a funny thing. The girls I like best are the ones I never feel much like kidding. Sometimes I think they'd like it if you kidded them - in fact, I know they would - but it's hard to get started, once you've known them a pretty long time and never kidded them."

4. Page 81: "The Navy guy and I told each other we were glad to've met each other. Which always kills me. I'm always saying 'Glad to've met you' to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though."

5. Page 123: "The trouble with girls is, if they like a boy, no matter how big a bastard he is, they'll say he has an inferiority complex, and if they don't like him, no matter how nice a guy he is or how big an inferiority complex he has, they'll say he's conceited. Even smart girls do it."

6. Page 128: "Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will."

7. Page 140: "Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something."

8. Page 182: "She yelled 'Good luck!' at me the same way old Spencer did when I left Pencey. God, how I hate it when somebody yells 'Good luck!' at me when I'm leaving somewhere. It's depressing."

9. Page 184: "That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'F- you' right under your nose."

10. Page 190: "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them."

11. Page 192: "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

- Tim Sullivan, tsullivan@sfchronicle.com

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/01/NS97150A1F.DTL

This article appeared on page G - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle