the characters in JD Salingers' books must all be dead of cancer by now

[Bob]

they smoke like 2 packs a page, they'd have to be. even phoebe was smoking while nobody was looking. good thing they're immortalized in print, or they'd be in serious trouble

[The Notorious LOL]

I like the kids who want to talk about Salinger but dont want to make the obvious Catcher in the Rye reference so they talk about Franny and Zooey.

[Nuzzolese]

LOL, didn't you just mention Franny and Zooey in a thread where you want talk about salinger? How clever of you to do so by making it sound like you didn't want to.

Did they smoke in Franny and Zooey? I didn't think the younger sister character did, Zooey, I guess it was.

[TurdBerglar]

aren't these books most are suppose to read in middleschool/highschool. i never read them.

[The Notorious LOL]

LOL, didn't you just mention Franny and Zooey in a thread where you want talk about salinger? How clever of you to do so by making it sound like you didn't want to.

Did they smoke in Franny and Zooey? I didn't think the younger sister character did, Zooey, I guess it was.



no, you're confusing me with a-z

[Nuzzolese]

Everyone smoked back then. And they were drunk all the time and ate raw meat.

[The Notorious LOL]

yeah and people were about a hundred times cooler in the 1950s than they are now minus the culture of dorky shit like not swearing very often and not as much whorishness.

The whole homo liberal yoga ball vegan pretend female bisexuality trend of the past 20 years has really fucked this country up.

[Nuzzolese]

Oh there was whorishness back then, but then you knew who your whores were. They were the girls from the wrong side of the tracks. You could tell who they were, and it wasn't like now with your low rider jeans and lower back tattoo girls who won't touch you.

[TurdBerglar]

im getting sick of them fuckn' tatoos

[The Notorious LOL]

yeah those tattoos were played out in like 2000.

I still mock a friend of mine for getting one when she was 18. She doesnt put out...its like a cocktease tattoo.

[Nuzzolese]

what if a girl where to get a lower back tattoo that said COCKTEASE in some nice roman letters? Would that be okay? I think it might be. Kind of like that time I saw a girl in sporty shorts that said BUTT across her butt.

[Bob]

LOL, didn't you just mention Franny and Zooey in a thread where you want talk about salinger? How clever of you to do so by making it sound like you didn't want to.

Did they smoke in Franny and Zooey? I didn't think the younger sister character did, Zooey, I guess it was.

i forgot i made this thread lol

yeah they smoked a ton in F&Z, both of them. franny smoked, lane smoked, zooey smoked cigars, the mom smoked, i think the cat probably smoked too

[enree erzweglle]

Funny you should mention that. For the last few hours,
I've been absorbed with Seymour's quirks and
eccentricities. I was just riding the train when I read
this first excerpt below; the second one, I read on
the train this morning. These two (and another one--see
my signature) gave me pause.

My brother, for the record, had a distracting habit
most of his adult life, of investigating loaded
ashtrays with his index finger, clearing out the
cigarette ends to the sides--smiling from ear to ear
as he did it--as if he expected to see Christ himself
curled up cherubically in the middle, and he
never looked disappointed.

and

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people.
[...] Certain heads, certain colors and textures of
human hair leave permanent marks on me.

[enree erzweglle]

aren't these books most are suppose to read in middleschool/highschool. i never read them.
I think they are usually read in high school. I never
read much of Salinger--just Catcher in the Rye, I think.
I'm reading them here now because they're
quick and easy reads and I'm stuck between time
zones and am sleeping at queer times. Quick & easy
wrt reading is good right now.

[enree erzweglle]

im getting sick of them fuckn' tatoos
well, it's all downhill (in all sorts of ways) from here.
they're here to stay--maybe fade and distort--but
stay nonetheless.

[cosmo105]

when i was a teenager i loved this band until i realized that pretty much all of their song titles were lines from Catcher in the Rye. Salinger's one of my favorite fiction authors, but that's just lame.

i'm vegan but i don't suck :(

and i think most tattoos are gross. my best friend got some dumb shit on her lower back and i call it her tribal flaming butterfly.

[adam_f]

My brother got some indian thing on his back so I call him 'tribe called quest'

[Mot]

The whole homo liberal yoga ball vegan pretend female bisexuality trend of the past 20 years has really fucked this country up.

The best statement of the day.

[Nuzzolese]

The best statment of the day.

that day being yesterday

[Mot]

whatever

[Bob]

you mean, "whenever"

[abcdefz]

I think they are usually read in high school. I never
read much of Salinger--just Catcher in the Rye, I think.
I'm reading them here now because they're
quick and easy reads and I'm stuck between time
zones and am sleeping at queer times. Quick & easy
wrt reading is good right now.



Oh, God -- you got to read Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters while you're on this kick. It's the best Wes Anderson movie he'll never make. (y)

[abcdefz]

i forgot i made this thread lol

yeah they smoked a ton in F&Z, both of them. franny smoked, lane smoked, zooey smoked cigars, the mom smoked, i think the cat probably smoked too



Lane (Laine?) smoked, too, don't forget.

I love the description of him at the train station. Kind of unforgiving, but beautiful.

[abcdefz]

One of my favorite parts of Franny and Zooey was Bessie in the bathroom while Zooey's trying to bathe. (Note the allusion in Royal Tennebaums.) It's a great scene in and of itself, but the moment when Bessie gently but firmly upbraids Zooey for how he treats people is goddam gorgeous.


"...You make people nervous, young man," she said—most equably, for her. "You either take to somebody or you don't. If you do, then you do all the talking and nobody can even get a word in edgewise. If you don't like somebody—which is most of the time—then you just sit around like death itself and let the person talk themself into a hole. I've seen you do it." Zooey turned full around to look at his mother. He turned around and looked at her, in this instance, in precisely the same way that, at one time or another, in one year or another, all his brothers and sisters (and especially his brothers) had turned around and looked at her. Not just with objective wonder at the rising of a truth, fragmentary or not, up through what often seemed to be an impenetrable mass of prejudices, clichés, and bromides. But with admiration, affection, and, not least, gratitude. And, oddly or no, Mrs. Glass invariably took this "tribute," when it came, in beautiful stride. She would look back with grace and modesty at the son or daughter who had given her the look. She now presented this gracious and modest countenance to Zooey. "You do," she said, without accusation in her voice. "Neither you nor Buddy know how to talk to people you don't like." She thought it over. "Don't love, really," she amended. And Zooey continued to stand gazing at her, not shaving. "It's not right," she said—gravely, sadly. "You're getting so much like Buddy used to be when he was your age. Even your father's noticed it. If you don't like somebody in two minutes, you're done with them forever." Mrs. Glass looked over, abstractedly, at the blue bathmat, across the tiled floor. Zooey stood as still as possible, in order not to break her mood. "You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes," Mrs. Glass said to the bathmat, then turned again toward Zooey and gave him a long look, with very little, if any, morality in it. "Regardless of what you may think, young man," she said.

[enree erzweglle]

Oh, God -- you got to read Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters while you're on this kick. It's the best Wes Anderson movie he'll never make. (y)
I just finished it this afternoon. I loved it, hence the quote
in my signature.

Unfortunately, I know a Matron of Honor and a Mrs. Silsburn.
And, for that matter, a bride's father's uncle, although
that one's a much more pleasant association.

I brought with me Nine Stories thinking that essays
would be nice to read in small doses. But now I'm
wishing that I would have brought Franny and Zooey
instead because what he mentioned of them in
Raise the Roof intrigues me about them.

I was on the train this afternoon, making a few
notes of things from these two books that
amused me when I thought that I should start a book
excerpts thread. And here's this thread, almost
doing that.

[abcdefz]

I just finished it this afternoon. I loved it, hence the quote
in my signature.

Unfortunately, I know a Matron of Honor and a Mrs. Silsburn.
And, for that matter, a bride's father's uncle, although
that one's a much more pleasant association.

I brought with me Nine Stories thinking that essays
would be nice to read in small doses. But now I'm
wishing that I would have brought Franny and Zooey
instead because what he mentioned of them in
Raise the Roof intrigues me about them.

I was on the train this afternoon, making a few
notes of things from these two books that
amused me when I thought that I should start a book
excerpts thread. And here's this thread, almost
doing that.




-- I didn't notice the signature. Whoops!

There's so, so, so much behavioral humor in that story; I didn't even notice how funny it was until maybe the second or third time I read it. Then my imagination really grabbed onto it, and I wound up reading the whole thing knowing that he's bound up in tape the whole time, etc.

-- or his head hits the roof of the car with a "retributive crack."
:D

-- or how I'd have to keep remembering that, while this or that is happening, I need to remember the little man with the huge hat sitting quietly among the mess, etc.

Great stuff. (y)



...is there more stuff about your trip posted somewhere?

[abcdefz]

they smoke like 2 packs a page, they'd have to be. even phoebe was smoking while nobody was looking. good thing they're immortalized in print, or they'd be in serious trouble



..did Phoebe smoke? I thought she just took the blame for Holden. (Though there is the impoucation that it;s not the first time she'd been caught, but I assumed it was always for covering for Holden.)

[enree erzweglle]

Yes, I found myself laughing right out loud when I was
about halfway through Raise the Roof. There were a few
lines that caught me by surprise and I got some raised
eyebrows from people. I just held the book up so that
they could see that it was that and not them. :o

I laughed hard last week--also on the train--when I was reading
The Corrections and Denise found her mother's
stash of Mexican A. The way he wrote about that was
terse and slammed me.

About the trip, I'm putting a few things here and there
in the enree in zurich thread. I saw the Dalai Lama again
today.

[abcdefz]

Yes, I found myself laughing right out loud when I was
about halfway through Raise the Roof. There were a few
lines that caught me by surprise and I got some raised
eyebrows from people. I just held the book up so that
they could see that it was that and not them. :o

I laughed hard last week--also on the train--when I was reading
The Corrections and Denise found her mother's
stash of Mexican A. The way he wrote about that was
terse and slammed me.

About the trip, I'm putting a few things here and there
in the enree in zurich thread. I saw the Dalai Lama again
today.



Cool.


My public laughing fit was earlier this week... Guy Maupassaunt (sp?) story called something like "The Fatal Pins" or something like that. God, it was funny, right up until the very last punchline, which I assumed was a bit colloquial.

Two men are discussing the demise of one of the men's two simultaneous affairs... the way they discuss it is so hilariously presumptuous. At one point, one guy is asking "What do you usually do when -- ?" and he describes a circumstance, and the other dude gives his ready answer. Dude A posits a worse circumstance, and Dude B has another ready answer, and this goes on and on way too far -- as if Dude B has actually been in such ratcheted-up circumstances often enough that he has a ready remedy for anything...

Had to be there, I guess. :o

[enree erzweglle]

I'm always looking for laugh-out-loud books so I'll
look for that when I get back.

There is the most god-awful strolling mariachi band in the
courtyard below my room. They were here the
other night too and they were playing, badly, the "one
ton of marrow" song. Now they're not doing that one
but they're doing something else just as bad. Very strange
to hear that sort of music here. A nice jazz band was
out there last night.

[beastiegirrl101]

When I was in NY I made sure to get to the carosel in central park, Catcher in the Rye is one of my all time favs.

[YoungRemy]

I'm down with "The Laughing Man" from "Nine Stories"

i can relate to the Chief...

[abcdefz]

I'm down with "The Laughing Man" from "Nine Stories"

i can relate to the Chief...



That's a great story.
(y)