Talk:The Catcher in the Rye

Terribly Inane quotes, missing more critical ones
This page is a terrible representation of Salinger's narrative. Certain themes and symbols in the book are mentioned more than once, ('fuck you') while the most critical parts (ducks, carousel, egyptian tomb) weren't mentioned at all. Somehow, despite this, a few of the most parts of the book recieved mention, sometimes more than once. I'm not touching this with a four foot pole, but please, won't someone do Salinger some justice?

--Agreed. Its even missing some of the most important, such as "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody." Thats on the main wikipedia page, but not the wikiquote page.


 * I just added the quote from Chapter 25 mentioned in the Wikipedia article and a bit more beside. If you feel the article lacks a significant quote, why don't you simply add it, rather than merely complaining about it? I also added one from Chapter 17: "You never saw so many phonies in all your life, everybody smoking their ears off and talking about the play so that everybody could hear and know how sharp they were." ~ Achilles 21:39, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

yes but holden is a good guy stuck in a bad world a world for which he seeks to fit in.

Not trying to complain or anything, but do we really need to have a picture of a giraffe? Is that entire box, giraffe and all, really nessesary? SgtHydra 71.111.82.176 01:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the pictures are useless, and detract from the novel, as it is a novel and not a picture book. No doubt Salinger would see these pictures as being phony, and so many is no doubt against wiki guidelines, they need removing.

I can't agree more about the uselessness of the pictures. Salinger specifically requested not to have any picture on the main covers of his books... Having silly, literal and inaccurate illustrations for every quote taken out of context feels very wrong...

Digression
A few quotes from his novel seem a bit relevant here: clipping out a section from the page:


 * That digression business got on my nerves. I don't know. The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses. It's more interesting and all.


 * Oh, sure! I like somebody to stick to the point and all. But I don't like them to stick too much to the point. I don't know. I guess I don't like it when somebody sticks to the point all the time. The boys that got the best marks in Oral Expression were the ones that stuck to the point all the time — I admit it. But there was this one boy, Richard Kinsella. He didn't stick to the point too much, and they were always yelling 'Digression!' at him. It was terrible, because in the first place, he was a very nervous guy — I mean he was a very nervous guy — and his lips were always shaking whenever it was his time to make a speech, and you could hardly hear him if you were sitting way in the back of the room. When his lips sort of quit shaking a little bit, though, I liked his speeches better than anybody else's.

(But I digress...) ~ Ω 12:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)