Citation Needed - The Catcher in the Rye

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

The Catcher in the Rye is an American novel by J. D. Salinger that was partially published in serial form from 1945–46 before being novelized in 1951. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its themes of angst and alienation, and as a critique of superficiality in society.[4][5] The novel also deals with complex issues of innocence, identity, belonging, loss, connection, sex, and depression. The main character, Holden Caulfield, has become an icon for teenage rebellion.[6] Caulfield, nearly of age, gives his opinion on just about everything as he narrates his recent life events.   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

But then you flip it over like one more time, five seconds on each side. Oh, I see, cool, cool. So, if you ever wanna do a hot pocket episode of season liberally, you're my guy, promise man, I promise. Nice. Okay, and this is the breathing arts.

Sorry, the breathing arts. What? Yeah, you basically hold your breath to make your brain better. Wow. I know. I know. Shockingly stupid. Shockingly. Hey, guys, what's she doing? Oh, Cecil, no, you're just in time. Uh, well, to get ready for this week's episode, I figure no better way to get in the mood than a museum of embarrassing beliefs. You guys know Eli tried multiple different juice fasts. I did. I thought the first one was just a bad one. Um, you do need bathing suits for that exhibit,

though, just a heads up. Yeah. Or a slicker, a slicker at the very least. I mean, Eli, don't get me wrong. I appreciate you taking the brunt of the embarrassment here, but shouldn't we explore everyone's past embarrassing beliefs? You know, just to be on the same page. Look, there's even a door with my name on it. No, no. No. No. No.

No, no. No, no, no. No, no, made of tarot cards? We're doing the words Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm the catcher, and I'll be gathering children, whatever the fuck that may? I don't know, fuck all in. But I can't do it alone. First up, two guys who absolutely liked more embarrassing books than this week's topic.

And they know it. Heath and Tom. I read Alistraug again. And then I watch three movies of Alistraug as pennants. I have redeemed myself. You deserve it. I will never tell mine, Eli. It's my biggest secret. I have been in my side. I will never tell mine Eli.

It's my biggest secret. And also joining us tonight, two guys who regret asking their English teachers when they were ever going to use this Cecil and Noah. In my defense, I was referring to the school issued bulletproof vest and I found to use for it later that same period. So I asked and answered. And in my case, my English teacher was telling us how to avoid satanic cults.

Yep, nevermind. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a second to thank our patrons. Patrons, my therapist recently told me that I need to learn to accept that you enjoy being here and that you're not going to all leave me someday. But if I understood that, I wouldn't be making fun of this book. If you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around until the end of the show. And

with that out of the way, tell us, Heath, what person placed thing, concept, phenomenon, or event? Well, we'd be talking about today, we'd be talking about the book, the catcher in the rye. All long awaited. So tell us heath. What is the catcher in the rye? It's the book that murdered John Lennon destroyed. It's a 1951 novel by JD Salinger. And it was so fucking toxic that Christian fundamentalist Mark David Chapman read the book and immediately

went to New York City and shot John Lennon in the face. Okay. Maybe that's a bit of an oversimplification, but Chapman take he was literally, tell hold in a copy of the book. And the cops are a thank you, Tom. They arrested him. He was clever. Holden. We'll get to that.

Well, for some reason, despite 234 pages of the main character, holden, call field, competing with all the other characters in the book for least likable human being ever, despite all that, the book was immediately a best seller upon publication. And now it's considered a classic of American literature and a must read in public high school English classes. I'm sure we all were at least assigned to read it at some point. It has total sales of about 65 million copies. And I do not understand why it's a bad book. The words in the book are bad and books are made of words and it's bad. book. The words in the book are bad and books are made of words and it's bad. Okay, true story here. I had the world's worst mentor ever when I was student teaching and I found

out I would be teaching Ketchar and the Rye literally the day before I was to begin lessons on it. So I went home that night and I reread it and I taught it for a semester and then I decided that I was not going to teach high school English after all. That's it. Okay, my true story. My dad made me read this book as punishment for being mean to my little sister. So I just stared at the page

and imagined a little dude running along the top of the world. So it looked like I was reading. And my brother, for days I did this, for days after day after day, and my brother who had endured the same for days after day after day and my brother who had endured the same punishment before me, he clued in me in on enough of the plot details so that I can answer the questions. My dad asked about it.

And I and I'm so vindictive that I've still never read it. That's a smart move. It's fucking dumb. So I'm going to start by being that I actually also like this book when I read it in high school. I also like Gatsby when I read it in high school. That's on the list, by the way, we're doing Gatsby. So I read it in high school. Holden reminded me of Jerry Seinfeld at the time, and I loved Seinfeld the show.

And I kind of like to stand up comedy too. So you know, when you're a kid and you first hear some stand up, you're just thinking, yeah, nice observation. I had not ever noticed that about airport security. That's so clever. Looking back, the stand up was just, you know, man, and the sitcom was really being carried by Larry David's writing and Jason Alexander. And of course, Julia Louis Dreyfus.

Amazing. Heath, did you want to talk about catcher? No, I don't want to talk about catcher in the right. But you have catcher in the right. Very unfortunately for Holden Caulfield and that book, there was nothing to carry it like Larry David and Jason Alexander and Julie Louis. It's just a whiny kid getting abused by a terrible society end of book. That's the whole book. Thank you. Thank you. I feel like way too many hate this book wrong, right? They're like, hold on an asshole. And I'm like, no, hold on 16. He's a child of children or assholes. That's why you're supposed to

treat them better than literally everyone in this book. So the book starts by introducing our narrator and main character, Holden. He's 17 years old, and he's stuck in a rest home recovering from when he quote, practically got tuberculosis. So, so not tuberculosis, practically that. And he's telling the story of what happened to him last year when he was 16. And before he even gets into the story, he mentions that his brother DB is a very successful Hollywood writer and Holden hates his brother DB because writing talent is bullshit. Well, we're going to get the opposite of that starting now. So that's fun. Holdings recent ordeal started when he was a student at a really fancy prep school. And he got kicked out for being a lazy piece of shit who failed a bunch

of classes. So to be clear, this book is the tale of, whoa, about a rich white kid in America in the late 1940s. So it's the week before Christmas and Holdings, not welcome back for the next semester. So he's about to go home and Holden's not welcome back for the next semester. So he's about to go home and tell his parents about the huge amount of money he just wasted. Oh, yes. High school English class where all the coming of age stories for students are always entitled white kids struggling to find their place in a world created exactly for them and still failing universal themes to be sure.

Right there. Yes. It is the care. It's part of certain. We also read so far from the bamboo grove. Cool. So before Holden leaves town, he goes to see one of his favorite teachers, Mr. Spencer. And Mr. Spencer is pretty old and he's sick with a flu. So it's a perfect time to hang out in person with a pestilent child. So hold and goes over there. So hold and walks into Mr. Spencer's house and notes to himself, look at the sad, hairless legs on this sick old man sticking out from his pajama legs, fucking gross. You know what? This diminishes the innocence and beauty of the world for me. That's the problem right now. And that right there, that'll be a fun running theme in this

classic of literature, holding complaining about the world being fucked up for him. Okay. So Mr. Spencer kind of feels bad for holding, but not much because holding sucks. And I actually enjoy this part. Mr. Spencer, he's like, yeah, sorry, you got expelled, but it's because you suck. You're the worst. I flunked you in my class because you're bad. And then Mr. Spencer, he actually reads a little piece of Holden's terrible essay out loud to him and tries to explain that you have to try hard at stuff to be better at stuff, but hold on. It's like, boom or whatever, and he leaves because he sucks. Nowadays, Holton would 100% have tried to get Mr. Spencer fired for anti white racism. Yeah, and then his parents would have shown

up to the school to strong arm the teacher and giving him a better grade and also a credit for three more do overs. And then they'd still give the guy a better review on rate my professor. So guys, guys, modern holding would have just used chat GPT to write his assay and save it all the trouble. The first job. So, hold it goes back to his dorm and he makes a big deal about wearing his ridiculous new bright red hunting cap that has ear flaps. That's going to be a symbol for something. Go fuck yourself. I don't know. Then a guy from the next room walks

in his name's Acly. And we get to read about the details of Acly cutting his nails onto the floor for a while. And then finally, we're saved as the reader by Holden's roommate, Stradlater, who shows up and scares away, Ackley. And we learn that Stradlater has a date with a girl named Jane who Holden secretly has a crush on. Holden especially likes how Jane keeps all her kings in the back row when she plays checkers, which is fucking dumb. Yep. Then we spend a while hearing Holden's thoughts on the nuances of toiletry organization. That was fun. And then straight later finally leaves for the date and Akli comes back in that scene ends with Acly squeezing pimples for the next couple of hours. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Is Acly going to manscape his sack in the middle of the room too? Okay. See, so one time in this studio, and now it's all I ever hear about. It's a rest after watching on the show. Several hours of literal pimple squeezing, hold on decides to have a steak dinner at the dining hall. And that turns out to be bad. He doesn't like the steak that they serve at the dining hall at his fancy prep school. So really the whole American classic. Absolutely. So when he goes back to the dorm and he decides to go see a movie with his

friend, Mal Brassard. It's, oh, God, it's like the names from Atlas Shrugged. It really is like fucking coffee migs, right? Whatever it was. Yeah. So Mal Brassard and Holden, they're going to go see a movie. They invite Ackley to and while Holden's waiting for the others to get ready, he opens up his window of his dorm room and grabs a handful of snow to make a snowball. But then he, he just can't throw it for some reason. And we learned, well, I learned from like reading the fucking spark notes. Snow represents the innocence of childhood or some bullshit. So he, he carries the snowball around his dorm. He carries the snowball

around the dorm for a while, just dripping everywhere because he's an asshole. And they finally walked to the bus to go see the movie and Holden tries to take his weird fucking snowball of innocence onto the bus. But the bus drivers like, no, that's dumb. Don't do that. And Holden gets mad at the bus drivers. Wilson.

I just want to take a moment to point out that this is usually where defenders of this book point out that the snowball sequence is proof that Holden has a disability of some kind. But again, no, when I was 16, I punched a brick wall because a restaurant I liked closed kids are stupid. Stop diagnosing all the comfort. He just sucks. He just sucks. Oh, and he's also the snowball was really a metaphor that climate changes bullshit. So it's okay. No, sorry. Sorry. The young James and all the kids are going to score more accordingly for that. So it turns out that Brasard and Acly have both seen the movie that was for that. So it turns out that Brasard and Ackley have both seen the movie that was playing there. So the three of them just play pinball for a while and they go back home. Ackley follows Holden into his room and Ackley immediately lays

down on the bed, face first, smushing his pimply face into Holden's pillow and squeezing out more pus. And then now, Ack he spends the next hour making up a lie about how he had sex with a girl last summer. Holden finally kicks him out and starts writing an essay for a straight leader as a favor. So straight leader would have plenty of time to have sex with Jane. Who holding has a crush on the essay. It's supposed to be about a simple description of a room. That's the whole assignment. But holding launches into a long, completely unrelated essay about his brother who would write poems on a baseball glove in green marker. And then that brother died of leukemia at the end of that scene. Also, actually had sex with that baseball glove last summer too.

So you wrote that as Cecil's is going to be a big. It's a Canadian episode. Like again, you come to the studio early, Cecil, you see what you see. Okay. Tom doesn't have a big, big, big, big, big ball. I didn't say was my baseball glove. You couldn't recognize a baseball glove in a lineup. Get the fuck out of

it. Stradiator finally gets home from his date and he looks at the essay that Holden wrote him and he's like, dude, what the fuck is this? It's not even remotely the assignment. I know you're doing a favor, but this is nothing like the assignment. So Holden gets mad. He rips up the essay, throws it away and and he smokes a cigarette in the room for spite, stradler doesn't like that. Then Holden starts prying for details about the date with Jane and stradler doesn't want to talk about it. So Holden tries to physically assault stradler.

And that goes very badly. Stradler is actually brushing his teeth at the time and Holden sneaks up and goes for a sucker punch right at Strathlete's face, hoping the toothbrush will quote split his goddamn throat open. But luckily for like humanity and murder and stuff, it's a big swing and a miss and Strathlete immediately pins hold into the ground. Holden keeps yelling insults from the ground and Strathlete keeps him pinned and he's like, Hey, if I let you up, will you stop yelling and stop trying to assault me? Please finally holden's like, yeah, I will. And Strathleteer lets him up and

holden immediately. He has dirty stupid stuff. It's moron. Strathleteer is like, we just talked about this. I'm giving you one last warning. Holden ignores that and keeps going with the insults. So Stradlator hits him in the face and knocks him out. Holden wakes up a minute later and Stradlator is leading over him with a toil that you're kit, hoping to clean it up. And he says to holden, dude, just go wash your face. And hold and says, you watch your face and then go fucking fuck the janitor's wife. Seriously, he says that. I don't understand what I'm not saying this exact scene happened to author J.D. Salinger. I'm saying a 32 year old man probably doesn't write about the time he tried to suck

a bunch of his friend twice in a row. Yeah. Right. Well, he probably didn't think of the awesome janitor's wife in salt until later that night. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So holding decides to leave the prep school and go back to New York City a few days early at this point. He packs up all his stuff.

He puts on his Elmer Fud symbolism hat and he walks out. You guys on the training yard. And that's when he's getting Valley Valley symbolic. Yeah. So he's on the train and that's where he meets a woman who's the mother of a classmate. They start talking and holding lies about how that kid is like super duper popular. I guess to be nice to the mom. And when she asks about why holdens leaving school three days early, he says, I guess, to be nice to the mom. And when she asks about why Holden's leaving school three days early, he says, I have brain cancer. I'm getting brain surgery. Don't know why.

Before she can say, hey, that's a very weird, obvious lie cut the scenes over. Holden arrives at Penn station in New York and he gets a cab to the Edmont hotel where he's going to stay for a few days. He starts talking to the cab driver who clearly doesn't want to do that because that's the fucking worst. Like what do you do? Listen to a podcast, avert your eyes from the mirror like a decent human being. Get the fuck out of your ass.

But no, hold and gets in the cab and he says, Hey, so you know the ducks in the central park lagoon, where do you think they go in the winter when the water freezes over? And the driver's like, I'm just a cab driver. I don't know, man. What are you trying to like cram a metaphor into this moment about ducks being like uncertainty of your future or some bullshit? And yes, that is exactly what Holden and JD

sound you're we're doing. According to my extensive research at what again, sparks notes, the ducks are a civil holdings need to survive his own emotional winter. Well, I mean, in reality, in New York, when water freezes over the ducks leave town because the deep part of the pond is the only refuge from the three foot long rats. So I get the bit is that you hate this book and all, but after doing a couple of these, I'm starting to feel like you just hate literary symbol. Yeah. Just don't lie. Just say what you mean. Don't be a liar in your book. Fancy words.

Just say stuff regular. So you'll read your book. Fuck. The cab driver finally gets rid of holding at the hotel and holding checks in. When he gets to his room, he starts looking at his window across the hotel courtyard and creepily watching other people in their rooms. In one window, he sees two people drinking together and then taking turns spitting a mouthful of the drink into the other's mouth. And naturally hold in becomes Kelly and sexually aroused. I actually thought this part was good. So he calls a woman.

He's never met named faith Cavendish. He heard about faith from some random Princeton kid that he met at a party back in the day. And that kid said faith Cavendish is maybe a sex worker sometimes. And Holden wrote down her address and phone number and kept it in his wallet this whole time. So he calls her in the middle of the night. Faith says it's way too late to meet up now, but she offers to have a drink the next day. And Holden says no, because he only wants sex right now. And he can't have a potential span for that. Yeah. Is this 8 6 7 5 3 0 9? I got your number

from a wall. I'm calling for boobies. I represent the, a hopeful naivety of the American dream. And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. Holden goes to the lavender bar on the first floor of the hotel where a band is playing. He complains about the brass band being too brassy, like an asshole, but he gets a table anyway. He's next to a table of three women about 30 years old and he starts negging those women to himself in his head. His exact words to himself, the whole three of them were pretty ugly and they all had on the kind of hats that you know they didn't really live in New York. So all three of them them had I love New York cats on I just something like that. And this is when Holden starts giving quote, the old I to the blonde one who wasn't too

bad. But then the waiter shows up and it interrupts his old I hold in order as a scotch and soda because fuck me, fuck me personally, scotch and sod's horrible. And he says, the waiter, Scotch's soda, like really fast to trick the waiter into believing he's 21. But the waiter's like, you said that crazy fast. You're clearly a child. No, I'm not serving you. I actually enjoyed that. Okay. Real, another true story. I used to have a collection of very nice Scotch's and bourbons at my office at work. And I once went on vacation for a week and my assistant who was minding my phone while I was away, he drank in that week a whole bottle of McCallan 15.

I was your 15. I was shocked that he drank so much scotch just in a week. And so I asked him about and he's like, well, yeah, I mixed it with Coke. Because that's what he thought Scotch and soda was. What? Also, real quick guys, how relatable was my story about expensive Scotch and assistance at my work? Because I'm now thinking about maybe turning this into a universal coming of age novel

for all Americans to enjoy. I don't know, do you require to enjoy and I just can't to enjoy a fight? You fired the fuck out of that guy, right? You fired the fuck out of him. No, when I locked my cabinet when I went on fucking vacation, you should fire him now. So hold and get the Coke instead of the Scotch and Zoda. And then he asks the three women to dance with him one at a time. The blonde woman finally agrees. And it turns out she's a really good dancer.

Hold and try to do small talk with her on the dance floor over the music because he's the fucking worst. And the whole time she's like, what? I don't know what you said, man. I can't really hear you because the music is universal. And then every no doesn't really work. Finally, holden decides that she's such a great dancer that he kisses her on the head, quote, right where the part of her hair is. And she's like, please don't do that. And he says, I have sister in

fourth grade and you dance just like her. So it's good though. You're both really good as what I'm saying. No idea what metaphor was happening there. Sure, hope it was fucking genius because that was gross. Either way, Holden spends the rest of the night bothering these women and pointing out their flaws to himself. And they eventually leave. He pays for their drink tab. And then he remarks to himself that he's mad how they didn't offer to pay for the drinks they had before he showed up. All right, well, while we let those ladies order an angel shot so a bouncer can open a door with Holden's face, we'll take a quick break for some apapo of nothing. Hey, you work here? Yeah, yeah, how can I help you?

Yeah, I'm looking for more books like The Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the Rye, huh? You have a big fan of the classics? No, not really. Not even really a book guy, I'm honest. I just like books that call it the hypocrisy of everyday life, you know? Of the everyday zombies and they're boring little lives, you know, the right-to-fones. Yeah. Okay, so first, you're gonna like this.

The Thesaurus. Yeah, just just replace every word with a bigger, more obscure one. You'll feel real smart. Indubitably. And of course, you'll need this. The big book of expensive watches. Yep. Maybe you're going to want a couple of pricey watches and you're going to want to memorize at least 10 or 12 watches that you don't have, but you can say that you want. Got it, got it. Watches Atlas shrugged the game. Everything Robert Green never wrote. How to win friends

and influence people. Don't read that one you won't like it, and this. Um, this isn't gun with a single bullet. What do I do with this? You'll know when it's time. And we're back. And we meant it. When we left off, we were pretending to 16 year old versions of ourselves were in his cringy, if not worse than holding Caulfield. So tell us he, don't do that. What didn't we do next? Don't do that. God damn it. So, Holden leaves the lavender bar. He heads to a different bar for a while. He bothers another cab driver about fucking duck metaphors and then he finally calls it a night back at

his hotel. He gets into the elevator and the operator Maurice offers to send him a prostitute for $5 and Holden says, yes, while he's waiting in his room, he broods about not being aggressive enough with women. So that was fun. The prostitute named Sonny shows up. She starts doing her thing and holden stops her. And he says, I can't have sex because I'm recovering from a very serious operation on McClavichord. So can't have sex. He gives her the $5 and he asks her to leave. But sunny claims he owes $10. Holding refuses to pay five more and she leaves angrily. All right. Negotiating with a prostitute. All he needs is some Bitcoin and he's got the

douchebag bingo full square. Everybody if you're keeping track of home. So holding finally puts on his pajamas is about to go to bed. And then Maurice shows up at his door with Sonny to collect the extra $5. Holden refuses again. So Maurice grabs him while Sonny takes the money from Holden's wallet. And then as they're leaving, Maurice snaps his fingers on Holden's penis over the pajamas and punches holding in the stomach. And this all represents the broad cultural conflict of 16 year old rich kids and they're emerging sexuality and how society doesn't help them out. Man, in this era, I take the finger snap and over my dick as a beatnik compliment.

in this era, I take the finger snap and over my dick as a beat Nick compliment. And did you put a spell on my dick? You have to tell me, man, you can't. So the next morning, Holden calls up his ex-girlfriend Sally Hayes and makes a plan to meet up with her later that day. And then he goes to a diner for breakfast and starts talking to two nuns. One of them starts talking about Romeo and Juliet. And Holden is pleasantly surprised because he finds that book interesting, but it's not. It's a bad play. That's a bad play.

Okay. To be fair, Leonardo DiCaprio liked it, but mostly because Juliet is 13. So she would still have a good 12 years in her form. So I'm just saying, Romeo and Juliet, not as good as everybody makes it out to be. Might even get its own episode. I see dying in the cold open isn't enough for you. So the point that's a lot of trying to make is that hold it is very interesting because he likes Shakespeare. Like honestly, if he pulled out a copy of Atlas Shrugged from the future

and started reciting a 12 hour speech from John Gaul, that would have been like, yep, that tracks, that tracks with my life right now reading the catcher in the right. Anyway, they finish eating and Holden gives them a donation of $10 for their church. And then he thinks to himself, money makes people sad. And um, no, the fuck it doesn't. That's dumb. It does not. You're just sad. You're already fucking nuts. Anyway, back to my free hotel at the center of the universe. Yeah. So, all right. But the implication that the nuns and the sex workers are offering the same

thing is pretty solid. I'm going to give Sal and your Duke credit on that one. What's the opposite of a snap? She does that over a stick. Finally, Chris. Jazz hands. So I'll leave the Dider and we get the story of him just walking around doing errands for a while. Awesome. Yeah. Nice little Saturday in a book. They got a home depot. I don't know. He buys a gift for his little sister Phoebe. He buys theater tickets for the date with Sally. He makes a phone call that absolutely doesn't fucking matter. And then he walks through a playground and starts bothering two little kids at a fucking playground. Exact words from Holden in his own story about bothering two little kids on a seesaw. Quote, one of them was sort of fat,

and I put my hand on the skinny kids' end to sort of even up the weight, but you could tell they didn't want me around so I let them alone. Yeah, I've always wished that we got the exchange from the kids' perspective there. No, you have to scoot back. I'm as far back as I can go.

You scoot forward. I'm as far forward as I can go. Hey guys, you need some help? No, we're good. Yeah, thanks though, going. You sure, you sure, because I can push you. On the seesaw, you're gonna push us? Yeah, yeah, you know gonna push us? Yeah.

Yeah, you know, like, stop it. I'm just making it fair. Dude, what are you doing? Do you think the point of seesaw is stasis? But you know what, fine, fine. I'm just, I'm kind of a journey of self-discovery. I do not care. Nobody cares, sounds really boring.

I think a guy cast a spell on my dick. Okay, we're going to leave. Yeah, let's take off. So from there, Holden keeps walking for a bit and then he's finally about to do something interesting and he's going to check out the Museum of Natural History. Great thing. But then JD Salinger was like, fuck you, he does not go inside. Not interesting.

Instead, Holden just stops the front door. And he has a pseudo intellectual deep thought provided by Salinger. Hold on, thanks to himself, every time I go to the museum, it feels like I've changed, but the museum stayed the same. And yes, the history museum is kind of a static concept. There's also very little likelihood that the museum curator is going to snap their fingers on his penis, you know, maybe head to the safe space kid. Jesus.

All right. Well, that brings us to the date with his ex girlfriend, Sally. They meet up and they take a cab to the theater. And Holden starts kissing her in the cab immediately, when she very clearly didn't want to. Reminder, we know that because he's the narrator. Holden says that. He says, I was being seductive as hell. And she didn't have any alternative gross. Yikes. And while they're still in the cab, he stops kissing her for a second. And he's like, I love you. And then see, this is great. Sally all in one breath. She's like, oh, darling, I love you too. Do me a favor and grow your hair.

Okay. In that scene, admittedly, holding is being an intolerable shit, but he wasn't bothering the cab. See, yeah. There it is. Okay. Be like poor Sally was like, Hey, hey, how about instead of trying to get to, you know, first base from the in the back of his moving vehicle, you asked the driver how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or something, huh? That sound fun. So they watched the play together and Holden complains to himself, of course, that the actors are too good at the art of acting. And therefore he can't enjoy it. And that right there, that's a metaphor about JD Soundger as a writer in real life. So after the show, Holden and Sally go ice skating at Rockefeller Center after skating for

a bit, they sit down for a break. And at this point, holden loses the ability to control the volume of his voice. He goes back and forth between way too loud and way too soft, like Austin Powers don't know why. Then he finally finds regular medium. And he says to Sally, we should drive up to Vermont and live in a cabin camp. I have $180. When that runs out, I'll get a job. Also, you marry me now. And Sally's like, nope, nope, no, thank you. That's dumb. Not doing that. Hold in argues with her for

a while. Then he yells at Sally until she starts weeping and then he leaves. Yeah. And as young love disintegrates on the side of the pond, a three foot tall rat slowly skates by shaking his head just. He's holding the hands with a trash bag as it ever seems. Promise that'll never be us. No, no, no, no, no. So much better. You add a trash bag that talks like that. Delayful book. So hold and spend the rest of the day watching a movie and complaining to himself about the desires of women and how they're not him enough. Okay. Now imagine that you are a woman reading

this drivel in high school and trying to think about how you're going to have to write yet another essay not titled another book I have to pretend doesn't insult me personally. So from there, he meets up with his old buddy Carl, who goes to Columbia now and Holden keeps asking obnoxious questions to Carl about sexual stuff. Almost exact words from Holden when they first start talking at this bar where they meet. He's like, Hey, look at that fucking slur word over there. Seriously, he's home of a slur word right there. Anyway, how's your sex life? Would you majoring in perverts? Probably. And Carl is just telling him to shut the

fuck up between every question. And then Carl walks out after just a few minutes. Holden stays at the bar and gets aggressively drunk around 1 a.m. he calls Sally Hayes. Her grandma picks up, holding yells at the grandma, then he yells at Sally when she gets on the phone and she hangs up. Then he goes back into the bar, stumbles into the bathroom, fills up a sink with cold water, sticks his face right into it. And that's when the piano player from the bar walks in and Holden who is covered in water. And I'm assuming vomit at this point. He's like, well, you know, I'm a manager. You know, I'm just signing you. I'll fucking sign you right now. And the piano player is like, nope, you're a child. Please go home. I would like you to go home. Whatever. Hold on. I already forgot what they

were talking about a second ago. He's walking back over to the bar where he tries to hit on the lounge singer, no luck. And then the hat check girl again, no luck. So he finally leads. It's like American literature was a douchebag boot camp for the first 225 years of our history. Well, but the fact that so much of white male America read a book about an overprivileged next level asshole having a bad weekend and thought, what a universally relatable protagonist. That explains like the last 70 years of American history. Yeah. Yeah. This plans a terrifying thing about me at fucking whatever age when I read this. Okay. So now it's the middle of the night in December in New York City and holding his

coffee and water and he walks to Central Park to check out that really important symbolism thing with the ducks that his author had set up earlier. So he kind of fucking had to, he goes to the pond and he does not find any ducks frozen into the ice or whatever he thought would happen in the winter. I have to clarify here that he's not exaggerating. I actually went and reread this passage to make sure I wasn't Mr. Remberingian. Holden goes to check on his metaphor as those he's expecting to find the ducks. In little igloos or frozen like Captain America. It's a metaphor. He's checking on the well. I don't know if you guys remember the metaphor

from earlier, but now I'm just saying he looks for a metaphor and he swings and misses in a book. He's a fictional character. They written on whatever. So he sits down on a bench. He's all sad and cold and he counts the cash that he has left. He's almost had a cash and his drenched upper body from the bathroom sink is starting to ice over.

So he decides to sneak into his parent's apartment and say hi to his little sister. And that's when the character that we're supposed to be empathizing with takes a very quick walk from central park to the extremely expensive apartment building where he lives with his loving family. He's got to add home to dig through his giant drawer, a gold plated bootstraps. He's that's how this works. That would have been better. So holden sneaks into the family apartment and goes into Phoebe's room where she's asleep. So I note 10 year old Phoebe Caulfield is the only good character in the book. I love her.

I hate everybody else. So holden roots around at her stuff for a while and reads her notebooks. And then he finally wakes her up and they talk for a little bit. And Phoebe says, Hey, wait a second, you're home two days early. Do you fucking get expelled because you're a lazy piece of shit? I know that's what happened. And Holden starts telling an obvious lie and Phoebe is like, you did get expelled. I knew it. And she punches him in the leg. So Holden explains that the big problem is that he hates every subject in school. And then Phoebe says, you hate fucking everything.

That's a dumb excuse. You still have to like do things. And she challenges him to name one single thing that he likes in the universe. He thinks for way too long and he finally says, I like our dead brother, the leukemia dead brother that I wrote the stupid essay that didn't make sense about Phoebe explains that our dead brother is a really bad answer to that question very correctly. So hold nads, okay, I like this right now sitting here with you just chewing the fat. And that's when Phoebe says, that isn't anything really. That's the best. You know, now I can kind of

relate because when I was 16, I thought hating stuff was who I was. And of course, as I've gotten older, I've realized that being afraid of stuff is who I am. That's. Okay. I feel like a person can craft a perfectly reasonable personality out of hating everything. And I think this episode's got a way of judging her than it has to be. All of a sudden, you guys in Holland should try getting fat. I have a whole list of snacks I like now. Fucking rules. All right.

Well, that brings us to the single dumbest title drop in the history of title drops. Phoebe says to Holden, okay, so what do you want to do with your life? If you hate everything and Holden says, okay, so you know that song, it says, if a body catch a body coming through the ride, and Phoebe immediately interrupts him. And she's like, the line is, if a body meat, a body coming through the ride. And it's a poem, not a song. It's by Robert Burns. It's been made into songs, but that's a poem. The line is what I just said. And that's all a perfect correction by this general, amazing girl. But hold on, keeps going anyway. He's like, shut, shut, I'm dropping title. No, fuck up my title thing. I know that the line was catch, whatever. I want to be a catcher in

the rye. I want to hang out next to a bunch of little kids playing in a field of rye that's very tall and catch them before they accidentally jump off a cliff that they can't see because of the tall rye. And that's a metaphor about holding resenting the sharp transition from the innocence of childhood to the corruption of adulthood. Like, he could have just said that on page one and John Lennon doesn't get shot in the face, but no, withering this whole book to get that very simple, basic idea. Yeah. And look, hold in. No, you don't, man. All you've done is selfishly impose yourself on others and treat people like shit. You are whatever the children in

the rye are running from holding. But also it's just that's a dumb solution. You just, you would cut down the rye, you know, for several feet back from the flip, it's just a bad, it's a bad solution to an imaginary problem. You might as well be a Republican. Definitely a Republican at some point. Oh, yeah. This book mowing a little bit. There you go. So much better. So hold and finally decides to sneak back out of the apartment. And on his way out, he tells Phoebe that he's going to move out West and like start a podcast or whatever. And she's an amazing sister. So she gives Holden all the Christmas money that she's been saving for years. And Holden takes it like an asshole. And then he heads over to see his English teacher from high school

and Mr. Antillini who said Holden can stay the night. When he gets there, Mr. and Mrs. Antillini, they're super nice to him, but they're also a little concerned. Mr. Antillini, who said, Holden can stay the night. When he gets there, Mr. and Mrs. Antillini, they're super nice to him, but they're also a little concerned. Mrs. Antillini serves some coffee. She goes to bed and Mr. Antillini gives Holden some good advice. He says, you know, you got to just like be better because right now you're bad at being a person like as a human, you're bad. And I would say you need to do the opposite, which would be good. But Holden, he's already starting to pass out. He's bored. So Mr. Antelini makes up the couch and let's hold and go to sleep. And then this was, this was rough. We get a really creepy moment when Holden wakes up suddenly

and Mr. Antelini is gently patting him on the head and Holden takes that as a sexual advance and immediately. Sorry, Holden. I thought you were my three foot tall rat. We're in New York. So everyone has one. I have a bag of garbage. So the next day, Holden goes to Phoebe's school and sends her a note that explains how

he's leaving New York and he's asking her to meet him at the museum during lunch. She shows up at the museum carrying luggage because she wants to go with him and he gets all angry. He says, no, and he makes her cry. And then he takes her to the carousel in the park and watches her ride it while it starts to rain. End of book. That's the end of the book.

Quick reminder, the entire theme is the idea of saving the innocence of youth by being a catcher in the rye, even though Holden would be a meter in the rye, according to the poem that he got wrong and his ten year old sister corrected him about. Yeah. And the last thing you want to get wrong in the poem is the meter. So the last thing before we close it out, I want to give everybody a chance to defend this very important work of literature. Did any of the symbols or the metaphors work for you guys? I stucks. Elmer Fudd symbolism hat. Miss misheard poems. Was I missing any genius here? No, I don't think so. So much.

It's really well to like imagine a little guy running across the top of the words on it. Like he had a lot of gaps to jump over. Now I just want to reread it so I can I can picture Cecil's rat at the, at the ice room. Yeah, right. Giant New York rat running across. Yeah, I like it. New York hat on.

Inserted into the podcast verse and heath. If you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? Absolutely not. No. You're not. All right. Unlike Holden, are you ready for the quiz? Ready for the quiz. All right, unlike Holden, are you ready for the quiz? Ready for the

quiz. All right, I got a good question here for you, Heath. What is the longest book that you ever hate, red? Hey, Atlas shrugged at 561,996 words. Yeah. It's up there. Be David Ix, everything you need to know, but have never been told at 613,313 words. We're all out way through that. See the Holy Bible at 783,137 works. Or see the Book of Mormon, which despite being only 269,320 words long, is functionally infinite because of its sheer awfulness, which makes every sentence somehow twice as long as the last one, even just a book of Alma is so goddamn

catatonicly boring that it is measured not in word count, but in parts. Yeah. Honestly, book of Alma and catcher in the rive very similar. I got to be honest. A lot of calls. Yeah. For sure. Okay, but you know what? I'm going to go with a atlas shrugged I've read it twice. Do I get to double that? Oh, as double. You do. I didn't think you'd think of that, but yes, you do get to count that as double. You are correct. All right, a little bit of a personal question here. He,

catcher and the ride didn't drive me away from my chosen career in teaching, but A, it sure didn't help. I love that you have very personal stories about both this that like changed your career. And also did sound in the fury change something in your life. Do I remember? Some of the guys out of the fury was definitely decided. And we're like, we're not doing hard to get together. Absolutely not.

Let's just drink. I'm versus a literature really changed some's life in the wrong way. In the wrong way. In that he hates them so much. You picked my two most hated books, I think. That's the thing. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, All right, he's hard to understand why Holden sucks without understanding why JD Salinger sucks, which of the following is a real true way in which JD Salinger sucked. Hey, he demanded that if anyone ever made a catcher in the rye movie, he JD Salinger, regardless of age, must play hold in coffield. He was like 32 when he wrote it up, right? Mm-hmm. Be. In the fall of 1953, he befriended some local teenagers and allowed one of them to interview him for what he assumed would be an article on the high school page of a local paper, the

Claremont Daily Eagle. The article appeared instead as a feature on the editorial page and Mr. Salinger felt so betrayed by that page location difference that he broke off his friendship with those children and built a six and a half foot tall fence around tall fence around his property. All right. He invented the spite wall. He's, he's fitting into a lot of our episodes actually. See David Chapman, according to his daughter who wrote one of the two hate biographies women wrote about him. He was an obsessive homeopath who drank his own urine and sat in an organ box for hours a day. Well, I can say I'm doing another one of our episodes. Yeah, or so I feel like you've done at least half of the thing you just said, right?

Well, come on now. Dee, he tried to fuck my mom while he was still married, but she wasn't having it. Okay, I know that Dee is actually real, which is amazing. So, and I feel like the other ones are, it's e all the above. I feel like it's e all the above. E all of the above. Oh, okay.

Fuck this. Okay, he, in the movie adaptation, what song plays when Holden's pimple-faced roommate, Ackley, fucks a baseballman. A, Holden loosely, it's a good. That's really tough. Love D and C trying to decide. All you need is glove, sweet glove.

Sorry. It's WAP Whiteass pond with a rat. I wasn't I didn't even have to rat in it. Yeah. All right, Cecil, you got him. So you win. Tom gets to go next. Yay. All right. Well, for Tom, Cecil Noah, and Heath, I'm Eli Bosnick, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then, Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then you can listen to Heath, Noah, and myself on our girthy selections of podcasts. You can hear from Tom and Cecil on their one single podcast and You can hear from Tom and Cesar on their one single podcast and if you'd like to feel better about your childhood

You can hear about Tom falling into a car wash fight club over on our show dear old dads Yeah, and if you'd like to keep this show going you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or Leave us a five star review everywhere you can and if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ you