A Catcher in the Rye

As a fellow lover of English along with Holden Caulfield, I decided it's time to make an excuse for blogging, and let Holden have his very own post - just because he wants to.

I don't like school much, but I do like to read. I like to read when I don't have to. If I'm told to read, then I don't want to. There's something about my teachers telling me what to read that's phony. I don't know what it is about it, but I don't like it. I'm really good at English. We read a lot of things for English. I think D.B. should write books, but he's in Hollywood writing mostly movies. Oh well, he's still my favorite author. My favorite things to read include:

My next favorite author is Ring Lardner. My brother gave me a book by him for my birthday. It had a lot of crazy, funny plays and stories in it. It kills me - I like him because he's funny.

This is one of my favorite classic books. "I like them, and I read a lot of war books and mysteries and all, but they don't knock me out too much. 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. This doesn't happen much though. 

I wouldn't mind calling up this Isak Dinesen up. and Ring Lardner, except that D.B. told me he's dead.

You take that book Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham, though. I read it last summer. It's a pretty good book and all, but I wouldn't want to call Somerset Maugham up. I don't know. He just isn't the kind of guy I'd want to call up, I'd rather call old Thomas Hardy up. I like that Eustacia Vye" (17).

Right now I'm reading Out of Africa. I've read this already, but I always like to read things again.

For class, "most of the time we were on the Anglo Saxons. Beowulf, and old Grendel, and Lord Randal My Son, and all those things. But we had to read outside books for extra credit once in awhile, like Romeo and Juliet." I also read Hamlet, but the actors in the play I saw are just too phony.

D.B. had me read A Farewell to Arms last Summer. He said it was really good. I am also crazy about The Great Gatsby. Old Gatsby. Old Sport.

One day when I was walking along the street, I heard this kid singing a poem, and it made me realize that I want to be a catcher in the rye. It's called "Comin' Through the Rye" by Thomas Burns. It reminds me of having to rescue children in case they fall, and I really want to do that.
O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry;
She draigl't a' her petticoattie
Comin thro' the rye.

Chorus:
Comin thro the rye, poor body,
Comin thro the rye,
She draigl't a'her petticoatie,
Comin thro the rye!

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,[r] Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warld ken?

I'd like to start reading a little more.. Who knows, maybe I will when I go back to school, but I won't talk about any of that right now.