I'll start with The Catcher in the Rye. It's not my favourite book, but it is an interesting read, as long as you can stand depressing stuff.
Now then, let us begin.
The Catcher in the Rye
]One
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all - I'm not saying that - but they're also as touchy as hell. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole damn autobiography or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last christmas just before I got pretty run down and had to come out here to take it easy. I mean, that's all I told D.B. about, and he's my brother and all. He's in Hollywood. That isn't too far from this crumby place, and he comes over to visit me practically every weekend. He's going to drive me home when I go home next month maybe. He just got a Jaguar. One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour. It cost him damn near four thousand bucks. He's got a lot of dough, now. He didn't use to. He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home. He wrote this terrific book of short stories, the secret goldfish, in case you've never heard of him. The best one in it was 'The Secret Goldfish.' It was about this little kid that wouldn't let anyone look at his goldfish because he'd bought it with his own money. It killed me. Now he's out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me.
Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this school that's in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You've probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hot-shot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even one saw a horse anywhere near the place. And underneath the guy on a horse's picture, it always says: ' since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men.' Strictly for the birds. They don't do any damn more molding at pencey than they do at any other school. and I didn't know anyone who was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came bo Pencey that way.
Anyway, it was the Saturday of the football game with Saxton Hall. The game with Saxton Hall was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if Pencey didn't win.
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