Christ
Almighty! I am blown away, I am devastated, my life has just been changed. I
finished reading my favourite book of all time, the holy Bible for the rest of
my days. I’ve just eaten the last 60 and something pages for the last 2 hours
hoping I would still leave something for tomorrow, for I hoped to procrastinate
the final sentence… I can only say SALINGER and that is all. All you need to
know about God’s human incarnation. Probably most of you, decent readers have
devoured Catcher in the rye in your teenage years, whose impact is massive
enough. But one step higher is Franny and Zooey (I’m not sure about Nine Stories, such a shame, I admit
it), just because you need to get to another level of your spiritual growing to
fully grasp what lies between those beautiful sentences.. and there it is, my
pretty simple copy lying on my desk, actually I have it for considerable amount
of time (bought it half an year ago) and only now I found the time, courage and
energy to get so inspired by it, the way I am at this very moment. I won’t tell
a word about it, about the plot or whatever, I just feel the unbearable urge to
share the inspiration and enlightment I’ve just experienced through this priceless
treasure lying on my desk. I can’t help but express what this unique feeling
is, this feeling of recognizing the brilliance of a talent. With no fear of
sounding cliché, I can totally identify myself with Franny, absolutely and indisputably,
and my future self, what I have always tried to become as state of mind and
spirit – with Zooey. And these is this little trick that never failed to
clearly show me when a really great movie or book is at my disposal, when I am
just in awe of its brilliance – when somebody (my fav personage, preferably) is
smoking in the book/movie, I become so much full of the desire to have a quick
drag myself that I just lit up a cig and I go through the exact scene I’ve been
reading/watching in my mind. Now I would
like to quote the book, I mean the whole of it, but of course I won’t do it,
just because that is the most private experience a man can have.. I would
provide only hints at the infinite worthiness of this writing that will
probably hook up those of you that are sensible enough:
“I’m just
sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that
wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody
interesting. It’s disgusting.”
“And I
can't be running back and forth forever between grief and high delight.”
“I don't
know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it
doesn't make you happy.”
" You
raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The
goddam 'unskilled laughter' coming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's
right — God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of
your business, really. That's none of your business, Franny. An artist's only
concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not
anyone else's."
"The
only think you can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for
God, if you want to - be God's actress, if you want to. What could be prettier?
You can at least try to, if you want to--there's nothing wrong in trying."
"You
take a look around your college campus, and the world, and politics, and one
season of summer stock, and you listen to the conversation of a bunch of nitwit
college students, and you decide that everything's ego, ego, ego, and the only
intelligent thing for a girl to do is to lie around and shave her head and say
the Jesus prayer and beg God for little mystical experience that'll make her
nice and happy."
"“You
don't know how to talk to people you don't like. Don't love, really. You can't
live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes."
"Seymour
once said to me - in a crosstown bus, of all places - that all legitimate
religious study must lead to unlearning the differences, the illusory
differences, between boys and girls, animals and stones, day and night, heat
and cold."
"It's
everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so--I don't know--not wrong, or
even mean, or even stupid, necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless--and
sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like
that, you're conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different
way."
"I'm
just so sick of pedants and conceited little tearer-downers I could
scream."
"Let's
just try to have a marvelous time this weekend. I mean not try to analyze
everything to death for once, if possible. Especially me. I love you."
“I'm sick
of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”
“I love you
to pieces, distraction, etc.”
“You're
lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddam phenomenal world.”
“She was
not one for emptying her face of expression. ”
“In the
first place, you’re way off when you start railing at things and people instead
of at yourself. ”
“I do like
him. I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I
could respect....”
“I don’t
think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while—just once
in a while—there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that
knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting
waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a
campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever
even hear the world 'wisdom' mentioned!”
“I'm not
afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I
will compete — that's what scares me. That's why I quit the Theatre Department.
Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and
just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it
right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to
be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make
some kind of a splash.”
“Always,
always, always referring every goddam thing that happens right back to our
lousy little egos.”
“Don't you
think I have sense enough to worry about my motives for saying the prayer?
That's exactly what's bothering me so. Just because I'm choosy about what I
want - in this case, enlightenment or peace, instead or money or prestige or
game or any of those things, doesn't mean I'm not as egotistical and
self-seeking as everybody else. If anything, I'm more so!”
“If you can't, or won't, think of Seymour,
then you go right ahead and call in some ignorant psychoanalyst. You just do
that. You just call in some analyst who's experienced in adjusting people to
the joys of television, and Life magazine every Wednesday, and European travel,
and the H-bomb, and Presidential elections, and the front page of the Times,
and God knows what else that's gloriously normal.”
“The little girl on the plane
Who turned her doll's head around
To look at me.”
“Nobody who's really using his ego,
his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies”
“We are, all four of us, blood
relatives, and we speak a kind of esoteric, family language, a sort of semantic
geometry in which the shortest distance between any two points is a fullish
circle.”
“Listen, I don't care what you say
about my race, creed, or religion, Fatty, but don't tell me I'm not sensitive
to beauty. That's my Achilles' heel, and don't you forget it. To me, everything
is beautiful. Show me a pink sunset, and I'm limp, by God. Anything. Peter Pan.
Even before the curtain goes up at Peter Pan I'm a goddamn puddle of tears.”
“I would like you to clear up for me
just what the hell your motives are for saying it.' He hesitated, but not long
enough to give Franny a chance to cut in on him. 'As a matter of simple logic,
there's no difference at all, that I can see, between the man who's greedy for
material treasure—or even intellectual treasure—and the man who's greedy for
spiritual treasure. As you say, treasure's treasure, God damn it, and it seems
to me that ninety per cent of all the world-hating saints in history were just
as acquisitive and unattractive, basically, as the rest of us are.”
“Jesus knew — knew — that we're
carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too
goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look...”
“You know, I'm the only one in this
family who has no problems, and you know why? Because any time I'm feeling
blue, or puzzled, what I do, I just invite a few people to come visit me in the
bathroom, and--well, we iron things out together, that's all.”
“If you're a poet, you do something
beautiful. I mean, you're supposed to leave something beautiful after you get
off the page and everything. The ones you're talking about don't leave a
single, solitary thing beautiful. All that maybe the slightly better ones do is
sort of get inside your head and leave something there, but just because they
do, just because they know how to leave something, it doesn't have to be a poem
for heaven's sake. It may just be some kind of terribly fascinating, syntaxy
droppings--excuse the expression. Like Manlius and Esposito and all those poor
men.”
“I didn't want any degrees if all
the ill-read literates and radio announcers and pedagogical dummies I knew had
them by the peck. ”
“What happened was, I got the idea
in my head ㅡ and I could not get it out ㅡ that college was just one more dopey, inane place in the world
dedicated to piling up treasure on earth and everything. I mean treasure is treasure,
for heaven's sake. What's the difference whether the treasure is money, or
property, or even culture, or even just plain knowledge? It all seemed like
exactly the same thing to me, if you take off the wrapping ㅡ and still does. Sometimes I think that knowledge ㅡ when it's knowledge for knowledge's sake, anyway ㅡ is the worst of all. The least excusable, certainly. I don't think it
would've all got me quite so down if just once in a while ㅡ just once in a while ㅡ there was at least some polite little
perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and if it
doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never
even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal
of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word "wisdom" mentioned!
Do you want to hear something funny? Do you want to hear something really
funny? In almost four years lf college ㅡ and this is
the absolute truth ㅡ in almost four years of college, the only time
I can remember ever even hearing the expression "wise man" being used
was in my freshman year, in Political Science! And you know how it was used?
Itwas used in reference to some nice old poopy elder statesman whi'd made a fortune
in the stock market and then gone to Washington to be an adviser to the
President Roosevelt. Honestly, now! Four years of college, almost! I'm not
saying it happens to everybody, but I justget so upset when I think about it I
could die.”
“Why are you breaking down,
incidentally? I mean if you’re able to go into a collapse with all your might,
why can’t you use the same energy to stay well and busy?”
“If you're going to go to war
against the System, just do your shooting like a nice, intelligent girl ㅡ because the enemy's there, and not because you don't like his hairdo or
his goddamn necktie.”
“You’re absolutely right. You’re
absolutely right. It’s staggering how you jump straight the hell into the heart
of a matter. I’m goosebumps all over… By God, you inspire me. You inflame me,
Bessie. You know what you’ve done? Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve
given this whole goddam issue a fresh, new, Biblical slant. I wrote four papers
in college on the Crucifixion—five, really—and every one of them worried me
half crazy because I thought something was missing. Now I know what it was. Now
it’s clear to me. I see Christ in an entirely different light. His unhealthy
fanaticism. His rudeness to those nice, sane, conservative, tax-paying
Pharisees. Oh, this is exciting! In your simple, straightforward bigoted way,
Bessie, you’ve sounded the missing keynote of the whole New Testament. Improper
diet. Christ lived on cheeseburgers and Cokes. For all we know he probably fed
the mult—”
“Quite probably, he resented and
feared any signs of detachment in a girl he was seriously dating.”
“And I used to hate myself so, when
I was in a play, to be backstage after the play was over. All those egos
running around feeling terribly charitable and warm. Kissing everybody and
wearing their makeup all over the place, and then trying to be horribly natural
and friendly when your friends came backstage to see you.”
…. And that just nothing, just a
speck in the desert of awesomeness this Bible offers.
I will never be the same.. I’m in
love..with a book! A book about life and everything.
p.s. a piece of useless info: the
actress Zooey Deschanel is named after this very Salinger’s character.
