Day 10 – Favorite classic book

Now I hate most classics.  I just don't care about them.  I respect them, but that doesn't mean I need to pretend they're my favorite things in the world.  I love the people who only read (i.e. Sparknote) classics so they can reference them in conversation and sound impressive.  Me? I don't care about Jane Austen or her Pride and Prejudice or even the Zombies that followed.  But, I digress.

My favorite "classic" is hands down The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Yes, I love that emo Holden Caulfield and his hatred of all things phony. I ate that angst stuff up freshman year of high school and wrote the best essay ever on symbolism because of it. 

I loved the Catcher in the Rye.  It's one of the few classics I read in school that I quite willingly read once I started.  I didn't know what to expect, because the title pretty much means nothing until the end of the novel.  Like Uncle Jesse in that episode of "Full House" when he has to do a book report on Catcher ("You guys could try the Gibbler method. Rent the movie" "Kimmy, that's a teribble idea. And I checked, it's not on video"), I didn't want to read it at first.  I just assumed it would be boring.   But the guy runs away to NY, meets a prostitute, gets beat up by her pimp, and complains a lot.  What's not to love?  And oh, the symbolism! 

This book is actually on "The List" (YES) so I'm goin to stop now and get back to it some other time.  Maybe recopy that amazing essay on symbolism.  I recall talking about the ducks a lot.  A lot.