:26:02
Young Hinckley, the whiz kid who shot
Reagan and his press secretary, said:
:26:06
"If you want my defence, all you
have to do is read... Catcher in the Rye. "
:26:13
- I haven't read it in years.
- Shh.
:26:15
I borrowed a copy from a young friend.
I wanted to see what she had underlined.
:26:19
And I read this book to find out why
this touching, beautiful, sensitive story,
:26:25
published in July 1951,
had turned into this manifesto of hate.
:26:31
I started reading. It's exactly as I had
remembered. Everybody's a phoney.
:26:35
Page two - "My brother's
in Hollywood being a prostitute."
:26:38
Page three -
"What a phoney slob his father was."
:26:41
Page nine -
"People never notice anything."
:26:45
Then, on page 22, my hair stood up.
:26:49
Well...
:26:50
Remember Holden Caulfield, the definitive
sensitive youth wearing his hunter's cap?
:26:55
A deer hunter's cap?
:26:57
"Like hell it is. I sort of closed one eye
like I was taking aim at it."
:27:01
"This is a people shooting hat."
:27:04
"I shoot people in this hat."
:27:09
This book is preparing people for bigger
moments than I had ever dreamed of.
:27:13
Then, on page 89,
"I'd rather push a guy out the window
:27:18
or chop his head off with an axe
than sock him in the jaw."
:27:22
"I hate fistfights. What scares
me most is the other guy's face."
:27:29
I finished the book.
It's touching and comic.
:27:32
The boy wants to do so much
and can't do anything.
:27:35
Hates all phoniness
and only lies to others.
:27:38
Wants everyone to like him but is only
hateful and is completely self involved.
:27:44
In other words, a pretty accurate
picture of a male adolescent.
:27:51
What alarms me about the book - not the
book so much as the aura about it - is this.
:27:58
The book is primarily about paralysis.
The boy can't function.