Despite a bit of a break, I’m still plugging away on Catcher. The next section wanders into some depressing territory that’s a bit hard to convey on-screen. There’s a lot of wandering around, indecision, memories, etc., which is a big point of the book and illustrates Holden’s state of mind, but translating this to the screen can be a challenge.
When I left off with Act II, Part II, Holden had just had the uncomfortable encounter with the young prostitute, Sunny. He sent her away without having sex with her but paid her the $5 her pimp, Maurice, said was the price of “a throw.” I really don’t like that terminology. Quite icky.
When J.D. Salinger died earlier this year, I felt ambivalent, despite the fact that I’d nearly worshiped him in high school as one of the only writers out there who “got” what it was like to be a smart and disillusioned teen. Somewhere along the line, I either stopped being a smart, disillusioned teen or realized that everyone believed themselves to be smart and disillusioned and so rejected it in favor of some other modus operandi.