What Can You Learn From Salinger’s “Linchpin”: Holden Caulfield?

Hello SCG,

this is an emergency shipment with a book review of a novel which touched me deeply. This tiny book by J.D. Salinger blew my mind away. I know, I know many of you must have already read it during your school years, but for me it was first time “meeting with Salinger”  and I just want to express my gratitude for this “helluva” master-piece – The Catcher in the Rye.

Let me share with you THE quotes of novel’s 17 years old hero Holden Caulfield, which made me stick sticky notes into this treasure;

Let’s hear some of Holden’s thoughts:

*

What really knocks me out is a book, that when you are all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

Oh, boy how many phone calls I have already wished to make! And I trust I will be able to make some in this life! 😉

*

He was pretty handsome too – I’ll admit it. But he was mostly the kind of a handsome guy that if your parents saw his picture in your Year Book, they’d right away say: “Who is this boy?” I mean he was mostly a Year Book kind of handsome guy.

I hear ya, Holden. I feel dizzy with stomachache having a “Year Book handsome guys” around me;-) But again, sometimes one can get pleasantly surprised, though.

*

You don’t always have to get too sexy to get to know a girl.

Eureka! Very very mature observation, Holden! 😉

*

All those Ivy League bastards look alike. My father wants me to go to Yale, or maybe Princeton, but I swear I wouldn’t go to one of those Ivy League colleges, if I was dying, for God’s sake.

😉 Yes, Holden. Follow your heart not status and ego callings of so “alike society”.

*

If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off.

Indeed, always carry beginner’s mind with you, especially when you accomplish something. Don’t settle and never stop learning.

*

All you to have to do is to say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to do.

Yeah, just turn on a TV and listen to the language used by many professionals and politicians, they talk (by purpose) the way no one understands, so then ordinary people keep telling themselves: “Oh, he is so smart, I am so dumb. I better do what those smart people say.”

*

Lots of time you don’t know what interests you most, till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most.

I would upgrade Holden’s observation from talking to doing. You don’t know what you love to do the most, unless you do something what doesn’t interest you.

*

I mean how do you know what you are going to do till you do it? The answer is you don’t. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it’s a stupid question.

Yes, Holden. It is silly question…I face the same problem in my life, when people are asking me what is your plan, what you gonna do in your life? I cannot answer it, I will rather live it, I will do things and let that be my answer.

So, WHY did I get attracted to Holden so much?>>>Because I simply felt he would be “helluva”  Linchpin

SCG,

have a super cool weekend and get inspired by Holden’s purity and passion for life.

If you have not read this book, it is simply a must read!

See ya in the Question Of the Week.

i.