dual personalities

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published on July 16 in 1951. It has been translated into almost all of the world’s major languages. Around 250,000 copies are sold each year, with total sales of more than 65 million books. I am one of its biggest fans and have been since I first read it in the 10th grade. I was one of those teenagers that identified with Holden Caulfield and forty years later I still do. I love him and his creator as much as any fictional character and author out there.

“The part that got me was, there was a lady sitting next to me that cried all through the goddam picture. The phonier it got, the more she cried. You’d have thought she did it because she was kindhearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn’t. She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn’t take him. She kept telling him to sit still and behave himself. She was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they’re mean bastards at heart. I’m not kidding. ” (Chapter 18)

How right is that?