He’s shaped generations on top of generations.All those movies about ppl in private schools/boarding schools are somehow linked to him. and John Lennon songs ‘it’s getting better all the time’, we are dictated by their time. And his criticizing systems of schooling , what we’re graded on ,(his essay on the Egyptians: He wrote what he would keep with him without using using any of the ‘technical jargon’ he was supposed to. It wasn’t that he lacked interest or motivation , he just didn’t see the point of memorizing just for a test something he wouldn’t carry with him. On the one hand they tell you to make it as simple as possible , put it in your ‘own’ words and on the other they want ‘facts’, ”Figures’ and ‘quotes’. The system hasn’t changed , it’s still less about learning and more about getting the grade , and there’s a formula for getting the grade and it isn’t as is oft mistaken, speaking your mind/using your head. Even in English which is supposed to be about ‘just’ expressing yourself , you get better marks for using a better vocabulary, punctuation matters , blah blah blah , what you’re learning boils down to a strict format that everyone around you drones on too and the school keeps telling you how much they detest and discourage rote-learning. anything that sounds original is ‘wrong’ irrelevant anything that ’sounds like’ the text is also wrong , unless you quote the text and make it look/sound like you and still somehow not be plagiarizing anything :O )
and phone calls
and teachers who smile beguiling, pat your head, rub your back,stare,watch out for you and make you wonder.
then there’s stuff I can’t relate to. All that stuff about being a flit(homosexual) and finding out, out of the blue. And he’s so incredibly homophobic… I get that some ppl ‘are’ but a lot of ppl aren’t…
Okay, when I was school ppl started calling me a lesbian , it was a joke I think … anyway I* wasn’t ‘afraid’ I’d turn into one, it’s not ’scary’
and there’s Freud’s theory about our sexual stages that I completely disagree with.
and adolescent prostitution, (I know it happens but the hotel thing…)
and the small bottoms’ thing (I guess you’d have to be a guy(though when I come to think of it , I would prefer a guy whose ass wasn’t falling all over the place, to each his own…I LIKE BIG BUTTS(the song))
and I was never sent to ‘military school’ (boys go thee to be reformed???)
and what about reform-schools , wouldn’t it be interesting if he wrote about the (out of line)kids at military school. The military pro’lly owned his ‘freedom of speech right’
I get the lipstick thing though , but today it’s lip gloss and sometimes it just looks horrible…
and class: owning nice things that make you look rich. (Like designer wear, handbags ,cellphones and i-pods)
and brushing your teeth for vanity
and being (a private-slob) dirty in private , or for a couple of days when you’re really low and think of yourself as grimy and ugly but he doesn’t go into that ,
nothing to reveal that he is the least bit tainted.
like he’s too pure to fit in.
It’s really narcissistic actually
and his reason not to conform, loving himself too much like a Grandiose complex.
“I’m different , I’m better”
and it’s isn’t grades or better photographs that make him better , ‘cos he’s not photogenic and he ‘did’ get the boot….It’s his parents’ money and not being able to follow his impulses when a girl says ‘Don’t please don’t', he doesn’t say he didn’t want to , so it isn’t character , he couldn’t bring himself to it , his reflexes(involuntary) fought off his intent (voluntary).
ok, then there’s that hint on incest with the father walking the house in his underwear, my dad used to do that … yeah

He doesn’t talk about taking drugs or alcohol I suppose because there was nothing sinister attached to it at the time or dance parties , though he does talk about a nightclub and jazz , jazz was ‘big’ then like ‘hard rock’ or something , they didn’t even have pop music ,not ‘even’ the Beatles I like Die Hard 4.0

but Hamlet ‘is’ nice (Oedipus complex) and Thomas Hardy , I’ve read a pair of blue eyes, mayor of casterbridge and the woodlanders and that woman wasn’t in those books, I started off with Jude the obscure but the tree-sap representing blood and how depressed Jude was, struck me as ‘lame’.

hmm
I don’t really love catcher like I ‘did’ the first time I read it
or Franny and Zooey
maybe ;cos I haven’t read either recently.

and the ‘F-word’ bothers him a lot!

I remember being so upset that my teacher decided not to test us on the book, because I read it 3 times that summer.

I think I’m due to read it again
…Katies latest post…Feeding the Addiction

i’d never support classice being taken out of a curriculum tho.

Perks of Being a Wallflower can sometimes be harshly judged as being TOO Catcher-ish or, as overused a descriptor as it is, emo. Both I feel were pivotal in making me feel less freakish and alone, though I feel a closer kinship with Perks. Geez I guess my high school was behind on the times, because in honors we skipped over most widely accepted classics which incidentally (ha Perks reference!) were relegated to the lower tracked classes. To this day I am jealous of the books I missed out on… partially because they were shorter