Friday, 29 January 2010

All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.

"I held hands with her all the time, for instance. That doesn't sound like much, I realize, but she was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddamn hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddamn movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. You never even worried with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not.

One other thing I thought of. One time, in this movie, Jane did something that just about knocked me out. The newsreel was on or something, and all of a sudden I felt this hand on the back of my neck, and it was Jane's. It was a funny thing to do. I mean she was quite young and all, and most girls if you see them putting their hand on the back of somebody's neck, they're around twenty five or thirty and usually doing it to their husband or their little kid - I do it to my kid sister Pheobe once in a while, for instance. But if a girls quite young and all and she does it, it's so pretty it just about kills you."

This is just one tiny section I had dogeared in what is still the best book I have ever read in my life, 6 years and about a thousand books on from when I was 15 and I got it for my birthday. I fell head over heels for Holden Caulfield.

This is just one small tribute to the amazing work of JD Salinger, and to my first great love, Holden Caulfield.

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