standalonehuman: (TogusaWorkDesk)
Togusa ([personal profile] standalonehuman) wrote in [community profile] retrospec2018-08-10 04:53 am

Literature Review

Hitori Togusa shared a photo.
8/11 near Apprassage


Catcher in the Rye, in English. Retrospec sent me this one a while back, but I had to read this thing in high school. World lit. Hated it then, but apparently it's important now.

It bothers me that I'm starting to understand it on a re-read. Holden has absolutely everything going for him, but chooses to try as hard as he can to not engage with society around him. Back in high school, I thought it was just a morality tale, a spook story for kids, scare them into figuring their lives out or turn out like him.

And then we all get dropped into a situation where it would be so easy to do exactly what Holden wishes he could. To decide that this life doesn't matter, and turn yourself deaf-mute to the implications. But even that wouldn't get him what it wants, would it?

Question one is, what keeps you going? Keeps you paying attention to the world around you?

Second question comes back to Retrospec's latest game. Anybody else get a jigsaw puzzle?

"Turn him to any cause of policy, the Gordian Knot of it he will unloose, familiar as his garter."
Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. The Archbishop describing how much Henry has changed as soon as he had to take the throne, going from a layabout of a prince to a sharp statesman of a king. It's really just a framing scene, telling the audience about the time that passed between plays. Odd quote to pull out.

So the last question is, what does that mean to anybody else?

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