retrospec | 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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Even I knew to doodle on scap paper during class. Exactly. Just because they don't have the app doesn't mean they aren't important. And I'm pretty sure my parents would still judge me if I didn't graduate college, even if they knew that reality was crumbling around us.

[Asian-American parents, am I right?]

Yikes, there is that.

Hunh. Wait, I hadn't thought about this before, the years don't match up. This can't have been his school book. Year on the book is copyright 2029, his credentials at his job are 2030.

What the hell?

Maybe the dude was one of those assholes who draws on books?

Maybe? He’s got a few passages tabbed, but he only highlighted and wrote in the book once, just repeating the line in English. It’s the same point in the book I’ve been focusing on, Holden giving up on trying to connect with people.

[After a second...]

Wow, I hate this book even more now thanks to it reminding me of my past self. I didn't think that was even possible?

Join the club?

Did you see anything you want to talk about?

I didn't get a memory, I just realized why it was bugging me so much. Dazai 'Disqualified From Being Human' Osamu could slide right into Holden's role with minimal changes to the book.

Wait. First, you know the name of the person you're seeing, and it's not your name?

It's his pen name. His legal name is the same as mine, but he seems to have pretty much only gone by Dazai by a certain point in his lifetime.

Aha. So, a good way to keep him mentally separate from you.

But there's something that resonates with Holden's detached way of looking at the world?

I have one of his books. He talks about not being able to connect with the rest of society - that 'disqualified from being human' thing - and at some point giving up. Which I maybe would be more sympathetic to if this giving up didn't involve leaving a loving wife! getting hooked on drugs! and being a huge asshole!!

Wow.

Why is that always the direction it goes? Choosing that disconnect always leads to self-destruction. Believing you're above society and therefore more enlightened than everyoe else is.

Guess that's a trap all of us have to keep from falling into.

It's easy to forget when you're on a self-righteous tirade, but society is just people. Nothing good ever comes of deciding to stop caring about other people.

Why'd he do it?

Holden chose to give up on people because it was like he knew some secret that nobody else could figure out. Like he couldn't wake them up. Any idea why Dazai made the same choice?

Dazai's more the opposite, feeling like everyone else knows something he doesn't that lets them function in society. There's a line in his book that I'd translate like... I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. Funny how whether you give up on human beings because you think you're smarter than them or because you think you'll never be able to understand them, the results are pretty similar.

But the motivation matters, I think. That's far more depressing than egoistic.

So. Keeping engaged in your social world, that's one way to keep from turning into him?

Dazai's depressing. And has no stops between 'I'm the best and everyone should love me' and 'I'm worthless and should die'. It is. I'd keep engaged anyway, but any way to not be him helps.

Maybe he was just severely depressed. Thinking in absolutes like that, if absolutely everyone doesn't love me, then I am terrible?

..So yeah, anything to keep from turning into that.

I'm pretty sure he could have used some therapy. But I'm also pretty sure he was living in the time where lobotomies were being developed and seen as a good idea, so good luck getting actual therapy back then.

[Please pause while Togusa keeps getting asked why he is staring horrified into space because he has no idea what to say about that.]

Okay. Maybe that wouldn't have gone well for him. Yikes.

But it means you have to keep an eye on your own mental state, then, if his starts bleeding in?

[Unfortunately, that isn't a fantasy concept or something that only happens in a past self's dystopia.]

I always do. Turning into him is the last thing I want to do.

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