Literature Review

[standalonehuman]

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?

Comments

[thesettingsun]

Good to know other people hated that book in school. Also that cover sucks?

To answer question one: even if it's hard to engage with society right now, the people around me still matter. There's too many people I'd disappoint if I decided 'none of this matters I'm going to stop trying'.

Question two: maybe it's something about our problem-solving skills getting better? Which, speaking as someone who's had the app for over a year, I don't think is actually true.

[diamant]

i was always fond of catcher in the rye actually
but i understand why it isn't for everyone

i only have an answer to your first question so far
i tried very hard to shut the world out for a long time
but in the end that didn't help make my pain go away
so i decided my life was going to be beautiful instead
so beautiful it'll burn your eyes out
and you can't have that without awareness of the world
so i guess i need that in order to live as i want to live
even if that means accepting the bad things along with the good
there's beauty to be found in terrible things too

[floret]

Is that really what Catcher in the Rye is about? I thought it was about Holden, like, spiraling downward into a mental breakdown under the pressure of his horrible depression and unprocessed grief and disastrously failed attempts to connect with others.

You're supposed to cut the Gordian knot, I thought.

[standalonehuman]

And that's what I'd love to hear. You're a lot more sympathetic to Holden. His failure to connect with others, I think, came from his refusal to buy in to what they thought was important. Anything they thought was important, even if it was something that would benefit him, too.

The cutting of the knot is the famous answer, yeah. If all you're trying to do is make there not be a knot anymore, it's the efficient answer. But what if you want to preserve the rope?

[standalonehuman]

What did you like about it?

I'm sorry you had to hurt to find it, but that is an amazing way of looking at the world. And I agree with you, even as I try to prevent as many terrible things as I can. There can be beauty.

Does how you live end up inspiring other people?

[standalonehuman]

It kind of looks like somebody drew the face on it after? How bored were you..?

Even the people not on the app. They don't notice monsters or the city vanishing, but they'd notice you. Hunh.

[Please hold through this interruption of service while Togusa swears a lot and kicks himself for cutting himself off from someone not currently on the app.]

I think it's true. Maybe. In a way of speaking.

[floret]

I don't think that was really a choice he was making, though...
I remember I felt like what he was really frustrated with was people who were okay, or people who could act like they were okay, and kind of just this big impassive world that demanded okayness. I mean, it's true that he was self-centered, but all the misery he was carrying around was too heavy for him, and too hard to see through. Even though he was trying to be closed off, he couldn't help looking for opportunities to sort of reach out... not really asking for help, but kind of saying please, I'm right here, I need help... making bad decisions about who to be vulnerable with, and feeling the pain of rejection too intensely. Like he was just one big raw nerve. And how beautiful and heartbreaking the idea was of just being able to catch people and save them, the way no one saved his brother.

But I might've been projecting.
And I'm probably forgetting a lot of stuff.

[standalonehuman]

No, you're on to something. And I think you're right. From Holden's perspective, the idea that things could ever be okay again was so false to him. He keeps using words like fake or phony to describe the people around him. But he was trying anyway.

I guess I focused in too much on the moment he decided to stop trying. But another way to look at that moment was a wish for a wakeup call, for everyone to stop pretending that things are okay. If he stops playing along, one way to look at it is that he just disengages, but the flip side is that it's a lot harder for people to rope him into their pretense.

Maybe that's why I'm fixating on that feeling right now. But the people around us literally can't stop pretending.

[thesettingsun]

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?]

[floret]

...It's scary, isn't it?
Getting Retrospec in the first place, and realizing all these things... like that there weren't always chocobos, or that blue and green were supposed to have existed all along. If I accepted that knowledge as the truth, I had to accept that I'd been completely out of touch with reality before without having any idea... and if I didn't, I had to accept that I was out of touch with reality now and had no way to get back to it. It shook me up, but my brother and a lot of my friends were here too, so it wasn't really a difficult choice. "I was delusional before, but I'm seeing clearly now"--that's unnerving, but it's a lot better than "I'm delusional now, and there's nothing I can do about it."

But now there are even different groups of people on Retrospec remembering things differently. And there's not exactly any straightforward way to find out who's right.

[standalonehuman]

You can only act on the information that you have. It's one reason to keep on learning things, but reminding myself of that fact is what keeps me from being frustrated at the people not on the app.

It's harder when it's literally your identity that people are remembering differently, though. But the same thing stays true. You can only act on what you know, on what feels true to you.

How are you handling it all?

[standalonehuman]

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?

[thesettingsun]

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

[standalonehuman]

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.

[hauntedsavior]

Not especially odd.

Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain,
His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow,
His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

I am far from a Shakespearean scholar, but do the Archbishop's words not strike you as incredulous here? A great change has occurred and none are sure how or when it happened. Henry V once behaved in one distinct way and transformed into what appears to be a completely different person overnight.

[ingodswelove]

Eirian wonders if the Catcher in the Rye would make a good play?

Anyway!

Eirian really likes attention! That keeps me going! ^-^ People are great. But just getting to be friendly with them, and make them smile, it means alot to Eirian.

[And Eirian is so excited by the last part, that he forgets to answer the second question.]

AHH!! Henry V! To Eirian, this line means that Henry is capable, and able to resolve things as easily with the knowledge as if they were the back of his hand. ^-^ Do you love plays? I recommend them. Henry V is particularly fun.

[standalonehuman]

A metaphor for our own transformations, then? Even if they don't notice things on an individual basis, the physical changes, the people around us still notice the larger changes that we're going through. The part of life still being lived.

It must be just as mystifying to them.

[standalonehuman]

Somehow I doubt it. The message really gets lost if you’re viewing Holden’s behavior from the outside, instead of seeing it from inside his head. If all you’re seeing is what he’s doing, there’s no reason to pay attention to him. I still judge him harshly anyway, even from seeing that perspective.

I do like plays. But given what that line means, how does it relate to us? Why is this the message that Retrospec is leaving for us?

[destiny_key]

we didnt have to read that one
i think maybe our teacher didnt like it either lol
we read of mice and men instead

also did someone draw on the cover???

[standalonehuman]

I think so! It really looks like it! Just in case, I’m not trying to clean it off.

Yeah, if you haven’t read it, I dont recommend it. There’s an interesting analogy to our current situation? But putting up with Holden as a character is not worth it. He’s so whiny.

[destiny_key]

yeah it sounds kinda boring
most of the books from high school were boring tbh

online school in general was kind of boring lol

i liked the ones we read this year though!!!

[standalonehuman]

Things are a little different back home. I only ended up with any sort of required reading because I went after the coursework. I wanted to go to America for University. Most students stick to the textbooks only. I can't imagine how it would work online?

So what was this year?

[hauntedsavior]

Perhaps. Knowing that they, too, do not know what has happened is not especially encouraging.

The question becomes, then, whether we are the strawberry or the nettle.

[standalonehuman]

There are a lot of people who are hoping that this whole life in Recolle has been the nettle, the 'mask of wildness' that was just an act, and that Retrospec's truth is who they really are. That they were someone special underneath all the time. There are some people I can't begrudge that idea from. Others who are being insufferable with it, and if they're treating this like wish fulfillment, I'll argue with them.

But me?

Henry couldn't have become great if he hadn't put aside his childish ways, given up his life from before. But who the hell wants to be King?

[hauntedsavior]

Hear, hear. There is much to be said for growing as a person, as you and I both naturally have, without allowing the things that Retrospec has done to us to dictate what we grow into.

I would much prefer fulfilling my own personal goals than believing my purpose is to fulfill goals imposed upon me. I would have to imagine being royalty is exhausting.