Lunchtime read: The Catcher in the Rye

Apart from an outward confidence that he doesn’t care and flunking out of school doesn’t matter it becomes obvious that Holden is suffering from loneliness and as he tries to kill the hours he comes across as an isolated individual that craves companionship but when he gets it can’t stop lying,

Highlights from chapters 9 – 11

* After getting off the train he heads for a hotel and checks in but can barely contain an urge to phone someone so phones up the number of a girl he briefly met at a party but it is late and she turns him down

* He heads down to the hotel bar/club and dances with three girls who bore him and remind him of just how lonely he is so he starts to think about Jane, the girl he had a fight with his roommate over

* The way he reminisces about Jane it becomes clear she meant a great deal to him and the fact he is still eaten up by wondering what she got up to with his friend also upsets him

* Meanwhile you learn that he has a 10 year old sister he adores, an elder brother who has made it in Hollywood and another brother who dies but was a good friend to Holden

More tomorrow…