as sensitive as a toilet seat

I am reading Catcher in the Rye for a second time. The first time was in Junior year, for American Lit. class. I have to admit that you need to be in America to appreciate the novel. The first time I read it I thought it was holy literati nonsense, trying to be cool and rebelious, and there was not even a plot. This time, however, since a lot of the cultural elements and living scenarios (esp. those in New York) are making a lot of sense to me (see, I didn't spend 1.5 years in this country like an idiot), it kills me... I mean, the novel.

I love the way Holden Caulfield bitches about people. He's certainly sarcastic and cynical, but not too much so. He's just marvelously penetrating, without the usual twists and hidden references and symbolism of cynicist novels. Say, when he talks about Sally Hayes, about how it took him a long time to find out she was stupid, he said the reason "was because she knew quite a lot about the theater and plays and literature and all that stuff. If somebody knows quite a lot about those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they are really stupid or not."

Yeay! you see how I hate myself and all the other literature and arts people altogether. What we are so fond of, what many people are doing for life, is actually only some props, masks, a disguise of our stupidity, a nice package to market the cheap soul underneath. Salinger was mocking people like me as well as himself, but he didn't do it in a way to make it daunting and depressing. He tells you, hey here's a little "secret" both you and I already know. I know you would never say it, so let me say it out.

I also love the way he feel sad about things seemingly out of no reason.
In the beginning chapter, when Holden was ready to be kicked out of Pencey school. He said when he leaves a place he wants to know he's leaving it. If he doesn't, he feels even worse. It's a beautiful remark. The author never explain these remarks, which makes them even more beautiful. These seemingly simply and not-to-the-point descriptions of Holden's feelings always end up hitting right on the target in me, because they are the more realist simulations of how my own emotions develop.

My discovery this time also include something about the American society, about how it seems to be static in the following over 50 years after the novel was written. The New York City night life described in the novel hasn't changed much, to my knowledge and experience. And we still hear all those superficial ideas today about Hollywood and so on. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.