A Salute to Some Great Women in History

I'm not sure I have mentioned this before, but I love my job. I get tired of young people, and I get overwhelmed by the information age, but I do, I still love it. One aspect that makes me excited to come here in the morning is that I work with some amazing women. They make me laugh every day, and I don't think there is any better measure of a job. As the school year comes to an end, we are all counting the minutes, but I just have to say, I will miss these ladies. They are my friends--here are some pictures that might give you a little taste of life at Oak Harbor High School. Cheers to great women! (Obviously the first one was our Christmas party, and if you can't read them, those shirts say: "Don't rock it, WALK IT!"--we wore them in the half marathon)

Catcher in the Rye--Final Exam

I have decided that the best way to personally analyze the novel as a whole is to take a final exam on it. So I have taken the liberty of writing one for myself.

1. "They" say this is a coming of age novel. Do you agree? And if so, what is the turning point for Holden?

I do see Catcher as a coming of age novel. Throughout the account, Holden proves himself to be completely self-centered and adolescent--thinking only of his own needs and desires. He hints at things he likes (his brother Allie, his sister Pheobe, the ducks in the lake...), but focuses primarily on his dislikes (Hollywood, fancy prep schools, anyone who is a big phoney, which is pretty much everyone he meets). This is a very adolescent attitude--I see teenagers everyday who are consumed by the negative aspects of life--which teacher is a jerk, whose shoes are ugly, why do we have to write? can't we just do nothing? this class is so boring! They are incapable of seeing the world beyond themselves, of noticing when people are hurting, how their words affect others, or what would be the consequence of hard work. Holden too wants life to be easy. He doesn't want to have to deal with others, to work at relationships. He'd rather go and live in a cabin in the woods and pretend to be a deaf-mute so that no one will talk to him. It is ridiculous and immature for one to think that he could go through life without dealing with people who he doesn't like. But Holden does grow up. He does look beyond his own nose. I think that the turning point in the novel comes when Holden meets Pheobe at the musem, after asking her to come and say goodbye to him. He expects her to come and maybe to be sad, but she shows up with a suitcase wanting to go with him out west. Holden is beside himself, it is as if he realizes for the first time that Pheobe looks up to him and wants to follow in his footsteps. This makes Holden go crazy--he doesn't want her to look up to him, he feels worthless. It is like this conversation with Pheobe triggers something in him, and he starts to think about the consequences of his actions, about how he affects others. I guess you could say that Pheobe saves him in a way.

2. How do you see yourself in Holden? What lessons helped you to come of age?

Oohh, big question. And quite personal too. How presumtuous of you to ask. Well, first off, I, like Holden, am still very selfish. I'm reminded of this daily when faced with some ungodly task of motherhood. I have also always been a dreamer. Big, crazy dreams about living in faraway lands and being a writer. (Holden's dreams are about living in the woods and being a hermit) I've lived in my head most of my life. I think one of my turning points was when I lived in Costa Rica for six months, my junior year of college. It is a beautiful country with big, wide-open spaces. I still didn't finish my "book". It was also gross, big bugs everywhere. I stopped eating meat and longed for my mother's living room. I, in fact, love America. It is a wonderful free society and I am ever thankful that I was born here. (That is potentially an ethnocentric statement, but damn it, it is true). Another turning point came in my life when I graduated from college and couldn't get a job with my English degree. (!) What a shock! (!) I applied for tons of publishing and editing jobs in New York, Los Angeles, and London. Never heard back from any of them. The clencher was when I applied for a job at the Skagit Valley Herald (Mount Vernon's tiny newspaper) as some sort of advertising representative. I did have an interview for this one, but I was passed up for a more experienced candidate. Really? It doesn't get much more humiliating than that. At this point I realized that my dreams might just possibly need some adjustments. I went back to grad school and got my teaching degree. You know what they say--"those that can't--teach!"

3. Sum it up--what are your thoughts on the ending?
I appreciated that the story came full circle. Clearly Holden is in some sort of mental institution or rehab center. I think it is a mark of his newly-found maturity that he can reflect upon his journey and share his story. He is starting to reconnect with humanity--he even misses old Stradlater! "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

A Blast from the Past, from the Future

In case you are reading along, we are going to start 1984 next week! Grab a copy from your local used book store, library, or online emporium and join the adventure.

A Bunch of Phoneys

I haven't had time to blog or even really to read this week! I have been writing and grading final exams, all of them very insightful and meaningful. As we speak, my Honors students are taking a final over the novel Lord of the Flies--it is a challenging test and I am somewhat sadistically satisfied as I watch them toil over their responses to this interesting and provocative novel. One thing about teaching smart kids is that occasionally smart kids know they are smart and they start to get really annoying. This is not always the case, but this year I have had a group of students that struggle with seeing the world beyond themselves. I makes me wonder what old Holden would say to them if he heard some of the egocentric statements that come out of their mouths. I think he would appropriately deem them "a bunch of phoneys"--I shouldn't be so harsh, a few years from now they will have experienced some failures and will be much more well-rounded and we would most likely be about to have a conversation without me having to run an internal dialogue.

Part of me wishes that someone would write me a note similar to Holden's note to Mr. Spencer. Here is what it would say:

Dear Mrs. Butler, That is all I know about Ralph and Piggy. I can't seem to get into the deserted-island thing, although your thoughts on the book are facinating and you are strikingly beautiful. It is ok if you give me a B, as I have A's in all my other classes. Sincerely yours, 9th Grade Honors English Student.

An honors student would never think it was ok to fail, so I had to change that part to make it more realistic.

Mr.Caulfield, the doctor will see you...

Old Holden is making my heart break. Clearly he is crying out for help--doing all he can to get kicked out of multiple schools, running away, screaming for someone to just let him talk. Here is the sum of it, as I can recall: After his tangle with the pimp and prostitute and his breakfast with the two nuns, Holden decides to call Sally Hayes and see if she wants to see a show (a live show of course, since the movies depress the hell out of him). She agrees and they go--Holden knows that the actors are a bunch of phoneys, but for the most part he doesn't say anything for Sally's sake. The thing that is ridiculous to me about him taking old Sally out is that he doesn't even like her, we all know he is in love with Jane. Somehow, though, he is afraid to really talk to the people he cares the most about (like Jane and Phoebe). Anyway, after the show they go ice-skating and this is where the heartbreak comes in. Holden confesses that he is sick of school, sick of New York, sick of all the phoneys in the world. He asks Sally to run away with him to Vermont to live in the woods where he could chop his own firewood and all. Of course she goes nuts and tells him he is ridiculous and they end up parting ways unamicably.

This is when I started to see the signs--I must be dim or something. Like any teenager struggling with depression, Holden is doing everything he can to get someone to help him--I think he has called 30 people in one day! But because everyone is such a phoney, they don't get it. I just want to grab him and sit him down next to Hurley in that crazy mental institution. Then at least they would both have someone real to talk to who would listen to them for about the first time in forever.

I am on p. 149, have a nice day.

Looking for a good read?

Just in case you aren't enthrawled with my book choices, here is a list of the 10 best books I have read in the last year or so. They are not ranked, just listed as they come to me. I'm on the fly here.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling. OK, so maybe they are ranked a little. It has been a long seven years for Harry, and even longer for me waiting in agony for the release of the next installment. This is book seven, and the end of the road. I love Harry so much I would marry him if I could (sorry Rhett!)--as my former roomates and anyone else who really knows me will attest to. Once I sat in the car during Bumbershoot after paying the ridiculous ticket price and read HP and the Goblet of Fire. It was totally worth it. The last book will not disappoint you.

2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This book is facinating for anyone like me who aspires to have a great imagination. It is the story of an Indian boy whose zookeeper father decides to sell all the animals and move to Canada. The long and short of it are that the boy and the tiger end up on a life raft together and Pi has to figure out how to survive. It is a wonderful convergance of science and faith and you will fall in love with both boy and tiger. Don't skip the intro like I did, supposedly it is a true story...

3. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wells. I am not an avid non-fiction reader, but this memoir made me want to become one. It is a shocking story of overcoming horrific obstacles. I was riveted and couldn't stop reading.

4. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. This book will woo any Dickens or Austen lovers. It is a very British tale of an old woman's mysterious past that unfolds as she tells the story. Trying to solve the mystery did indeed keep me up at night.

5. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. This is one of the most interesting and captivating books about God that I have ever read. Writing in narrative form, Miller uses his life, his friends, and his crazy stories to explain why God makes sense to him. It is honest and real and not hokey or cheesy. That is why I like it.

6. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. This is actually a young adult novel that I heard about at a library conference I went to earlier this year. Sherman Alexie is an American Indian writer and poet who lives in Seattle. This story is set on the Spokane Indian reservation, so the setting was super familiar to me (being from E-WA and all). It is about the struggle to be someone or something when no one expects you to. It is also about the struggle to straddle two cultures, in this case, Indian and non-Indian. A very funny and touching story. And you could probably read it in a couple of hours, which is nice too.

7. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I read this one a couple years ago, but it has stuck with me. It is about a librarian who involuntarily gets sucked through time at random moments and about the woman who loves and marries him. It is scary and exciting and sad. And they are making a movie out of it, of course. But read it first, it is quite good.

8. Great Expectations by Charlie Dickens. At first I wouldn't think that this book would make the list. I read it because a friend of mine was teaching it in her AP Lit. class and I felt left out because I had never read it. It is the story of Pip, an orphan being raised by his evil sister and his too-kind brother-in-law who ends up tangled up in the life of a convict. It is also a love story, sort of. Anyway, it was very deep and very literary and quite long, but I felt great about myself when I was done.

9. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. This is another YA book, but is really interesting from a feminist perpective. It is the story of Gemma Doyle, a teenage girl from colonial-India, is sent to a finishing school in London after her mother kills herself. There is an element of super-natural in this story due to the fact that Gemma and the school have an unusual connection to an alternative world.

10. To Kill a Mockingbird by Haper Lee. OK, this is kind of a cop-out since I have read this book about 20 times (due to my affiliation with sophomore English). But it is an American classic and a story about the struggle for people to be good. It starts off slow, but picks up speed around ch. 8. Plus, Atticus Finch is arguably one of the greatest American fictional characters (I say arguably because I know some of my English Dept. cronies would argue--that is what they do best!).

There you go. I hope that you are going on a vacation soon and can choose one of these to entertain you in your heightened state of relaxation. If not, I am sorry.

Catcher in the Raw

I am home today with my son who was too ill at the end of yesterday to go to daycare today, but whom seems to be ok now, other than a serious aversion to clothing. And a lot of whining and crying.

Which reminds me of a certain literary character we all know...yes, Mr. Caulfield enjoys a complaint here and there, that is for sure. He is very concerned about his own well-being, though he plays it off as if he is a very compassionate individual. I don't know, maybe he is compassionate. Maybe he is just a conflicted adolescent, like the rest of them. I have never met an adolescent who was not conflicted. It is very depressing. I am wondering what has happened to old Holden to make him so weary of people. I'm guessing maybe it had to do with his brother dying, like nobody told him Allie was sick until after he had died, or that the doctors had misdiagnosed him or something. Just a guess, I'm not finished with the book yet, you know.

"People are always ruining things for you." This is what I am talking about--either he is deeply scarred because of something, or he just needs to grow up and take responsibility for himself. If you haven't been paying attention, here's what has taken place so far: Holden has been kicked out of Pencey, another prep school. (I tried to count how many others he mentions having been kicked out of, but couldn't keep them all straight--let's just say a lot) He leaves school and goes to New York to kill some time before his parents find out about his expulsion. When he arrives in the city, he meets a host of facinating and shady characters such as three very touristy women from Seattle--two ugly and one decent looking blond who is some dancer (not great PR for the NW, except for the dancing part); a pimp/prositute combo called Maurice and Sunny who end up beating him up and stealing his money; and a couple of traveling nuns with cheap suitcases. One of the nuns is an English teacher who loves Romeo and Juliet, which is, ironically, a classic tale of lust and deceit.

So far it seems like the more people he meets, the lonlier he gets. It's like nobody really cares about old Holden. He keeps talking about his kid sister Pheobe like she is the only one who truly gets him. I hope she is real.

Holden Caulfield is feeling kind of blue

Holden has gone and gotten himself kicked out of yet another all pretentious, all white, all upper class, all male boarding school. It is going to kill his mother.

I didn't know anything about old J.D. Salinger going into this, so I took it upon myself to do some research. The following information has been gathered using Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia!). One facinating bit of fact is that his father, Sol Salinger, was a Jewish man who sold kosher cheese. No kidding. That is just about the most depressing thing I have heard in about 14 years. Apparently his mother was not Jewish and this came as a big surprise to him shortly after his bar mitzvah; he went to prepretory and military schools himself as a teen; he dated the daughter of American playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene O'neill; and eventually became a follower of Zen Buddhism. Oh wait, this next part is interesting, I will quote it as not to take away from the nice wording: a 1979 study on cesorship stated the The Catcher in the Rye "had the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the nation and the second-most frequently taught novel in public high schools" (after Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men). So basically that means that simultaneously nobody and everybody wanted their adolescents to read it. Brilliant.

I will admit that that Holden sure has a mouth on him. I pretty much thought he was an arrogant jerk until page 39 when I found out that his brother died of lukemia and I could tell that that has been really hard for him and maybe he has never gotten over it. I love that Allie wrote poems in green ink all over his left-handed fielder's mitt so that he would have something to read when he was in the field and nobody was up to bat. Holden loves this too, and that is endearing to me. I am also a sucker for a guy who fights for the honor of a lady--as good old Holden tried to do for Jane. Obviously he didn't really accomplish anything since Stradlater pretty much broke his nose and all, but it is a beautiful sentiment.

Well, I have read up to page 109, but am realizing that I can't really expect you to read all of my thoughts so far in one posting--I just hate it when somebody goes on and on and doesn't include any pictures. So I will end with this: nobody wants to feel lonesome, it is just about the most depressing thing ever. So find someone you think might be feeling lonely and figure out a way to make them not feel that way, even if it is just for a minute.

P.S. If you have been reading along, you will know that I am trying to imitate Holden by inserting certain phrases and exaggerative statements. Bonus points if you picked up on it! Or shame on me if it just sounds silly.