Adventures in Literature: The Catcher in the Rye: Chapters 6 & 7

Chapter 6

     Stradlater the studmuffin is back from his date with Jane, and he is angry. He wanted Holden to do his English composition on a house, not a baseball glove. He accuses Holden of "always doing everything backasswards," which is rude of him, but I do find it to be a delightful insult. Also, he really shouldn't be complaining since he doesn't have to do the homework now. Sheesh. I bet he's going to miss Holden more than he realizes when Holden is officially kicked out of the school in a few days. 

      Holden smokes a cigarette in the room for the sole purpose of making Stradlater mad. It's clear that Holden is anxious to hear how the date went, and he suspects something went wrong. As an aside, this is where we learn that "giving the time to" is 1950's slang for getting it on. Heh. Holden asks Stradlater if he gave the time to Jane and Stradlater literally beats him up. After what Holden describes as ten hours of this, he escapes to Ackley's room next door.

Chapter 7

      It's 11:30 PM and Holden wants Ackley to play canasta with him. Ackley isn't having it; he says that Holden is too bloody, plus he wants to attend Mass early in the morning. Holden gives up on the canasta and angles to just sleep in Ackley's missing roommate's bed, but Ackley isn't having that either - he's concerned his roommate might come back early. Holden ignores Ackley's warnings and goes for it anyway, which seems like a good call to me. We have some flashbacks to a previous double date experience with Holden and Stradlater, and it is pretty clear that Stradlater is skanky. Ew.

      In the early morning, Holden decides he will skip his last few days of school and get himself a hotel room in the city, since his parents will not receive notification of his expulsion for a while anyway. Ah, the pre-Internet days. He quickly packs up his belongings and dashes into the halls, yelling, "Sleep tight ya morons!" It would be quite the cinematic exit, but someone has left peanut shells all over the hallway floor and he almost falls on his way out. This book is like a sitcom!