Adventures in Literature: The Catcher in the Rye, Chapters 11 & 12

Chapter 11

Jane Gallagher is becoming rather important now. This chapter is almost exclusively devoted to Holden's thoughts and memories about her. He felt comfortable enough with her that he told her about Allie. Apparently, she wasn't "strictly beautiful" but it's clear that he loved her. His mom, however, thought Jane and her mother were snobby and cold. From Holden's descriptions of Jane she does sound fairly cold, but he seems oblivious. He likes her edge. Rather than spend the rest of the novel thinking about Jane, Holden hops in a cab and heads to Ernie's, a Greenwich Village nightclub. I doubt this is the last we have heard about Jane, but we'll have to see.

Chapter 12

The cab smells like vomit. Thanks for that thought. Holden asks the cab driver if he knows where the ducks in Central Park go in the winter. There is a subsequent conversation about the ducks and the fish and migration habits. I am convinced this discussion is a metaphor for something, but I can't figure out just what it's all about yet. When I finish the book, either I will figure it out on my own or ask someone smarter than myself to explain it. Hmm.

Holden arrives at Ernie's and there's an actual guy named Ernie playing the piano in a really flashy way. Holden is disgusted that the audience is eating it up. I feel like the majority of people who find themselves in a seedy joint called Ernie's in the middle of the night would be exactly the type of people who would love flashy piano tricks, but I guess that doesn't make them any less disgusting. Holden ponders the people sitting around him. He describes the interactions of a couple that sound to me to be a bit like date rape. "I was surrounded by jerks," he says. I want Tumblr to give me a really snazzy hipster picture with that quote on it.

Holden runs into an old girlfriend of his brother D.B.'s: Lillian Simmons. Lillian is there with a Navy guy, "Commander Blop or something." Heh. Lillian takes pity on the dateless Holden and invites him to join them, but he would rather leave than hang out with them so off he goes. This chapter is highly quotable. I want a set of notecards that say the following piece of Holden's internal monologue: "I'm always saying 'Glad to've met you' to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though."

-S