“I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don‘t, you feel even worse.”
By J.D. Salinger
Holden isn’t really a good student – quite the opposite, in fact. He doesn’t like studying and doesn’t like applying himself to anything else. Or at least, that’s what he believes that about himself. He’s on on the verge of being expelled from school (again), so he reckons he might as well run away and spend a few days in New York. It’s just before Christmas, and so he hurls himself into the chaotic hubbub of his hometown.
The story is an expedition into the mind of an adolescent; a boy who slowly coming to terms with the fact that life won’t be getting any easier. It’s a statement against hypocrites and liars; it’s the honest thoughts of a furious teenager who refuses to turn into yet another ignorant adult.
“Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”
