Salinger

I met JD Salinger, so to speak, rather recentely (it was my book of the year 2008). They say The Catcher in the Rye is fundamentally a teenage book, a coming-of-age book. Whatever. They also say that Alice in Wonderland is a children's book (Digression!). Anyway, there is a japanese television series called Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which is by far the best tv show I've ever watched. The first season's plot follows a cibercriminal that calls himself "The Laughing Man", someone who commited a crime and vanished into the shadows, but who served as inspiration to many "copycats", who commited crimes following his MO by the book. The Laughing Man has his own logo, and on it we can read I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. The first season is filled with references to Salinger's works, and that was what drove me to read The Catcher in the Rye in the first place. Since then I've given the book to many people important to me - to my sister, to my girlfriend, to my best friend. Have yet to find someone who didn't like the book. Have yet to find someone who won't tell me "you are just like Holden". The scary thing is that they are right, even if they cannot truly understand why.