Be Excellent To Each Other

Or something about re-entry?

Is it when you get cocked by 100 bad men?

Is it about being bummed on a small bus between the airport and the plane.

Is it when you're a poorly funded government lass with problematic ablative shielding on your undercarriage?

Is it a niche badminton fetish?

I've already done that one. DURRR!

Fail.

I'm not reading one atrociously laboured pun.

Then you're definitely on the wrong forum.

And I was expecting at least one answer to my question.

Then you're definitely on the wrong forum.

Is it about flying on the space shuttle? #statingthingsobviouslywithoutoneiotaofmirth

What question?

It's because he's an annoying prick, and it's a shit book.

It's a great book, shut your cake hole!

Okay. "The South" is an incredibly vague answer. Akin to asking your neighbour where the nearest chippy is and getting "Britain" as the answer. Also not all birds migrate to the same place. Here we get Barnacle geese from Iceland/Greenland/North America, Arctic Terns from Antarctica, Swallows and Shrikes from Africa, etc etc. Fecking loads of them. Asking where a particular bird migrates to is a valid question. You are hearing me talk.

What's good about it? I just didn't understand why it was considered so marvellous. For me it's just an annoying, whining kid going around being miserable, offering no more a view on the world than any one of a million emo blogs.

Wooooo!

That's just bollocks.

I concur.

Thank you for your detailed and considered answer.

A whining kid "going around being miserable"? Are you sure you read the book?

No offence, but I wouldn't call your summary detailed and considered either. I put as much effort into my response as you apparently did reading the book!

Caulfield is a doleful idiot that repeatedly fails to see, or grasp, the opportunities in front of him He acts like a petulant and spoiled child. He's a hateful character for these reasons.

Tess d'Urberville was a whiny little cow as well. I was pleased when she swung.

That's the entire fucking point! He's desperately holding onto childhood and its innocence. He doesn't go around "whinging", though. That's not even accurate.

Yes he does. "Phoney this" and phoney that" whilst deciding he is cleverer than everyone and spending his school money on booze and a hooker whilst clomping around the city being a knob to everyone.

I wish you'd stop going on about it, Jonny. Just let it go.

Do you feel like killing John Lennon yet?

I'll let it go. I'll let it go.

Which elements did you find particularly powerful?

Adamantium.

It has been 15 years since I read it, but that's certainly the impression that I have of it. He seems to hate everything and moans about it all the time, despite him having a decent life (from what I remember). The whole book just annoyed me, as he was an idiot who thought he was clever, and I just wanted to hit him with an axe as he went on and on being a miserably whining little bitch. Man the fuck up, Holden!

Nowadays, he'd probably like the Decemberists, take an acoustic guitar to the park, sit under a tree and play Jack Johnson covers as he's "deep" and doesn't need this "modern life, man" whilst sipping a Peruvian lager, the sort of girls who promise everything but never put out flocking around him.

That's a bit of a leading question. I don't necessarily have to find something "powerful" for it to be good.

Besides, I don't think it's particularly spectacular myself in truth. But it's a good book exploring some interesting themes about adolescence - the feeling of losing your childhood and heading into the real world, loneliness, etc.

To call it "shit" and "emo" is just ridiculous. It's a modern classic.

I think you ought to read it again, or at least stop talking about it! 15 years is a long time. He doesn't moan about stuff at all. He just describes things like any narrator. Seems you're misremembering or something.

Besides, he's a classic unreliable narrator. You're supposed to recognise that he's not as smart as he claims to be. You're supposed to find holes in his arguments and rationalisation. You're supposed to do that and work out what the author is trying to say, not get annoyed at the "he thinks he's so clever" fictional frigging character.

He has failed out of a number of schools and is in the process of failing out of another. Of course he isn't as clever as he thinks he is. The novel practically draws you a diagram to the fact. It's not supposed to wind you up!

It's not the worst book in the world, but it's certainly not a classic for me. It pales in comparison to the likes of 'To Kill a Mockingbird', '1984' or 'Brave New World'.

In terms of calling it 'emo', I think that's a fair assessment. In the modern world he'd probably be considered emo. He moans and whines a lot, he is self-absorbed, is not half as smart and deep as he thinks he is, etc etc.

There are other novels considered to be classics that I am not find of, but in those cases I tend to be able to work out why it is regarded so highly. I found 'The Great Gatsby' to be very dull, and again full of people I didn't care to read about, but it is very beautifully written.

Heh, in a BBC article, Finlo Rohrer wrote that some readers may dislike the self-obsessed central character and 'too much whining'.

He does say phony and crumby a lot, doesn't he?

JahonneyLOL

He does, yeah! And also, that's much better than what you said before. Nobody likes the same books - I just though "shit and emo" was a bit of a rubbish description of your opinion of the book.

Well, I was holding back on writing more as I wasn't certain a civilised debate was going to break out from the surrounding flippancy.

Yawnerama, Jonster. Isn't it about time you stopped banging on about this? Gawd.

Aye, shush you emo shit

I think "emo" is running close to "troll" for the "most abused word on the forum" award.

But then I do have a remarkably high (I'm informed) emo tolerance.

Some time in the past you posted a counter which looked through eveyones posts and totalled up the number of times they posted a specific word - however apart from someone winning by realising that Malc signed every post of his 'Malc' I cant remember anything else to search for to find it ....

Let me know what you think.

Did you read it, Dimmers?

Quite.

Hmm. I think that started with Gaywood saying something about Nikachu going to Spain, and Nikachu retorting about bobble heads, and then Gaywood giving up numbers...

I think I've thought of a specific word, hang on...

[edit]Pow!

I got distracted by new Warhammer novels. I will do, though.