In my final year of highschool we were given a chapter or two of Catcher in the Rye to analyse in the first week of English class. It was part of a series of things we were given, through out the week, but I am not sure where in the series it fell. I didn't like the chapter, it was crumby and corny and made me angry and defiant. It is probably the only thing I have read that has ever elicited such a reaction. I was so angered by it, I wrote English the last great oppressor on the front of my file in liquid paper – that was later covered up by a picture of Rage Against the Machine. Because of this strong reaction I have put off reading Catcher in the Rye until now, nine years later. My goal was to go through my entire life without having read it. When I started it on Wednesday I felt the same anger and definace but, as it was already entered into my GoodReads profile, pushed through the first few chapters until it no longer made me angry. In fact now I would say I am rather enjoying it.
I have a problem in which I will share what I consider to be a particularly poignant memory with somebody, something deeply personal that I have considered defining, and then for it to be met with a blank expression. Blank expression is not accurate, the face is never blank, it is puzzled, perplexed or some variation of, but there is no understanding there. Perhaps I am a bad communicator. That is what it could be, as my analogies and parables are met in the same way. Nobody it seems sees the same connections that I do, not straight away at least, not without explanation. But even with explanation.
For Year 6 I was placed in a split class. The class was made up in the majority with Year 5s but there were about 7 or 8 Year 6 students. We did our own work but were taught by the same teacher but every now and again we would be sent off to one of the other Year 6 classrooms to work by ourselves if there was something that the Year 5s needed to do without us being around – sacrificing goats to Satan or possibly the Naked Movie Star game, who knows? We would be given instructions and a corner and there we would sit – or in one classroom be forced to sit or lie on the floor in a corner – and do the work, normally maths, that we had been assigned. It was during one of these outings that I remember staring at my workbook and having no idea what it was I meant to be doing. This happened a lot to me in Primary School.
I wish I had a copy of that work book right now.
