Notebook Prompt: "The Most Terrific Liar You Ever Saw in Your Life"

At the start of chapter 3, Holden Caulfield boldy informs the reader, "I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible" (16). He has just offered us an example of his "terrific lying" at the end of chapter 2, when he offers an excuse to get out of the Spencers' house without accepting Mrs. Spencer's offer of hot chocolate: "I would, I really would, but the thing is, I have to get going. I have to go right to the gym" (15). He has told Mr. Spencer that he has "quite a bit of equipment at the gym I have to get to take home with me"--and now, at the start of the next chapter, he boasts to us that "when I told old Spencer I had to go to the gym to get my equipment and stuff, that was a sheer lie. I don't even keep my goddam equipment in the gym" (16).

As a reader of Holden's narrative, does it cause you any qualms to have your narrator boast openly about what a great liar he is? Does this admission raise any concerns about narrative reliability? How can we know that Holden is being straight with US when he tells his story? Is this another example of a Caulfield Contradiction--the hater of "phonies" openly admitting how phony he can be when he needs to get out of an awkward situation? Do concerns about narrative reliability surface elsewhere as you've been reading this novel?

Please take five minutes to contemplate these questions in your notebook now.

Noteboook prompt: What does coming-of-age mean to you?

As a young person who is rapidly approaching legal and cultural maturity, does the concept of "coming-of-age" have any meaning to you? Do your peers and elders tend to speak about your growth and development and education in terms of your "coming-of-age"? What are some of the main ways we measure or acknowledge coming-of-age in contemporary American society? Where do you currently see yourself in terms of your own coming-of-age? How will you know when you've achieved it? Have you already achieved it?

As we embark on a semester-long course in which we will read and discuss a range of narratives about young people on the brink of this ambiguous and confusing milestone, please take 5 minutes to contemplate these questions in your first prompted notebook entry.

Proper Names and Pronouns

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FOURTH PERIOD 

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Thank you!