It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from
yet another school. Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs
around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters — shooting
the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central
Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile
girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon
loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and
emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of
his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and
his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true
meaning.
This week's book is The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger and we'll be meeting at Ye Olde Cocke on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury — contact us for details.