Everything from here on is for Coming of Age

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Circe

In  Song of Solomon , names play a really crucial role in shaping the narrative. There are few characters that have a name that don't have some deeper significance to them. One of the characters that we briefly touched on in reading this book was Circe. She's pretty clearly named after the character Circe from the Odyssey. I thought I'd expand on this connection a little more on this blogpost.          According the Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew landed on Circe’s island and were met by Circe and a couple of wolves. The wolves draw an immediate connection to Circe from Song of Solomon ’s dogs. In the Odyssey, Circe invites members his crew into her palace and gives them a feast of wonderful foods that they all enjoy. However, unbeknownst to the crew, the food was laced with a magic potion Circe created that turned all of the crew members that ate the food into pigs. There was one member of the crew who thought that the fre...
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I didgeridoo not want to go anywhere else

If I could go anywhere, I would go to Australia. I know a bunch of random facts about the country, and I'd like to go somewhere where I would be able to use them.  When I was 13, I started listening to an Australian podcast that reviewed blockbuster movies. I soon discovered that this podcast was part of a larger network of podcasts based in Melbourne, and I ended up spending hours listening to all the various offerings. None of these podcasts are about Australia specifically; I’ve just ended up picking up an array of facts through random digressions that the speakers go on. Most of the things I know are really trivial, like how the  St. Kilda Saints won the Australian Football League Premiership in 1966, to things with practical value, like how the ancient Aboriginals developed a form of regenerative agriculture that scientists a re currently trying to rediscover. In addition to knowing random facts, I also have a pretty extensive vocabulary of Australian sayings. Fun fact: ...
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The Catcher in the Rye's Catcher

I thought the parallels between what Mr. Antolini was trying to tell Holden and Holden's whole catcher in the rye thing were pretty interesting. The whole scene is well placed so that the reader still has the image of Holden catching children about to fall relatively fresh in their minds so they could see the connections between the children falling and what Mr. Antolini describes as a terrible, terrible fall. When Holden speaks of wanting to catch the children from falling, he's metaphorically speaking of preventing them from growing up and reaching adulthood. When Mr. Antolini is talking about Holden's "fall", he means his refusal to ever grow up. Mr. Antolini is essentially trying to act as the catcher for the catcher in the rye. The fact that this pushback is from a source that Holden trusts makes the scene more impactful. If it was from just anyone then Holden would probably be more willing to simply blow them off and keep on as before. But Holden spends muc...
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