{"id":"01KG6FHSSX1KPNJFFE95S1SJKK","cid":"bafkreiezth6xewt7vbx67s46q5c267wegbecz42ydun5znxmhfubpcidu4","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreib7ctb42e6ekkqdqwj4ayykhp3khttzjypxenj3enk7ok62p46ykm","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"Rye_page_0001.jpg","height":2400,"key":"pdf-page-1769744163122-dkifjrgs00t","label":"Rye_page_0001.jpg","page_number":1,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":612098,"text":"THE CATCHER IN THE RYE\nby J.D. Salinger\nTO\nMY\nMOTHER\n1\nIf you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is\nwhere I was born, an what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were\noccupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I\ndon't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff\nbores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece\nif I told anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like\nthat, especially my father. They're nice and all--I'm not saying that--but they're also\ntouchy as hell. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or\nanything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last\nChristmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. I\nmean that's all I told D.B. about, and he's my brother and all. He's in Hollywood. That\nisn't too far from this crumby place, and he comes over and visits me practically every\nweek end. He's going to drive me home when I go home next month maybe. He just got a\nJaguar. One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour. It\ncost him damn near four thousand bucks. He's got a lot of dough, now. He didn't use to.\nHe used to be just a regular writer, when he was home. He wrote this terrific book of\nshort stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you never heard of him. The best one in it was\n\"The Secret Goldfish.\" It was about this little kid that wouldn't let anybody look at his\ngoldfish because he'd bought it with his own money. It killed me. Now he's out in\nHollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even\nmention them to me.\nWhere I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this\nschool that's in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You've probably seen\nthe ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some\nhotshot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was\nplay polo all the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place. And\nunderneath the guy on the horse's picture, it always says: \"Since 1888 we have been\nmolding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men.\" Strictly for the birds. They don't\ndo any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didn't know\nanybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that\nmany. And they probably came to Pencey that way.\nAnyway, it was the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall. The game\nwith Saxon Hall was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey. It was the last game","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:36:03.122Z","text_extracted_by":"pdf-processor","text_has_content":true,"text_source":"born_digital","uploaded":true,"width":1855},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFHMJM2J9JHQAQM1Q9SKBJWF","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KFF1K6A8V452X8SQKY55DD16","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6FHS0RZABB7DKD6J116SPT","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KG6FJQKYBT3T0QKKA9TABQQW","peer_label":"Rye_page_0001_medium.jpg","peer_type":"file","predicate":"has_derivative"},{"peer":"01KG6FJVD7D5G7P0QB17BDDRZS","peer_label":"Rye_page_0001_thumb.jpg","peer_type":"file","predicate":"has_derivative"},{"peer":"01KG6FT59BXAZ3C5HRJ6SW8F58","predicate":"has_assembly"}],"ver":6,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:36:04.669Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:40:41.683Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFC4A8W8939TXGEXCK439ZK"}}