Adaptation by Yongkyun Lee, 17th Waver

Adaptation of <Catcher in the Rye> - Yongkyun Lee

This is not an adaptation of a specific part of the book nor an essay totally written in Holden’s voice. Yet, it is more of an essay about my experience written in a candid, unrefined perspective like Holden’s.

                  When someone asked me to introduce myself, I was the type of guy who listed my age, the place I lived in, subjects I liked (or I pretended to like), my hobbies, and all those phony things you can think about. Well, I can do that now and tell you about those meaningless details that I bet half of my friends can also use to introduce themselves. But I am not in the mood to waste your extremely precious time that you need to complete your extremely imminent work and to, of course, look at extremely funny pictures on extremely important Facebook.

                  So instead I am going to tell you a more interesting and honest stuff, a story that is sort of embarrassing to share with others. But it is not that fancy to begin any type of story with serious talk, so I want to share what happened on last Thursday. On that very day, I have to say, the dinner menu was terrible. Our school food is usually very delicious, even better than what my mom gives me at home. But on some days, like last Thursday, the school serves us food that is just not palatable in any possible way. So, to eat get some better food and to breathe some fresh air, I suggested a visit to Sosa rest stop to three of my friends. By the way, we are forbidden to leave our school boundary on weekdays. But I guess everyone would agree to the fact that eating dinner is more important than getting some phony penalty points.

                  Anyways, my loyal friends agreed to go and we left the dormitory very casually. But, boy, it turned out to be a hell of a trip. I forgot that many teachers go home around this time, and it is easy for us to get spotted. Damn it. I was also wearing a red shirt that is so visible from miles away. So, we tried to find a route that is difficult for others to see us. We ran up and down the hill behind the gym and the golf practice facility. Then came the real problem – a vast flatland with only Pasteur factory on one side with teachers’ cars coming every twenty seconds. We first passed through the middle of the factory. This guy with white lab clothes on shouted some blah-blah-blahs, but oh who cares. Then, came the 100m course. There was basically nothing except us and the cars. We ran like a bunch of crazies. But we made it. We relished our victory with delicious dinner.

                  Thinking about this whole incident, it is hard to believe that I was the leader of all this. You won’t believe my “grey” past in my first one and a half year at KMLA. I mean it, literally. Can you imagine a boy who usually wears a grey training pants and grey shirt? Anyone would think how shitty outfit that is. Unfashionable, uninterested, and nerdy. It is embarrassing that I was that boy. The biggest problem is that my sense of fashion was a small part of the hell lot of problems I had. I possessed the characteristics that matched the stereotype of wearing all-grey clothes. I always kept things to myself and I did not know how to enjoy my life. At school, I only did things that teachers told me to do. I think I spent most of the other times to get better grades. While my friends were studying together and building friendship, I always studied alone for the sake of efficiency. What is more is that in my first year, when my friends asked me to go to Sosa rest stop in the weekends, I refused most of the time saying I had a lot of work to do. Yes, I was a hell of a phony guy who was stuck in a very bad and habitual one that made me merely functionally

                  But you know what broke this frame and helped to break out of the egg as that Demian guy did in Hesses’s book? A mirror. I must say it is ironic that mirror was a thing that I had thought of as phony for like seventeen years, but it basically changed my life. On that day, I was in a camp, where my links with other kids were based on my title of “KMLA student.” I was quite lonely throughout the camp. Anyways on the last day, in the toilet, I looked at myself. As usual, I was wearing grey training pants and grey shirts. But oh boy. How disgraceful my fashion was! I was shocked by the embarrassment of myself, and I felt an urge to dig a hole in the ground and hide in there.

                  For Chrissake, I was crying out of loneliness with the freaking grey outfit on. No wonder why I could not manage to make a girlfriend for my whole life. Though I did not fall in love with anybody even after the revelation, I still became a better person, I think. At least, now I hang out more with my friends, know how to relish my life, wear good clothes, and go to Sosa rest stop freely.