The Catcher in the Rye (Pg. 122-157)

Summary
Holden arrives at the theater early, and as usual is surrounded by "phonies" he can't help but to comment about.  There are all types of girls around him who he tried to picture with another phony guy.  Sally also arrives a little later, and Holden tells her he got tickets to the Lunt's which she finds "marvelous".  They head down to the show and in the cab, Holden tells he loves her and is serious, but Sally thinks he is just being friendly.  After the show, Holden is displeased with it because the actors looked a little cocky and goes on to say that "If you do something to good, then after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not as good any more.".

Holden recalls that during an intermission, Sally sees somebody she knows and starts talking to him.  He thought the whole conversation between the two was nauseating since they acted as if they knew each other their wholes lives after not seeing each other for so long. Holden thinks he's a phony because he's wearing a checked vest indicating he's from an Ivy League school.  Sally introduced them, his name is George.
They then go ice-skating in Radio City. After a while, they go in to the bar and get something to drink. They have a conversation about what they think about school and graduating to marry a phony after. Then suddenly, Holden gets an idea. He asks Sally to accompany him to drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, spend all his money, get hitched, and then try to figure out his life from there. Sally doesn't go along with it and disagrees with Holden about the "marvelous places" they can go before they finish college. Holden tells her there won't be either, but it's because then they'll be working in big office buildings. He starts to get mad and calls Sally a "royal pain in the ass" which he regrets later and when she won't accept his apologies, he leaves.
Holden starts thinking about Jane again and remembers one the guys she dated, Al Pike. He remember Jane dating him because he had an "inferiority complex" which still doesn't mean he's not a "bastard". No one picks up when he tries to call her so instead he calls Carl Luce, a senior at the Whooton School when Holden was there as a freshman. Carl Luce was the smartest person in Whooton according to Holden. Carl tells him he can't have dinner with him but he'll have a drink with him around 10.

So until then, Holden goes to the movie theaters.  He walked in while the show was going on, and it had actors rollerskating.  It was some kind of Christmas show Holden thought Jesus wouldn't like.  Though, he'd probably like the guy playing the kettle drums. After that, the picture starts. It's about a a man who loses his memory, meets  a girl who publishes his book and love each other. Then the man's original lover sees him and brings him  back to his family, leaving the other woman by herself. Holden thought he would puke but found the woman sitting next to him even more distasteful since she cried over the movie but didn't let her grandson leave to go to the bathroom.  The movie made Holden think about war. His brother went to war and Holden thought he must've felt bad since he had to stay in the Army for so long with all the phonies in there. If there was ever another war, Holden volunteered for it.

Holden is meeting Carl Luce at the Wicker Bar and there are usually 2 French women who perform there. The phonies there would get a really big kick out of it.  The bartender was also a phony.  He was like Ernie, he wouldn't talk to you unless you were also really famous.
Carl Luce finally arrives at the bar and Holden recalls how much of an expert Luce was of sex.  He also knew every homosexual in the United States and scared his classmates by saying they could turn into one overnight. However he hates talking about his own personal sex life, which is what holden asks about next. Then he asks him whether or not he was going out with anybody at the moment. Luce tells him it's a Chinese woman from Shanghai, which confuses Holden. So he explains to him that eastern philosophy on sex was much more "satisfactory". Holden starts asking questions and picking at them. Luce suggests to him that he should see a psychoanalyst to straighten things out with his life. Whooten has to leave and Holden still thinks he's the smartest guy.

Holden stays at the bar and plans on getting drunk.  He watches Valencia, another singer perform and tells the bartender to give her a message.  He never did, so he decides to call Sally. He's drunk and tells her he promises to trim the tree with her.  He staggers in the bathroom to wash his face and sits near the radiator in there. He leaves finally, and walks towards the park.

He finds out he's nearly broke, and while he's walking he drop the record he bought for Phoebe which he gets depressed about.  It was really cold out and Holden thought he would get pneumonia and die which made him start thinking about Allie.  He didn't like the thought of being buried and surrounded by other dead people. He also wouldn't like the fact there would hoards of people at the funeral. He remembers visiting the grave one day with his parents and it starts to rain. They drive away but Allie has to be underground and sitting which bothers Holden a lot.  Holden has no where to stay for the night and nothing better to do so he decides to surprise Phoebe by going home.

Quote
"I said no, there wouldn't be any marvelous places to got after I went to college and all. Open your ears. It'd be entirely different. We'd have to go upstairs in elevator with suitcases and stuff. We'd have to phone up everybody and tell 'em good-by and send 'em postcards from hotels and all." (Salinger 133)

Reaction
This is Holden's response to Sally after she says that they can get married and go to marvelous places after they go to college. I thought Holden is losing it because before this he wanted to go to marvelous places. Right after this he also calls her a "royal pain in the ass" which is a not something you would say to someone you loved which he said he did. But this quote is another argument about the pleasures of not being an adult and how going to college would take that away. It is a childish view, I guess but then again his thought process is a little irrational considering he's also 17.