• A fun fact inspired by a recent Fictogram answer

• Answers to last week's games

• Game updates

Holden Caulfield - the name says it all

It is no wonder Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye when he assassinated John Lennon. Said to have been reading the book at the time of his arrest, Chapman believed that killing Lennon would help him take on the spirit of the book’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield (Fictogram answer #118, although incidentally “rye” was Plant #169 from Metaflora this week as well). That comes as no surprise, considering Holden Caulfield gave traction to the term “screwed up.”

Being responsible is a mature quality which requires adapting to the rules of society. The need to defend innocence is central to Holden Caulfield’s identity. And, like Caulfield, Chapman believed he was protecting against the phoniness of an adult world.

Most fascinating, the word “caul” describes the membrane which encloses the head of a fetus in utero. When Holden wants to protect the children playing in the rye field from the dangerous prospect of tumbling off a cliff, we are reminded of the wider metaphor: Hold-On Caul-Field. This resistance to leave “the field” of youth and self-sacrifice into the disingenuous life of adulthood is at the heart of both Holden’s journey and the ultimate path of a deranged killer who so famously shot one of the loudest voices for peace and love of his generation. Holden Caulfield may have felt he was saving children from the death of a world of responsibility—and in so doing, inspired others to take on the role of assassin. But, as John Lennon so famously quipped, “I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe in it. It’s just getting out of one car and into another.”

Answers to last week's games

Monday, March 11 to Sunday, March 17.

Linxicon

The following are the shortest paths from last week:

• #28 location -> moving -> creeping -> slowly

• #29 lucky -> fortune -> growth -> emerge

• #30 practical -> experienced -> age -> fifteen

• #31 exposure -> displayed -> proposed

• #32 proposed -> reject -> deny -> false

• #33 debate -> talking -> flying -> jet

• #34 breathe -> wind -> northerly -> north

• #35 Play now!

Forgeous

Isenbrandt, Adriaen. Man Weighing Gold. 1515, oil paint on panel, 50.8 x 30.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436722.

Play Forgeous for March 18.