A Rare Re-Post in Honor of the Late Sallinger.
About two weeks ago, Matt and I went on a much-needed vacation to Mexico. I was looking forward to eating too much at our all-inclusive resort and basking in the hot Cancun sun while washing away the swine flu with every hand-wash. And as part of my normal vacation ritual, I brought along a couple of books to read. (I am on this kick where I'm trying to read classics.) So as I was browsing the "required summer reading" shelves at Barnes and Noble, I ran across The Catcher in the Rye.
This particular edition of the "American Classic" didn't have a synopsis printed on the back or on the inside cover and I decided to take a gamble. I had no idea what the book was about, but I knew it was a classic and the first page caught my attention:
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father.”The story opens with a depressed and angry 16-year old named Holden Caulfield, who has just been kicked out of his third or fourth prep school. The remaining 100 or so pages follow his trip home to face his parents who Holden expects will be very disappointed with him, yet again. The more the story continued to do nothing but follow this kid, the more engrossed I became. I empathized with this "screw up" who was terribly whiny and foul-mouthed. And as he described every adult he saw as a "phoney," I began to adopt his cynical views and became a little unhappy-- even on vacation. If I hadn't picked up Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons before we left, I might be in therapy right now.
The more I tried to figure out why The Catcher in the Rye was such an American Classic, the more baffled I became. And now, after two weeks of reflection, I have decided that this story of a young man's angst must have been cutting-edge in the 1950's. I'm sure this book was banned not only for the language and the mention of "feeling sexy" around a prostitute, but also because no one in America would have wanted little Johnny to adopt such a negative outlook on life.
All in all, I quite prefer Ferris Bueller's teen-angst to Holden Caulfield's. While I can relate with both characters, Ferris provides a more playful and hopeful view of what comes next in life, where Holden just depresses the hell out of you.
In response to all of this, I have begun trying to really focus on the "glass-half-full" approach to life. That, and Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons has really brought me out this loathing for all mankind and I'm starting to recover. Tiger Lily to Salinger's teen angst; it has caused me to focus on being happy.
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I read this post when you originally wrote it and didn't know how to respond, because I'm such a Salinger fan. (Catcher In The Rye is not my favorite. I'm a huge fan of everything he writes about the Glass family.)
ReplyDeleteI think if you don't read Catcher when you're an early teen (or middle teen), you sort of miss the boat. I agree that it was probably VERY cutting-edge when it first appeared, but that's not the crux of it. Holden writes how a 14-year-old thinks. It wasn't the first time I read anything that I identified with, but it was the first time I ever read anything that SOUNDED like I THOUGHT.
Maybe you should give the Franny section of Franny & Zooey a whirl, if you're at all interested. It's depressing, of course, but maybe won't make you hate the world.
Glad you reposted this.
Like you, I did not read Catcher in the Rye until I was in my 20s. However, working with teenagers gave me an instant connection to his thinking, which as Laura states above is very much like a 14 year-old. Holden is confused, narcissistic, absolutist, and yet incredibly sensitive to what is going on behind the perfect facade of the "adult world".
ReplyDeleteI think what makes this a classic is how this stance toward the world became mainstream in the decade following, producing large-scale disillusionment with government and authority in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam.
It's true that a certain hopelessness pervades the story, but in a way, Salinger pulled back the curtain on the machinations of the powerful by using the voice that was least likely to be heard - a mentally disturbed, teenage screw up. Truly, a noteworthy achievement.
Tiger lily to re-posts! They are like re-runs of great TV shows. They are ok, but if given the choice, we'd take a new episode every time. What I'm trying to say is your loyal followers want more more more!
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