In a world of phonies and jerks and bastards, maturity is not growing up (where's the fun in that?), but in sidestepping said phonies, jerks, and bastards and just putting them on the phonies, jerks, and bastards shelf, where they belong.
I too read the book as a High School freshman. My reaction was precisely opposite. I was and remain in the camp of the haters. 14-18 is when most boys are struggling to find themselves. Not still a boy, not yet a man.
I found Holden to be entirely uninspiring …and for me, and i suspect most male teenagers unrelatable and annoying.
Further this book is the farthest thing from a Hero’s Journey.
I recall pulling an old hardbound copy of “A Tale of Two Cities “ off the shelves of a new girlfriend’s father’s small library as then a college freshman and became enthralled.
That is a book that should replace Catcher . Where Catcher leaves the young reader wondering when this annoying rich kid is going to have epiphany that never comes, Two Cities immediately captures one’s attention and takes you on a journey of love, loss and the ultimate sacrifice.
Interesting! I don't disagree here. I don't think Holden is supposed to have some sort of epiphany or evolution—like I said, the novel doesn't really have a traditional plot structure where the character learns something and becomes better over time. In fact, I think part of the point is that Holden *doesn't* mature—he is the same person he was at the start of the novel, and in that way, he refuses to grow up. I don't know if the novel is necessarily supposed to teach us the best way to live our lives in the way that a Dickens novel might; rather, it's there for us to empathize with and see ourselves in Holden and his struggles. In that way, his function is not really to inspire and uplift but to help you through the darkest points of life.
Agreed, and this is one of the more underrated discussion points about this novel! I personally found the novel amusing because of his hypocrisy - Holden embodies the trope of upperclassmen we see a lot of today: a privileged individual pretending to be poorer because its a cool and exciting break from their everyday comfort, and makes them more relatable to other people.
I thought necking was obvious when I read it. It did seem odd to picture two necks wrestling it out. The world phony stuck with me since high school, and have always wanted to use it in a real-life context. I think I learned English by reading this book (and Poe) since I barely talked to anyone.
👏👏👏 A tour de force that perfectly explains why the Catcher in the Rye in a masterpiece, Liza! When I was in high school, I read the Catcher in the Rye. But I hated it because I didn’t understand it at all and just thought Holden Caulfield was annoying because all he did was complain. But now after reading this piece and being older and more mature, I now understand the book better and it’s deep meaning. I too am fascinated by bygone eras. Especially the 2000s when I was kid and the world felt more normal then it is now. I too love museums because what’s inside them never changes while the world inevitably does everyday. I never watch the garbage that’s on TV today, I watch only TV shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Matlock, Streets of San Francisco, Kojak, MacGyver, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gargoyles, etc. I rarely ever watch the trash Hollywood puts out, it’s movies like Casablanca, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, Seven Days in May, Patriot Games, Field of Dreams, the original Star Wars trilogy, Mrs. Miniver, Rear Window, Vertigo, etc. that I really enjoy watching.
When it comes to music I have zero interest in Taylor Swift or Adele. I want to listen to Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Otis Redding, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Louie Armstrong, and The Beatles. When it comes to Art don’t you dare take me to a modern art exhibit! I want to see Renoir, Matisse, Gauguin, Monet, Manet, van Gogh, Picasso, and Rembrandt. The book also teaches us that we need to never lose our childlike wonder for the world. Becoming an adult comes with so many challenges and responsibilities. Such as heartbreak, loss, loneliness, working boring 9 to 5 jobs, betrayal, getting old, breaking down physically, etc. So excuse me if I refuse to part with my childlike sense of discovery and wonder. Holden never loses that and that is admirable.
Authenticity as Holden fights for, is absolutely important as well. The older you get the more you realize how much is fake about the world. That people wear masks and have ulterior motives. People often just want to use you. You become paranoid as you get older and can’t trust anyone. I’ll be honest I’ve felt that way too many times to count about just about everyone in my life with no disrespect intended, even you Liza. But that’s not a reflection on Liza’s character or the character of my family and friends in any way, it’s just that when one gets older the more jaded and cynical you become and the more you see through all the two-faced phonies out there. You feel like everyone just wants to use you for their own personal benefit.
I also think the part where Holden watches Phoebe on the carousel is most profound. He’s basically sitting there crying inside because he knows she has no idea what’s coming when she gets older. She’s blissfully unaware about the hurricane called life with its gale force winds and destructive power she’s about to endure. As to Mr. Antolini’s advice, I wouldn’t take it at face value either. He’s a gross old creep and a child molester. Also, he’s just plain flat out wrong. Where would we as a country be without the men and women who died fighting under our flag for our freedoms because they believed so strongly in American democracy and the freedoms and rights guaranteed to us in our founding documents?
Great job, Liza. Glad you picked up on the deep ambiguity in the character of Mr. Antolini. Back in 1980, when I first read Catcher as a closeted fifteen year old gay kid, I was more struck by his borderline-creepy cradling of Holden's head in his hands; but how, at the same time, Holden also remembers Mr. Antolini heroically carrying the broken, bloody body of the student who committed suicide by jumping out a window to the infirmary. Even Salinger's 'flat' characters were 'round'!
But 75 years on, it's time to admit that groundbreaking novels about self-involved, narcissistic, borderline-hateful teenagers have aged pretty badly (see Will Smith's great exegesis in Six Degrees of Separation, 1993). Catcher remains well written and extremely readable, but in light of the complete atomization of American society that came about in its wake, the book has a lot to answer for. A first shot on Fort Sumter that unleashed a lot of baleful, malign, and even out-and-out evil things in the United States of America- from murderous teen school shooters who think they are cosplaying video games, to the death of one of civilization's highest ideals, youthful romantic love, in the sickening, Hydra-like contortions of pornography. Both Hinkley and Mark David Chapman knew what they were reading.
Today, I find the most poignant thing about the book isn't in the book at all-it's J.D. Salinger's heroic WW II service. A man who was present for everything from the landing on D-Day to the liberation of the Nazi death camps comes home to the United States, haunted and scarred by a mother load of trauma ('the war he saw/lives inside him still' as Paula Cole once sang), but instead of The Naked and the Dead, he gives the world Holden Caufield. Brilliant. Did the poor man have a crystal ball into our current nightmare reality? No wonder Salinger went into isolation- he'd seen enough for a hundred lifetimes.
In a world of phonies and jerks and bastards, maturity is not growing up (where's the fun in that?), but in sidestepping said phonies, jerks, and bastards and just putting them on the phonies, jerks, and bastards shelf, where they belong.
Very nicely written piece. But I must dissent.
I too read the book as a High School freshman. My reaction was precisely opposite. I was and remain in the camp of the haters. 14-18 is when most boys are struggling to find themselves. Not still a boy, not yet a man.
I found Holden to be entirely uninspiring …and for me, and i suspect most male teenagers unrelatable and annoying.
Further this book is the farthest thing from a Hero’s Journey.
I recall pulling an old hardbound copy of “A Tale of Two Cities “ off the shelves of a new girlfriend’s father’s small library as then a college freshman and became enthralled.
That is a book that should replace Catcher . Where Catcher leaves the young reader wondering when this annoying rich kid is going to have epiphany that never comes, Two Cities immediately captures one’s attention and takes you on a journey of love, loss and the ultimate sacrifice.
Interesting! I don't disagree here. I don't think Holden is supposed to have some sort of epiphany or evolution—like I said, the novel doesn't really have a traditional plot structure where the character learns something and becomes better over time. In fact, I think part of the point is that Holden *doesn't* mature—he is the same person he was at the start of the novel, and in that way, he refuses to grow up. I don't know if the novel is necessarily supposed to teach us the best way to live our lives in the way that a Dickens novel might; rather, it's there for us to empathize with and see ourselves in Holden and his struggles. In that way, his function is not really to inspire and uplift but to help you through the darkest points of life.
The thing I remember most keenly is that for a boy who hates phonies, he hangs out with them a lot.
Agreed, and this is one of the more underrated discussion points about this novel! I personally found the novel amusing because of his hypocrisy - Holden embodies the trope of upperclassmen we see a lot of today: a privileged individual pretending to be poorer because its a cool and exciting break from their everyday comfort, and makes them more relatable to other people.
I thought necking was obvious when I read it. It did seem odd to picture two necks wrestling it out. The world phony stuck with me since high school, and have always wanted to use it in a real-life context. I think I learned English by reading this book (and Poe) since I barely talked to anyone.
👏👏👏 A tour de force that perfectly explains why the Catcher in the Rye in a masterpiece, Liza! When I was in high school, I read the Catcher in the Rye. But I hated it because I didn’t understand it at all and just thought Holden Caulfield was annoying because all he did was complain. But now after reading this piece and being older and more mature, I now understand the book better and it’s deep meaning. I too am fascinated by bygone eras. Especially the 2000s when I was kid and the world felt more normal then it is now. I too love museums because what’s inside them never changes while the world inevitably does everyday. I never watch the garbage that’s on TV today, I watch only TV shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Matlock, Streets of San Francisco, Kojak, MacGyver, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Gargoyles, etc. I rarely ever watch the trash Hollywood puts out, it’s movies like Casablanca, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, Seven Days in May, Patriot Games, Field of Dreams, the original Star Wars trilogy, Mrs. Miniver, Rear Window, Vertigo, etc. that I really enjoy watching.
When it comes to music I have zero interest in Taylor Swift or Adele. I want to listen to Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Otis Redding, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Louie Armstrong, and The Beatles. When it comes to Art don’t you dare take me to a modern art exhibit! I want to see Renoir, Matisse, Gauguin, Monet, Manet, van Gogh, Picasso, and Rembrandt. The book also teaches us that we need to never lose our childlike wonder for the world. Becoming an adult comes with so many challenges and responsibilities. Such as heartbreak, loss, loneliness, working boring 9 to 5 jobs, betrayal, getting old, breaking down physically, etc. So excuse me if I refuse to part with my childlike sense of discovery and wonder. Holden never loses that and that is admirable.
Authenticity as Holden fights for, is absolutely important as well. The older you get the more you realize how much is fake about the world. That people wear masks and have ulterior motives. People often just want to use you. You become paranoid as you get older and can’t trust anyone. I’ll be honest I’ve felt that way too many times to count about just about everyone in my life with no disrespect intended, even you Liza. But that’s not a reflection on Liza’s character or the character of my family and friends in any way, it’s just that when one gets older the more jaded and cynical you become and the more you see through all the two-faced phonies out there. You feel like everyone just wants to use you for their own personal benefit.
I also think the part where Holden watches Phoebe on the carousel is most profound. He’s basically sitting there crying inside because he knows she has no idea what’s coming when she gets older. She’s blissfully unaware about the hurricane called life with its gale force winds and destructive power she’s about to endure. As to Mr. Antolini’s advice, I wouldn’t take it at face value either. He’s a gross old creep and a child molester. Also, he’s just plain flat out wrong. Where would we as a country be without the men and women who died fighting under our flag for our freedoms because they believed so strongly in American democracy and the freedoms and rights guaranteed to us in our founding documents?
Perfect
Great job, Liza. Glad you picked up on the deep ambiguity in the character of Mr. Antolini. Back in 1980, when I first read Catcher as a closeted fifteen year old gay kid, I was more struck by his borderline-creepy cradling of Holden's head in his hands; but how, at the same time, Holden also remembers Mr. Antolini heroically carrying the broken, bloody body of the student who committed suicide by jumping out a window to the infirmary. Even Salinger's 'flat' characters were 'round'!
But 75 years on, it's time to admit that groundbreaking novels about self-involved, narcissistic, borderline-hateful teenagers have aged pretty badly (see Will Smith's great exegesis in Six Degrees of Separation, 1993). Catcher remains well written and extremely readable, but in light of the complete atomization of American society that came about in its wake, the book has a lot to answer for. A first shot on Fort Sumter that unleashed a lot of baleful, malign, and even out-and-out evil things in the United States of America- from murderous teen school shooters who think they are cosplaying video games, to the death of one of civilization's highest ideals, youthful romantic love, in the sickening, Hydra-like contortions of pornography. Both Hinkley and Mark David Chapman knew what they were reading.
Today, I find the most poignant thing about the book isn't in the book at all-it's J.D. Salinger's heroic WW II service. A man who was present for everything from the landing on D-Day to the liberation of the Nazi death camps comes home to the United States, haunted and scarred by a mother load of trauma ('the war he saw/lives inside him still' as Paula Cole once sang), but instead of The Naked and the Dead, he gives the world Holden Caufield. Brilliant. Did the poor man have a crystal ball into our current nightmare reality? No wonder Salinger went into isolation- he'd seen enough for a hundred lifetimes.