This week, Brenda and I decided that we wanted to team up and write about J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. Why? Well, because I strongly (very strongly) disliked this book and Brenda loved it. So, we thought that we might breakdown why we either loved or hated it.
If you’ve never read the book, here is the synopsis from Goodreads…
“It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school... Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning. The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.”
Kendall (Hated It… Well, strongly disliked):
First, let me say, I read this book when I was sixteen as assigned reading for my 10th grade English class. I already hated assigned reading because there were very few, if any, books that I actually enjoyed reading. So, when we were told to start reading Catcher in the Rye, I did not have high hopes. I also felt that my teacher really hyped this book up because it was about a rebellious teenager who cussed a lot. At sixteen, that sounded more appealing than Edith Warton’s The House of Mirth, which I also did not enjoy. However, unsurprised to me, Catcher in the Rye was just like all the rest of the ‘classics,’ disappointing and boring.
Holden Caulfield is just an unhappy person. For 277 pages, he complains. He complains about everyone. He uses the word ‘phony’ over and over again to describe those around him. In fact, the word ‘phony’ appears 35 times in this book. But to me, the most infuriating part, is that while he believes that everyone is a phony, he is the biggest phony of all. He is a major hypocrite. Holden is annoyed when his peers try to act more mature than they are, yet the entire story is about him doing the same thing. This book is very much about teenage angst and even reading it as a sixteen-year-old, I was annoyed with Holden. I found him unrelatable and that was why I just couldn’t get into this book. I’ve never read it again, and maybe I should, but I just remember being annoyed and angry with the Holden the entire time I read it, and I don’t know if I want to even try again.
Brenda (Loved It):
My senior year of high school solidified my love of reading. A class entitled “Novel” with Mrs. Aston remains my favorite class of all time. Really, can you believe that? Among the 15 titles assigned, The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye remain my go-to books to re-read. Kendall has expounded on her reasons for dislike (maybe hate, but I’m hoping to make her a believer in J.D.) of Catcher; however, I’m thinking that her introduction to the teen angst classic was flubbed from the start. Kendall, will you please give J.D. and Holden another try? For me? Does it help to know that Salinger served five years in the U.S. Army where he saw combat with the 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, was present at Utah Beach on D-Day, in the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Hurtgen Forest? Salinger was a combat veteran who was assigned to a counter-intelligence unit known as the Ritchie Boys where his proficiency in French and German helped him to interrogate prisoners of war. Come on, Kendall, the reclusive writer’s a war hero. And critics are with you claiming that Catcher’s complaining (I say insightful and funny; you say annoying) narrator Holden Caulfield is a result of witnessing the atrocities of war. He was hospitalized for “combat stress reaction” (read: PTSD) following the war and later told his daughter, Margaret that, “You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live.”
Will Salinger’s background persuade you to give Holden another read because no less than Hemingway, Ernest that is, said of Salinger: “Jesus, he’s a helluva talent.” The two legendary authors met during WWII at the Hotel Ritz in Paris.
I’ve picked a couple of my favorite lines from Catcher that capture Salinger’s self-deprecating prose, his insightful introspection, and his downright hilarious lines that show the absurdity of humans. Here goes:
1. Opening line hooked me. I never read a first line like this one:
“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.”
Why I like it: Holden opens with a conversation inviting the reader to a chat. And his vocabulary speaks to me. He’s not stuffy. He’s not proper. It’s real.
2. I wanted to sit down and chat with Salinger after reading this line. Alas, Salinger is/was a reclusive man who never granted an interview to the press.
“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”
Why I like it: I understand and respect his (Salinger here) desire for extreme privacy.
3. Salinger’s (and Holden’s) insight is clear in these lines. The annoying teen is nowhere in these lines:
“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.”
4. Holden isn’t perfect. He knows it. He lets the reader laugh at him here:
“And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I’d probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.”
5. I’ll end on a sentiment that the beloved baseball icon Yogi Berra, who was famous for his contradictory quips, might have said:
“I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot.”
Kendall, do you still think of Holden as a whining, annoying teen? I hope you’ll give Catcher another try. You might just find out where the ducks go in the winter…
Well, in response to Brenda’s plea to try it again, I might actually do just that. Knowing that J.D. Salinger fought in World War II is interesting and I can see that having an impact on the creation of Holden. Will I be able to get past the complaining and the hypocrisy? I don’t know. Will I appreciate it more as an adult than as a teenager? I don’t know, but maybe I will find out.
The Catcher in the Rye by