Like most High School students I was assigned various books
to read through out the school year (and sometimes during winter or summer
vacation). I dreaded it. I would sit the books on my nightstand and look at
them with distrust as if they were going to spring to life and bite me. I hated
every book we were forced into reading and it was a rarity when I actually
enjoyed a book that was assigned to us.
The Catcher in the Rye was one of those books. I couldn’t
tell you the exact year I had to read it in High School nor what my teacher had
said about the book. I don’t particularly remember the lessons given or any of
that (important) stuff. What I remember is reading the book and actually
enjoying it. I went so far as to going out and buying my own copy, which was
completely unheard of for me during High School. I was very stubborn and only
stuck to one type of genre (supernatural, naturally) and nothing else. To buy a
classic, let alone a book that had been a required reading from school, was
unbelievable.
But buy the book I did and it has gone with me from High
School to college to my years of being an “adult.” Finally, with my move ever
present in my mind (can you tell this entry was written a few weeks ago?) I
wanted to reread the book. I had every intention of reading the book but a week
before I was to move I realized I still hadn’t read it. Not wanting to add even
more books to my moving supplies, I grabbed it off the shelf and dove in.
All I can remember from High School is that I loved the book
because it seemed so real. How did this guy from the 1950’s write a book that
seemed so accurate for a kid today? In my mind the 1950’s were very classy and
proper and teenagers from that day and age were nothing like teenagers of the
2000’s (I’m aging myself, I know). They didn’t curse, they didn’t talk about
sex, they didn’t understand what we were going through in the present. But when
I read Catcher I was taken back; Holden Caulfield cursed and talked about sex,
he got drunk and he just left his school! This kid was rebellious and breaking
rules and I got to read this book for school? Awesome!
Reading it now, about ten years later, I can see the appeal
to a teenager and I certainly understand a little more of what’s going on in
the book’s pages.
Holden Caulfield is an awkwardly tall sixteen year old with
half a head of gray hair who is telling his story (the entire book is in his
voice as running dialogue of the mind) from, what it seems, to be a mental
institution or hospital after the events that take place in his story. He
recounts a few days before Christmas and when he became “sick” with a series of
rambling peeks into his mental state as he talks about various subjects, hoping
from one topic to the next – whether he is discussing his opinion of people
(particularly phonies) or being nostalgic.
After flunking out of his boarding school he decides to
leave the school before Christmas break, taking a train to New York, and seems
to have no clear direction or plan of what he’s doing next. He hops from one
idea to the other and has a series of misadventures along the way.
It seems clear now that Holden is suffering from depression
or something similar to it. He apparently has been failing out of different
schools, one after another, and seems to have little control of his life.
He curses up a storm, discusses the sexual activities of
classmates, and even has a brush in with a prostitute. He drinks underage,
smokes up a storm, and generally does all of those things you aren’t supposed
to do as a teenager. No wonder it appealed to me when I was a teen. This kid
was doing it all!
One character I remember fondly is Phoebe, Holden’s little
sister, and even rereading the book now I loved her character all over again
and it’s obvious that Holden adores his little sister. For a character that
seems so jaded about the world it was refreshing to see how he reacted to his
little sister (not to mention how he acted to his brother, Allie, who died
three years prior).
The book, although published in 1951, is still prominent
today and loved by many. Some believe that Catcher is a passing phase, a book
that is doomed to disappear because the educators who list it on their class
reading lists are reaching retirement age. But I feel that this is unlikely,
considering how many students are still being introduced to it today. There
seems to be a clear line between those who love or hate the book. Those who
love it seem to love it passionately and carry it with them as they age, those
readers will be the ones who continue to give the book a known status. There
has also been numerous controversies involving the book but I’ll get into that
in September with my Semi-Annual Banned Books Week posts.
