As I was reading J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the
Rye, a recurring thought was: what is it that made this book a best seller? Why
did it resonate with so many people? The book has sold millions of copies and
has been translated into 145 languages; illustrious writers like Adam Gopnik
have called the book one of the three best novels in American literature. My
impression of the book was very different: it is essentially a two hundred page
narcissistic dialogue of an angry, sexually frustrated, and alienated young man
growing up in the fifties. Of course, feeling those things is not unique to
that era; most teenage males, including my generation (which grew up in the
eighties and early nineties) felt similarly. This, then, might be the secret of
the book’s success: it speaks to the experiences of youth that are universally
felt regardless of the era. Dissatisfaction with the norms, values, and beliefs
of our parents, the desire to rebel, the seemingly inescapable cage of endless
self-absorption, the need for approval from one’s peers, the wish to escape it
all; these are the things that many youth must go through in that sometimes
tortured phase from childhood to adulthood.
The main character of the Catcher in the Rye, Holden
Caulfield, experiences all these things with the fiery intensity that
characterizes the adolescent and teenage years. The book starts with his
problems at the boarding school. He is obviously a bright kid with a talent for
writing but he is unable to follow the school’s rules and strictures, nor can
he tolerate most of his classmates, one of whom he violently clashes with. He
eventually flunks, and most of the rest of the book is about his journey home
from school. This journey, of course, is interpreted through the narcissistic
dialogue adumbrated above, but there are some features of this experience that
are genuinely interesting. There are, for example, his impressions of New York
that illuminate the character and life of the city in the forties and fifties.
One particularly memorable part was in the dingy hotel that he found himself
in, and the sexual perverts he would see through the window in the buildings
across the street. In the same hotel, he is cajoled by an elevator-attendant
(another indication of a long-gone era) into buying the services of a prostitute.
When she comes to his room she is surprised to discover that Holden does not
want sex with her; he just wants her company, an indication that behind the
veneer of anger and alienation is a deep longing to be loved and accepted.
Holden eventually goes to the home of one of his
former teachers who had left a good impression on him. The teacher offers
Holden a place to stay, and before bedtime gives him an inspiring talk about
the need to read to escape the cage of self-absorption, about how reading helps
us to realize that we are not alone, that our feelings of anger and alienation
are shared by even some of the greatest minds, and that how reading the best
that has been written can unleash our potential to contribute something larger
than ourselves. Holden’s former teacher seems to be that rare creature in the
teaching profession who goes beyond and above others to transform the character
and direction of young minds. This is impressive stuff, until the scene that
suggests the teacher is—gulp—an alcoholic and a pedophile. Holden dashes
from the apartment, and eventually goes home, where he finds his sister whom he
adores. The love between the two siblings is perhaps the most heartwarming part
of the book, for it highlights that even the in the cesspool of humanity that
Holden finds himself in, there are pure and noble relationships and
experiences.
One of the redeeming qualities of the book is that
it can be interpreted through the lens of psychology to discover patterns that
reveal insights into Holden’s thought processes and behaviour. For example, one
of Holden’s traits—shared by many adolescents—is the tendency to lie and speak
hyperbolically for no apparent reason. He seems to do this with everyone,
raising the question of why. Perhaps it is the desire to fit in, or a deep
sense of insecurity, or the need for approval, or a combination of these
things. There is a deep irony here: Holden expresses his hatred for people
countless times because they are “phony”, and yet he himself is the phoniest of
all. His hatred of society, therefore, perhaps more accurately reflects his
hatred of himself that he then projects outwards to others. One is reminded of
the syllogism that people often become the very thing they detest; for Holden
it is the reverse: he detests himself and then radiates it outwards to others.
The book might also appeal to those who, like me,
are interested in the evolution of language. The Catcher in the Rye contains
words and phrases that have largely fallen into disuse,
such as “yellow” (coward), “wad” (handful of cash), “necking” (kissing the
neck) and “phony” (fake). Reading them gives one the feeling of being
transported to another era that, although within living memory of my parents,
seems to be as distant as another planet. One also gets the sense that the
Catcher in the Rye helped to provide the vocabulary of a whole generation of
angry youth that they carried with them into adulthood. I still recall hearing
the use of these phrases when I was a kid, especially from the generation
before me (which would be the one born in the fifties).
Despite these qualities, overall I did not enjoy the
book, but this perhaps has more to do with me than with the text. I am thirty
six years old and very curious about the world outside of me, and hence I prefer books that address some of the
existential concerns of adults, and that have something insightful to say about
their characters’ society, surroundings, and relationships. The Catcher in the
Rye does none of these things. It is essentially a long winded rant that
expresses the anger, alienation, and frustration of adolescence and the teenage
years. I might have enjoyed the book had I read it 20 years ago, when I was
about Holden’s age. But those days are—thankfully—long gone.
