strictlypoison's Full Review: J. D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
JD Salinger wrote a masterpiece before pulling a public Houdini that removed him permanently from the spotlight. What is most revealing is that you can speak volumes about such a thin little book. Perhaps the book will continue forever in infamy for its role in the assassination of John Lennon (Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, was found with a copy of the book at the murder scene and insisted that its pages contained his defense) and the failed attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley. And it is of paramount importance to unravel the mystique of the book, to search long and hard for an acceptable reason that the book has spurred such horrific violence.
But equally important is the necessity to approach the book on a different level, that of a work of art that has resounded with millions and continues to sell well fifty years after the fact. It is my belief that the revelations of these two issues are inextricably linked and I will attempt to kill two birds with one stone in this review.
The story is almost painfully simple. It follows the exploits of inveterate liar Holden Caulfield after his expulsion from a boarding school and his journey of self-discovery through New York City while avoiding running into his parents for as long as he can. Caulfield finds no comfort in the city, nor among a prostitute that he pays to make a connection with rather than for sexual activities, a former neighbor who has clearly outgrown him, and, in the most touching scene, the resolution finds him accepting that he can not fulfill his stated desire of purpose: To be the “catcher in the rye”, essentially saving children before they fall out of innocence. This theme is perhaps the most recurrent in the novel, best personified when Holden spots an obscenity written in his young sister’s school and vainly attempts to erase it before concluding that you can never “erase all the f*ck yous in the world”. It is an incredibly perceptive observation by Salinger, and one that works so well within the confines of the story.
Holden is a typical American teenager. He is self-centered and self-absorbed, contained by privilege to the point that he is locked within himself. I think this feature is very much part of what resounds so much with the angry loner, the idea that solitary experience of the world is the bedrock of existence in contemporary times. The book often presents the message that change is impossible from an individual position and this very much explains why Holden is constantly seeking out company, whether it be the prostitute, his precocious sister, his former neighbor, or a former teacher whose care for Holden in his time of need is equal parts genuine concern and what Holden perceives as inappropriate lechery.
What Holden encounters on his journey, but never realizes for himself, is that he is trapped by his very own prejudices and hypocrisy. He labels everyone a phony, he despises those he feels are dishonest in their presentation, despite constantly lying to nearly everyone he meets. What is most striking is Holden’s inability to be honest with himself and his copious dishonesty permeates his perception to the point where he believes, quite wrongly, that he is the only honest person in the story. While it is true, particularly in a class-conscious society such as this, that people often present an alternate view of the reality for self-serving reasons, it is Holden’s hypocritical outlook that has poisoned the boy.
Also of interest is Holden’s decline into paranoia with regard to this perceived dishonesty in the world. Rooted in truth (as I said, there is much self-promotion and aggravating dishonesty in this society), I think this is one of the features of the book that is particularly absorbing to the Chapman’s and Hinckley’s out there. Holden has, essentially, become the template to follow for the angry loners of a certain age. Often, this can be traced to his intense desire for change and direct effect on the world (whether imagining himself a killer in his hunting cap or the spur of the moment decision to run away to Appalachia with an un-enamored date who immediately discounts the idea).
What is more stunning is the misunderstanding of this material by these angry loners. While Holden’s ideas are fantastic and appealing, they are also wildly unrealistic and always met with a frustrating rejection. In the same way that Beckett and Chekhov populated their best work with the concept of paralysis, Salinger here is presenting an intellectually exceptional but socially challenged boy who dreams bigger than what he can actually accomplish. It is easy for the Chapman’s of this world to find affinity with the desire to run off and start a new life away from the (at best) indifference and (at worst) torment of their social peers, but what is more important is that these pie in the sky dreams are unrealistic. That they have laid this blame at the feet of the “phonies” of this world, rather than at their own intense need for escape, says volumes about their character and is also implicitly condemned by Salinger’s remarkable character sketch. This book should, perhaps, be read most by everyone except those who will so identify with it.
In the character of Holden Caulfield, Salinger has essentially created an archetype of the paralyzed youth with great dreams and a perverse sense of the world and his place in it. While actively thwarting his own matriculation into society (as Holden clearly does by continually failing in school and avoiding responsibility for his actions), Caulfield can only cite outside influences as the root cause of his decline. Rather than accept that he refuses to play the game, Holden insists that the game is rigged against him, primarily him but also the children that will follow after him. There are touching moments, such as Holden’s inexpressible sadness when considering a former crush as just another girl that some guy will take advantage of and not even love (as Holden surely would have). There is also a great care for his young sister, but this is of course met with the kind of self-serving deception that Holden seeks to remove from society.
In the conclusion of the story, Holden acknowledges that children must make their own mistakes while watching his sister endanger herself in reaching for a ring on a merry-go-round. The acceptance of his own futility, in what he considers his greatest cause and task in life, spurs Holden to some kind of breakdown that concludes the tale with Holden in an institution, still unchanged from his worldview but clearly understanding that he is unwell and paralyzed by his own inability to cope with the world.
While this is essentially a character study more than a story, Salinger was clever enough to pick situations that, while seeming random and innocuous and even inconsequential on first look, often present fresh material for Holden to delineate himself from society. One particularly telling section of the story involves a pimp assaulting Holden and Holden’s reaction of paralysis. Holden explains that he does not fight (despite raging against nearly everyone he meets) because he can not stand to look at the other guy’s face, that he would prefer a blindfold to looking straight into another man’s face to whom he wishes to cause harm. He goes on to say that the faces of others are often a reflection of our own and that it is “the worst kind of yellowness” to prefer blindfolds to facing ourselves. This is a remarkably astute observation and a stunning realization presented through Holden’s words that is clearly central to the overriding themes of the book. Holden never faces himself in this book, rather he learns he is unwell after letting go of his desire to live through the innocence of children.
The prose of the novel is engaging, the whole narrative being an ongoing monologue that explains the psyche of Holden. While there is none of the wit of Salinger contemporaries like Nabokov, it is also never quite as bleak as Kafka. There is a touching simplicity to the story that is in direct contrast to the complexity of the central character (putting on its head the often standard coming of age technique wherein the story of the journey is much more interesting than the character that takes it). Salinger has been celebrated as recently as Wes Anderson’s ode to his more playful side in the film The Royal Tenenbaums, as well as clearly being a primary motivator of the film Finding Forrester, and forming a central plot point of an astute dissertation in the film and stage versions of Six Degrees of Separation. What Salinger did after the success of Catcher has solidified his legend as perhaps the writer most in touch with his characters and, perhaps tragically, the least able to learn from the lessons these characters taught.
General Fiction - Salinger's classic coming-of-age story portrays one young man's funny and poignant experiences with life, love, and sex. - Catcher i...More at Barnes and Noble
Ever since it was first published in 1951, this novel has been the coming-of-age story against which all others are judged. Read and cherished by gene...More at HotBookSale
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