Catcher and the Rye

[eileeness311]

I recently decided to catch up on some of the books I missed when I was growing up and I dedcied to start with Catcher and the Rye by J. D. Salinger. However I am not getting why this book is a classic. It seems to me (and I have not finished it yet) that this kid is just rambling on about his life and his poor choices. I guess my question is Does this book have a point or is it really just the ramblings of some punk kid?

[R. LeBeaux]

I think it has a lot to do with the time in which this novel was published. It was very daring story then, what with all the swearing and sexual content; things that are commonplace today. Also, back in the ‘50s, teenagers were becoming disillusioned with the way they were treated by parents and other authority figures, which eventually led to the “hippie” rebellions of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Nowadays, the thoughts and ideas expressed seem more whiny and pointless than they did then.

[LS Burton]

Well, it's an easy read about a kid trying to find himself, wishing for something real and true in his life in a society which, at that point, had a very polished veneer. He searches for meaning, wishing he could be a source for good in the world, but in the end, his only good move through the book - trying to preserve the innocence of the children of the school by scratching swear words off the wall - is a very small act, and eventually pointless, as he comes across another spot where someone has scratched FUCK into the wall, and this spot is permanent.

He can also do nothing to help anybody, not even himself, in a world that doesn't care and is essentially dark and manipulative.

I like that story, even if i don't necessarily believe the message, or like Holden himself.

Also, it's Catcher IN the Rye, as he imagines himeself as the man who could stand in the field and stop people from falling off the cliff and save them. If I rememeber right.

[Shane1o]

Yes it's a good book, not a GREAT book. I've decided myself to spend two years reading the classics. Some have been classic, some good and (touch wood) none bad so far.
Example, I'm reading Doctor Zhivago at the moment which doesn't have near as many plaudits as Crime and Punishment but in my eyes is already much better.
Steinbeck, Lois Stephenson and Walter Tevis especially have been superb whilst a hidden gem, Donn Pearce's Cool hand Luke was a joy.

Stick with Catcher in the Rye, even if it's not the best, it's still good and worth having read, if only to say you have.

[AnnaWins]

I usually try to avoid reading too deep into the "meaning" of a book in order to explain how popular it was/is. I think the reason "Catcher" resonated with so many people is how very true Holden was written. Salinger captured exactly the way most young people feel and think at that age. And though Holden may not have reacted to those feelings and thoughts the way most of us did – it was a rare glimpse into the mind of a young person. It was truth.

Hemingway once said: "I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things."

I think if an author can capture truth in his characters, it already has a leg up on a lot of over-written crap out there.

The language and talk of sex probably helped it get attention in the 50's and I'm sure Mark David Chapman's obsession with it leading up to his murder of John Lennon help to wrap the story in mystique almost 30 years after it was written.

[giselle]

Hemingway once said: "I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things."

I think if an author can capture truth in his characters, it already has a leg up on a lot of over-written crap out there.

I like this Hemingway quote and I agree ... we can derive meaning from the 'real' precisely because it is so clearly real and true, therefore creating confidence in what the writer is saying, a touchstone and sense of shared real, human experience. But the meaning we might derive is quite subjective because we see it and process it through the lens of our own unique experience, knowledge, feelings, personality etc.

I'm interested in reading Catcher in the Rye and discussing if others are interested. Would be a good idea to correct the thread title though (lol). I noticed it on the fiction list this time round but it didn't win.

[pthreadneedle]

I know it's a very trivial quibble, but to be honest, the thing that bothered me most about this book is how tenuous the title seemed!

I don't think Holden would misremember the song lyric (he has "catch" instead of "meet") unless he was specifically thinking of "catch" in the sense of "meet" (i.e., "Try to catch Bob before he leaves early"). But he doesn't. He means catch in its most literal sense.

Also, even if he got his dream job of standing on a cliff, I don't think "catcher" is the right word for it. You'd call him a warden or some kind of lifeguard.

[VMLM]

I've read this book twice. The first time I read it I must have been maybe thriteen years old and, I have to admit, I didn't give it much thought. To me it was a rather boring book about a kid talking about his last few days.

I just read it again, and this time I loved it. And what I mean is, it made me think about myself. I felt touched by Holden's situation, I empathized with it.... I recognized my self in him. But the thing is, I also recognized "phoniness" in myself... you know, all those things we tend to do in order to protect ourselves, or because we're just not interested in other people, or because we have vested interests... I felt sort of ashamed to be frank. I felt like I'd let myself down, like I'd forgotten that I didn't like "phonies" just as much as Holden, but I'd made concessions as I grew up.

...And I understood it, you know? I think that might sound a bit dumb, I don't mean to say that I see through Salinger's hidden meaning or anything... I just mean, I get why the book is so passive. I understand what Holden's talking about when he's talking about Phoebie on the carousel, about Allie's glove, about erasing the word fuck from the school wall.. I get why he so quickly changes his description of people depending on his emotional state of mind, I empathize with his adolescent need to lie in order to make others feel more comfortable, or to make himself different.

I think the problem, the reason it's so easy not to like this book, is because it's not really a book about things happening, there is no real action. The story is only important in that it helps flesh out the character... What I mean by that is that Holden is probably one of the most fleshed out, most real characters I've ever read, and this has nothing to do with an artificial described image that the author puts in front of you... it's all in the use of language. You understand him from the way he talks to you, as if he doesn't want you to think that what he's telling you is really that big of a deal.. even when he's talking about sexual harassment or his brother's death or feeling embarrassed about getting kicked out of school or losing the fencing team's equipment. You feel his emotional response to his own story as he gets carried away with it, or as he tries to seem uncaring. I sort of see that there's three times to him, the time at which he experienced the story he's telling you which has been superposed by a second time at which he has thought about what he experienced and rationalized it and emotionally stepped away from it and a third time at which he is telling you about it, trying to get you to empathize with him, but at the same time trying to not freak you out, or even freak himself out... and I can actually kinda feel that in the way Salinger writes.

And really most of the time I sort of imagined Holden sitting right next to me, pouring out his experience from the last few days while subconsciously, almost accidentally, telling me about his worries and himself through his language, his body language and his tone.. And I think that might be Salinger's greatest accomplishment with this book. Salinger disappears, I never thought about what Salinger was trying to say, or what he was thinking while writing. It was always me and Holden.


EDIT: While searching for some Catcher in the Rye food for though, I stumbled onto this:

..Which is a surprisingly concise yet enlightened look at the book I think.


EDIT2: And umm... since I have practically zero hope that we'll ever read this book through collectively and talk about it... if ever someone some time finds him/her self empathizing and wanting some more insight into the themes of the book, here's a couple more videos from the same guy:

**SPOILER ALERT**

[completelynicki]

This was one of my favorite books I read while in high school. A lot of people dislike it, but I think it says a lot about human nature. Holden is messed up in so many ways...but aren't we all?

[VMLM]

I think it's easy to overlook a lot of the content in this book if you're not in a specific frame of mind.. If you're not willing to empathize with Holden, if you don't read into his use of language you'll miss out on his character. If you don't pay attention to the things and people that are important to him, to his behavior, then everything just seems irrelevant because Holden spends so much time talking passively, indirectly or in metaphors.

It's funny because all Holden wants is to be listened to, for someone to pay attention to him.. and unless you're paying attention it's really easy to write him off as a screw up, think of this as a simple meandering story and just move on to the next book.