Confessions... Thoughts Better Not Left Unsaid: Old Books New Reads

Catcher In The Rye

I just finished reading two of J.D.Salinger's books,
Catcher in the Rye and Franny & Zooey. I confess, it has been 37 years since I read them, back in my senior year in high school –I remember because I had to get parental permission to check them out of the library. At the time, I was really stunned that I needed anyone's permission to read anything. Censorship was not a concept I'd ever been introduced to—if you were curious about a book—that was reason enough for you to be able to read it. The credit for this freedom belongs to my fierce grandmother, who went through books like chain-smokers go through cigarettes, and passed on her addiction to me.

Anyway, I read Salinger for the first time while taking Sophomore Comp over again. Between my sophomore and senior year, I'd gone to 8 different high schools and one of them twice. I'd been given an incomplete in the class and by the time my transcripts caught up with me, it had turned into an F. I was Mr. North's top student in Senior Comp, so he talked the administration into letting me make it up as an independent study during a period when he had a student teacher teaching his regular class. I sat at the back of the class next to his desk, endured his horrible cigar-breath, and had a full semester of one-on-one attention. He created a custom reading list for me and my assignment was to write comparative essays about the books on the list. Some of the books that I recall were: Franny & Zooey, Catcher in the Rye, Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, Lord of the Flies, Bless the Beast & the Children, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings…. pretty sophisticated stuff for a 17-year-old.

Still, I think it wasn't too sophisticated. I think that most adults really underestimate adolescents and their ability to think symbolically. Catcher In The Rye is a perfect example, both the story itself, and the history of the book, which is the number-one most banned book in schools,
STILL.

Even today, I relate to Holden Caulfield. But it's clear that most people miss Salinger's point entirely. Caulfield is alienated—that much most people can see. But what alienates him is what they miss entirely. The key to his depression is how absolutely normal 'phony-ness' is to him. He goes into detail to describe what he thinks phony-ness is—the utter lack of compassion for others among the boy's school, among the movie-makers in Hollywood, among his parents' generation, who seem to value all the wrong things.

What Holden values is so utterly simple that it is easy to miss. It is all embodied in his dead little brother, Allie. Allie was sweet, kind, and interested in those around him. Allie was pure love. Holden prefers being with those his loves and in such unadorned situations like hanging out with his little sister to just about any other activity in life. He longs for a genuine, authentic exchange between people—one that overlooks pimples and shyness because it recognizes the true value of the person. Their real heroism, integrity and courage. When he describes the grisly taunting that led to James Castle jumping to his death rather than admitting to being a coward, it becomes clear that Holden sees what no one else wants to see—that if we bend to the tyranny of bullies of our society, we die. When no one at Pencer will go close to Castle's burst and bloody remains, they accuse themselves of being his murderers. When Mr. Antolini appears on the scene and checks for a pulse, then covers Castle's gory body with his own coat to carry it inside, Holden is deeply touched. Antolini's lack of concern for his expensive coat in lieu of covering up Castle's very intimate and private viscera, which is splattered all over the steps and sidewalk, strikes Holden as the response that should be normal . The fact that it is the exception in our society rather than the rule is what depresses and alienates Holden. And he is absolutely correct to be depressed. It is an appropriate response to Man's Inhumanity Towards Man.

Holden doesn't want to be part of that world, and as he realizes that there is no escaping it, he begins to retreat behind his fantasies and can only be brought to his senses when he sees how the consequences of his choices are going to affect his little sister.

The fact that Holden's style of resistance is very passive may bother people who need things spelled out for them. But what other choice does a 16-year-old have who has prematurely confronted the death of his little brother?

In the real shoes of someone who has had a loved one prematurely snatched away from their lives, the overwhelming sensation is how little sense it makes. The griever cannot help but to keep asking, why? why? why? The powerlessness, the unfairness, the utter lack of logic that one feels in the aftermath of the sudden death of a loved one is totally alienating. But it doesn't feel like there is something wrong with our expectations, but rather that there is something very wrong with the world we are living in. It can be likened to someone getting corrective lenses for the first time in their life.

The fact that within our society, there is no acknowledgment of how utterly unfair, incorrect, inhuman, and wrong it is to lose a loved one, makes the shock of the loss even worse. Not only do you feel like half of a person, but everyone around you is talking to you as if nothing is wrong. It is crazy-making. Plain and simple. And Holden's only form of defiance, of protest, is to passively not participate. He lives in a world where his opinions and preferences are not important to the decision-makers of his life. Like all children, he has a limited number of responses available to him to get his point across to the adults in his world. Flunking out of prep school sends the message loud and clear.

Franny & Zooey explores the same territory. What is the societal "normal" versus what should be the norm? Salinger's constant revisiting of this theme in his work, and his subsequent withdrawal from the public world after his disastrous and disappointing brush with success, are really the quintessential leitmotif of his oeuvre.

I am very glad I picked up these books again. They are definitely worth a revisit, and should not be considered adolescent fiction, nor should they be kept from adolescents because they are still children enough to get the point.