Catcher in the rye, dont get it

[ScottHaneda]

first, I would like to say, I did indeed search on this topic for archives on the matter, seems the message boards are goofed up for me or really slow at this point. Anyway, I really like the debated threads that come up in posts anyway, so I hope you people can help me out. In high school I never paid attention enough to even read the catcher in the rye, or if I did, I sure do not remember it. I am 26 now and re-read it over the past 2 days. It was a nice read, rather simple, easy to get throught, and certainly not a regret, but I just do not get it. I have a few questions...

Why is this book so well known, even mandatory high school reading if I recall correctly, seems to me if I were to write a pasage out of a few days of my life, I could create about the same thing, did I mess the whole godamn point on this one.

I found only toward the end of hte book, when his sister asked him what he really liked, he said he wanted to be a catcher in a rye field, is they the significance to the title, is there more, I am having a hard time understanding why that was used as the title, seems like nothing to me....could have been "prostitute offered in elevatror" if you ask me, I must have missed something here as well.

So I guess my real bottom line is why all the hoopla about this book, it was nice, not great to me, I persoanlly liked it couse I could realte to Holden a bit.

Why have a heard that some serial killers really like this book, thanks for all your responses, they are always very helpful

[tomndebb]

Well, you're supposed to read it when you're sixteen, not 26. The sense of alienation that Holden expresses (at tiresome length) is, indeed, a psychological event that huge numbers of teens pass through. This means that his ranting strike a bit of a responsive chord among many teens. (I'm not claiming that an adult is not capable of reading and enjoying it, only that the visceral reaction to the work is best experienced when one is, oneself, going through similar feelings.)

(And, of course, since the publishers actually chose not to edit out the word fuck (as written by the author), it tends to be seen as evil by a certain segment of the population, making the reading of it more appealing to those who hear that the bokk has been banned on several occasions.)

(Query: is this more suited to the Cafe Society Forum?)

[Qwertyasdfg]

You didn't miss much. I read it at 16, and I hate it with intense passion.

The symbolism of "The Catcher in the Rye" is that Holden wants to stop the kids from going over the cliff and becoming adults (read: phonies.)

Indeed, the killer of John Lennon, Marc Chapman, did have some sort of attachment to the book (I heard he had Lennon autograph his copy it hours before he killed him.) My guess would be that they identify with Holden Caulfield a bit too much, and become militant against "phonies." But I don't think that The Catcher in the Rye has ever been the sole/major reason that anyone committed a homicide, just part of the serial killer's profile.

[ScottHaneda]

Thanks for the reply Tom, the irony of the situation, is when I was 16, I was too busy acting and thinking like Holden to have any desire to sit down and read any book that my school told me to. :-) But your comment on the word "fuck", as far as I recall, the only reference to it is when Holden is talking about his disgrace for it as grafitti on a wall, so he was against it all together, how can that be appealing to the angst of a teen? And is this the reason it has been banned, is it being banned today, or is this all from a long time ago, I mean literally there are tenny-bopper magazines out there with profanity in them.

[Sylkyn]

I did indeed read it in high school. Hated it. I was totally pissed at my teacher for making us read it.

Skip forward a few hundred years.........

I read it again at age twenty-eight. Still hated it, but understood it a tiny bit better. Didn't have a teacher to go off on, but still...

Skip forward a few more hundred years......

Decided I was a dip. Re-read it again at age thirty-six. Hmmm.....this DOES suck. I hated Mrs. Hortenstein with all my might and had she not already been dead I would have put out a contract on her Phi Beta Kappa ass.

Yes, it's good literature. Yes, I can say, without a doubt, I have read it. Yes, I get it. But I thought it was horrid. With or without the F-word. In fact, I probably would have enjoyed it much more with that word intact, although I'd never have gotten to read it had Mrs. Hortenstein known it was there.

[ScottHaneda]

oops, almost forgot one more part I did not get, quite a bit was gone into in regards to Holden not feeling well in the end, stomach ache, almost pucking, passing out, etc, nothing really explained as to the cause of it all, as well as the odd feelings of anxiety he experienced as crossing the street downtown, is there more to be had surrounding those comments, or is it just some random unimportant event.

Same goes for the part about the 5 or 10 dollor whore, it seemed pretty clear that she was a 5 dollar whore, not a 10, is there more to that as well. Perhaps all the attention to this book is making me want to take it for more than face value, it seems it is simply a simple count of a few days of a kids life, no more, no less, but then it makes no sense to me as to why any school would make it a mandatory read. Seems to me a better assignment would be to read Catcher in theRye, then go out and write something better on your own.

[tomndebb]

Holden could have "written" an entire chapter opposing the word fuck; the fact that the word was printed at all is what angered various parents. It may not currently be banned anywhere, but it has had calls for its banning as recently as the 1990s.

[erislover]

Hmm, one of my favorite books. i think the whole book's "point" is summed up nicely in a single paragraph. the one where HC mmets with that male teacher and the teach gives a little speech about "You're headed for a fall..."

Interesting idea... "Never trust a man with the initials 'H.C.'" ~~ Hagbard Celine

:D

[Rysdad]

Simply put, it sucks.

Alienation is common to teenagers. So what's new? Adults who read Catcher put it down as lightweight, sophomoric angst.

I was particularly turned off by the part where he kvetches about some moron popping zits on his bed.

How inane.

[Derleth]

And here I absolutely loved it. I think the inanity, as some of you have put it, is essential: How many of us have great thoughts, and spend time on them? Nobody. We have mundane thoughts that are reflections of our life, not great thoughts that our lives become reflections of. So being able to see how a Salinger or a Hemingway looks at the mundane is to see how a Salinger or a Hemingway thinks. Which I think is great and definitely worth reading.

[DaveW]

I'm sure that this post should go in MPSIMS, but...

Good grief! What this thread has really brought home is that I have no recollection whatsoever of what's in that book! I remember reading it, because I know it was assigned reading back when I was in high school and because my stepmother was a high-school English teacher at the time it was assigned to me, and she thought I'd like it. I remember laying on a couch at a friend-of-the-family's house reading the danged thing.

But, and this is where the "good grief" really comes in, I'd honestly have to go find a copy of the book just to verify, for myself, that the main character's name was, indeed, "Holden Caulfield."

That's how memorable the story was for me. I remember the color of the couch, and the book - both brown - while the actual story is completely lost.

[meyer]

I read this book in high school, at about 15 or 16, and loved it. I read it again recently and, although I didn't hate it, it certainly meant a lot less to me the second time.

I think that the really important thing is the whole idea of alienation. A great deal of the time, we as adults look at teenagers as just hormone crazed freaks. But Holden is trying to show us the other side of that. Sure, its a pretty average kids life, but his angst and his confusion are so real they ring true for a lot of teenagers. Holden is caught in between being a child and being an adult, at a scary time in his life. Yes, he's old enough to get into a bar to drink, to try to sleep with a prostitute, to wander around NYC on his own, but really he doesn't know what he wants. He doesn't know how to deal with the prostitute wanting more money, he doesn't really know if he is ready to lose his virginity, he is lost and lonely.

Holden tells us about the death of his brother, and the death of a fellow student by suicide. He has been through a great deal and is still young, but it seems that his school and parents have given up on him, there is nowhere left for him to turn. I think if nothing else one can take from this that you never know what another person has been through.

I think the part about him not feeling well, etc., is just to drive home his anxiety. He is making a big decision, the desicion to step over into the responsible world of adulthood (thus his symbolic trip across the street). He says at the end that he wanted to be The Catcher In The Rye, preventing other people from the pain of growing up. But when he watches his sister on the merry-go-round, he comments about her reaching for the 'brass ring'; this is his realization that it is impossible to stop the inevitability of growing up, and that every life contains pain and suffering, without which there would be no meaning.

Sorry if this is really long-winded. I think I used up all my brain cells remembering things like the plot details of this book, which would explain a lot about my life.

[Rysdad]

Originally posted by DaveW
I remember the color of the couch, and the book - both brown -

Really? Every copy I've ever seen was red.

Whatever.

CITR is running neck-and-neck with Great Expectations for the worst examples of ink on paper in my opinion.

[London_Calling]

I think it's one of those books where you had to be there.


I just want to reiterate the point made by tomndebb in his first post: It is a book written for mid-teens, about being a mid-teen and probably, IMHO, holds more resonance for males less equipped to communicate their age related angst.

It certainly hit me like a bolt of lightening when I read it at that exact age.

Also, I'd add that the style and general accessibility of the book made a huge impression on me at the time - in retrospect, it all seems so tame, even predictable but back then the complimentary discordant themes (style, characters, plot devices, etc.) opened up to this naive country boy an entirely new creative world.

Yep, you had to be there.

[Fretful Porpentine]

... seems to me if I were to write a pasage out of a few days of my life, I could create about the same thing, did I mess the whole godamn point on this one.
Er, that is the point. Do you think it's easy to create a fictional voice that sounds like any ordinary teenager, going through ordinary experiences, and make it entirely believable?

Give it a try -- using what you can recollect of your own adolescence -- and you'll see.

[KneadToKnow]

Even though I'm not a big fan of Catcher in the Rye, I'll definitely agree with Fretful Porpentine on this one. It does sound authentic, and that alone is worth it's consideration as a masterwork.

It is almost inconceivably hard to tell a story in a voice other than your own and have it come out sounding right. If you've never done any writing, you can be forgiven for not understanding this intuitively. :)

[DaveW]

Yeah, Rysdad, brown. No artwork or anything, just yellow letters for the title on brown. Amazon.com doesn't seem to have a photo of it.

[King Rat]

But what the hell is a "Catcher in the Rye"?

[Chickenhead]

It's no "Middlemarch," that's fer sure.

[manhattan]

Let's shoot this one over to Cafe Society and see what the literati over there can do with it.

[Angelnside]

I may have to go back and read this book again....

It has been a very long time since I have read it...and I have changed a lot in those years...but, I have to say...I "enjoyed" the book! If you knew me at all you would find that extremely odd!

I remember writing a paper on the book as to Holden's personality when his head was covered vs when it wasn't. Strange... I know!

I'm curious here.....Nobody has mentioned the author.
I think one of the reasons I enjoyed it is because I was all caught up in Salinger at the time. I find him to be a very intriguing, misunderstood man.

I do have to say, I enjoyed Salinger's short stories more so than CITR.

Runs off looking for her copy of CITR

[Spoonbender]

I'm going to chime in as someone who not only likes the book at age 30 but thinks that the book is relevant for those beyond the teenage years.

Yes, it is about Holden's cynicism and hatred of phonies. But it is also about his hypocrisy. He despises phonies, but notice how many times Holden himself lies or fails to express his true feelings. To a certain extent, we are all phonies, and often the flaws that we despise in others are flaws that we possess ourselves. Holden doesn't realize this through the course of the book, but it leaves open the possibility that he might.

It's also about how you can't run away from your problems. No matter where he goes, Holden finds phonies. No matter how many schools he gets kicked out of, the next one is just as bad. When he goes to Phoebe's elementary school - which he envisions as a stronghold of innocence - he finds the words "fuck you" on the wall. He has to learn to live with the existence of things that he despises. As Mr. Antolini says in his note: "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."

meyer also makes some good points about alienation, and I think this is relevant for grownups as well.

There is more, but I can't think of it right now. But I think if you read the book carefully you will find more than the rantings of a whiny teenager.

[delphica]

I think another point worthy of mention is that Salinger was writing at a time that is in some ways very different from the present day. The idea that an otherwise advantaged teenager (he's not poor, he's not dumb, he's not an orphan, etc) could have feelings of alienation was not nearly as common as it is now. Some of its initial impact was a result of the fact that many people were reading something that acknowledged a previously ignored subject. I imagine that many readers read this and heaved a huge sigh of relief that they were not the only ones to feel this overwhelming stress and dissatisfaction.

This, IMHO, is true of Salinger's work in general. Most of his novels and short stories deal with a particular social group -- upper middle class, white, urban people -- who find their world changing in subtle yet unsettling ways. Much of this change is because America has become a very different place after WWII. The success or failure of his characters is usually marked by their ability to recognize and adapt to this new society. Salinger's real brilliance is demonstrated by the fact that he is one of the first writers to pick up on and articulate these anxieties.

Sometimes this does make his work seem a bit dated and ponderous -- I always notice this when Franny is anguishing about wanting to actually learn something instead of going to college for her Mrs. degree for page after page -- but it's really quite remarkable that he was able to flesh out these feelings so believably, and in a way that doesn't mock the character for undertaking an examination of self.

[Yue Han]

The Catcher in the Rye: Holden sees growing up as a terrible thing to have happen to unsuspecting children. At one point in the book he visualizes them as children running through a field of tall plants who don't see that there's a cliff up ahead. He wants to grab them before they run head long off the cliff. Hence, The Catcher in the Rye.

--John

[Yue Han]

The Catcher in the Rye: Holden sees growing up as a terrible thing to have happen to unsuspecting children. At one point in the book he visualizes them as children running through a field of tall plants who don't see that there's a cliff up ahead. He wants to grab them before they run head long off the cliff. Hence, The Catcher in the Rye.

--John

[KarlGrenze]

Originally posted by ScottHaneda
oops, almost forgot one more part I did not get, quite a bit was gone into in regards to Holden not feeling well in the end, stomach ache, almost pucking, passing out, etc, nothing really explained as to the cause of it all, as well as the odd feelings of anxiety he experienced as crossing the street downtown, is there more to be had surrounding those comments, or is it just some random unimportant event.


Eh...didn't you notice that during the three days or so he is wandering around NYC, he seldom eats or drinks? Also I think there is a part where he goes walking at night in cold weather with little protection, and also almost at the end he is standing under the rain. I always thought that (at least the physical) part of his sickness is that he is not taking care of himself for those three days.

[elfkin477]

I didn't read it at sixteen, I read it at 22. This is one of the books we read for my English Teaching seminar, and no one in my class hated it. I thought it was a pretty good book, but more for character development than plot. Hayden is a seriously confused person, and that really came through.

[Typo Negative]

Tried to read it last year, as it was recommended by my roommate. I found it too dull to finish.

But that's just me.

[meyer]

King Rat - Catcher in the Rye refers to a poem by Robert Burns (called Comin' Through The Rye, which I found online here:

http://ingeb.org/songs/rye.html
(my first link; I feel all tingly!)

The language doesn't translate too well into modern day North American, but I think you can see the drift - Jenny in the poem is Holden in the book - she is wet and dirty, yet there is hope that all will work out, that she will find her love and be past her pain. I love the line "Gin a body kiss a body / Need a body cry?". (At least thats my understanding of the poem, somebody tell me if I'm wrong.)

Holden hears a little boy humming this song, which gives it a context of innocence that he so desperately wants. Just as he realizes that life is not exactly as he thought it was, he also realizes that he had been misunderstanding the song. Where he pictures himself preventing children from falling over the cliff (and into adulthood), the reality in the poem is that of a poor child wandering alone through the fields of Scotland.

Thus we see the title, like everything, is fraught with meaning.

[scampering gremlin]

I bought a copy the evening after I read in my school newspaper that it was being removed from the library shelves. That was small town Virginia. I was seventeen.

It's odd that people treat novels with young protagonists as if they were written only for teenagers. We don't wait until late middle age to begin The Old Man and the Sea. The Catcher in the Rye appeared at a time when mass entertainment was very shy about subject matter. J.D. Salinger writes about an adolescent using the voice of an adolescent to express things that law and custom forbade sharing with an adolescent. Holden Caulfield's observation of the world is different--and far more threatening--than any explanation he can wring from an adult. Neither wealth nor privilege provide real safety. Even after more than fifty years, the scene where a trusted older man makes a homosexual pass at Holden remains disturbing.

Does censorship leave children unprepared for life? I read the title as both a description of that dilemma and of Holden's ambivalence toward it. He clings to the notion of a dream career that he knows to be impossible. Catching other young people is his idea of helping them, but what sort of help does that provide? He pretends to ignore some obscene grafitti when he meets his younger sister. Upset at its existence so near to Phoebe's school, he observes the customary silence from a protective impulse. Yet he remains unable to credit adults with a similar benevolence when they withhold information from him.

meyer makes some good observations about how deeply the title resonates within the text. Holden's limitations as a narrator are also worth consideration. Salinger introduces him as a skilled liar who makes a commitment to tell one story honestly. That's a hint to the reader to doubt the narrator's perspective. Holden likes to delude himself. On one level the story recounts the haphazard adventures of a boy with poor judgement, on another it paints a vivid portrait of an adolescent struggle to comprehend adulthood, while on a third level it implies criticism of a culture that conceals adult life from its children. The plot proceeds so naturally that it seems to vanish.

As a writer I respect this novel even though I'm not a J.D. Salinger fan. It takes a rare combination of skills to undertake what this tale accomplishes. I only wish that it were taught well in more classrooms.

[Humble Servant]

I'm going to post another link to Burns' poem (http://www.tamoshanter.free-online.co.uk/greengrow.htm#Comin') which includes the extra verses and a link to hear the song. Note that one of Burns' hobbyhorses is that city/civilized people who lose touch with nature forget how to live. Natural lasses running through grain fields and not caring that they are getting their dresses dirty are more charming and open to loving their laddies. ("Poor" is used in the sense of "dear," not impoverished.) Thus, in Burns' Jenny, we get an innocent country girl who is also blooming sexually. Kinda a nice methaphor for a teen growing up, huh?

[Humble Servant]

I'm going to post another link to Burns' poem (http://www.tamoshanter.free-online.co.uk/greengrow.htm#Comin') which includes the extra verses and a link to hear the song. Note that one of Burns' hobbyhorses is that city/civilized people who lose touch with nature forget how to live. Natural lasses running through grain fields and not caring that they are getting their dresses dirty are more charming and open to loving their laddies. ("Poor" is used in the sense of "dear," not impoverished.) Thus, in Burns' Jenny, we get an innocent country girl who is also blooming sexually. Kinda a nice methaphor for a teen growing up, huh?

[uberDave]

I've always thought that Caulfield's disconnection and apparent loathing for adulthood (and responsibility) masked something much more desperate. I think Holden is going insane, or at least at the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Those little ones running in the grass, for me represent his mind, and how close he is to losing reality.

Given the era that the book was written, an age of innocence was slipping away with the Cold War and the spectre of nuclear annihilation looming at some unforseeable distance, a padded cell may have seemed very comforting.

[Spoonbender]

Originally posted by uberDave
I think Holden is going insane, or at least at the brink of a nervous breakdown.

The text definitely supports that interpretation. At the end of the book he mentions "that one psychoanalyst guy they have here" and "the other wing" of the building he's staying in, which suggests that he's in a hospital or institution. Also, as KarlGrenze points out, towards the end it's clear that he's not eating much and not taking care of himself.

I think this is helpful in understanding the book. Holden is not a hero whom we are meant to admire. He's a troubled boy who has a hard time coping with reality.

[stormy652]

You sir, are an idiot. If you can't grasp ANY of what the book means, you deserve to be pistol-whipped by an overweight food critic.

[ITR champion]

I (age 19) just read it for the first time last summer. While it's not on my list of all time favorites, I think that it is well worth reading. The best part about it is that Holden seems to be such a believable character. I honestly felt that he was somebody I could meet in real life. I find this quite significant because many authors, and especially authors who write about young people, seem to have no understanding of how adolescent psychology works, so their characters don't appear realistic (hint hint, John Knowles), which can damage the overall narrative.

While I'm sure that some adults can enjoy CITR, it really is most relevant to older teenagers because it shows a character who is unwilling to accept responsibility or to seriously analyze his own behavior and instead projects his fears onto everyone else. Like it or not, there are many teens in our society who refuse to face reality in exactly the same way that Holden does.

[DKW]

I must comment on this.

I read about 90% of this novel over my teenage years (could never finish it for some reason). I felt it was a strong, compelling slice-of-life story about someone I could really care about. I didn't mind Holden's whining at all. I didn't mind his cynicism about "phonies". I didn't mind his anger at the world, his inability to make friends, or his complete distrust of nearly everything.

Because that used to be me.

I spent four years in an anarchic hellhole of a high school where virtually every grownup was a full-bore phony. I got picked on on almost a daily basis for no good reason, and nobody ever did a damn thing about it. The teachers were hacks. The principal was a bible-thumping blowhard who could not catch or punish wrongdoers and let several students get completely out of control. The counselors were worthless, irascible hacks who didn't deserve a tenth of whatever they were earning. My parents' response to all my troubles was either 1. Pretend they didn't exist, 2. bring up some ludicrous 50-year-old examples which had zippo relevance to my situation, or 3. scream incoherently.

The entire system was corrupt, diseased, and completely perverted from its original purposes; I knew it, and every student with half a brain knew it (which was how they knew they could get away with murder...almost literally, in one instance). So, like Holden, I really didn't see any point in pretending otherwise.

Do you expect me to "get over it" and get used to being a phony? Hey, the day I start become anything like that egomaniacal, petty, half-cocked, shallow, endlessly hypocritical reprobate of a principal, I want someone to charge through that rye field and hold me very tightly.

It's easy to be critical of people like Holden when you've had compassionate parents, friendly fellow students, intelligent teachers who understood the importance of respect and harmony, and a safe, nuturing environment to grow up in. NONE of this was the case for me. And in those darkest hours, when I was practically drowning in the phoniness, it was gratifying to see just one other person who knew what I was going through. Even if it was a fictional character who eventually got over it.

I guess there's a reason us eternal ionoclasts exist...

[frock75]

The book meant an awful lot to me. I went to that very school. J.D. Salinger is an alumnus of Valley Forge Military Academy, my alma mater. I knew exactly how Holden felt in th beginning. The need to leave, the insanity of a school where people your own age have authority over you. While team work and being part of the "corps" are strong themes at a school like that, the loners tend to feel more alienated. I guess it's sort of a " had to be there" situation.

[gex gex]

love the book... it's an amazing character study.

i've read about an interesting theory on holden, describing him as a christ like figure. i forget all the details, but it went along the lines of him being perfectly human, yet he has a 'goodness' about him... he always seems to show genuine compassion for people, even those who he doesn't like (he feels sorry for ackley, for instance) and has little interest in his own comfort or personal wellbeing; he gives far more the nuns than he can afford. even his chosen profession of 'catcher in the rye' holds connotations of a protector.

i haven't expressed this very well, and there was a bit more detail to the original idea... i just thought i'd toss it out and see what people thought?

[flano1]

Gee, nobody's even mentioned J.D.'s prescience in having
H.C. wear his cap backwards.

It's become the classic way to disaffect the phonies.