(Sidebar: It may be a little early in a post for a sidebar. But I feel like explaining. Hondo and I have decided to read Time Magazine's 100 best books of all Time, which are really only books written in English published since Time's first publication in 1923.)
I read this book in high school. It was during my junior year in Mrs. Hayward's advanced English class. We had a group project that we had to do, and each group was assigned a different book. I was in a group with a few of my good friends. I don't remember what the project was, but I do remember that I was the only one who finished the book. (Sorry my junior classmates who did this project with me. I'm not trying to throw you under the bus.) I also remember that I really did not like the book. But the details of reading it are fuzzy, so it must have just not really made any sort of impression on me either way.
Flash forward to today. (Actually Thursday, since that is the day I finished the book.)
-----WOW. I did not appreciate the brilliance of this book when I was in high school. Which is a bit ironic I think since it is supposedly a young adult novel. I think I understand much more now how it is a young adult novel than I did when I was a young adult.
The Catcher in the Rye is to this day on the banned book list, for various reasons. (Sidebar: I hate banned book lists.) If anyone took the time to actually read the book instead of being all nit-picky about a few swear words or whatever their problem is they might see how moral the story actually is.
Holden, the main character, is on some sort of undefined bender and he is freaking out about everything. He hates people, he misses them, he loves them for a moment and hates them the next. Robert Burns' poem that the title comes from, Comin' Thro the Rye, is misquoted by Holden but leads to his idea of becoming a catcher in the rye:
I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.Holden wants to keep these kids from going over the edge--into adulthood. He wants to save their innocence. I don't think that is immoral at all. It's a bit naive, but so is Holden.
What really struck me with this reading was how much Holden is grieving. I didn't even remember that he had a brother, Allie, who had died of luekemia. (Shows how well I read it in high school, eh?) Holden goes on this trip and goes crazy with grief. He makes a short mention of the fact that he was hospitalized right after his brother died because he broke all the windows in their garage with his fist and that he missed the funeral, which I read as him never really getting the chance to grieve for his dead brother. I felt like as I read it this time, and I saw how much Holden mentions Allie and even talks to him, I got it. I understood the story. He misses him. And it's because of this grief that he wants to keep his sister Phoebe, and all kids, innocent.
I enjoyed reading The Catcher in the Rye this time around. I feel like I had so much more understanding than I did before. I think it's the type of book that I could read again in 10 years and feel like I got it in a different way than I do now. Which is a great thing.
PS. I loved the writing. The book begs to be read aloud, simply because Holden is writing as though he is talking to you. It weaves through his thoughts quickly and randomly and realistically. Well done, J.D. Salinger.
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