JD Salinger - Catcher in the Rye
The thing about "Catcher", as it is so affectionately known on many American campuses, is that it's freakin' popular, particularly in America. For a novel that was written in 1951, it still seems to pack quite a pounch for uni students all over the place, particularly in the good ol' US of A. Perhaps it is because there is something endearing about the novel's lovable loser protagonist, Holden Caulfield, who is an adolescent, lost in a world of "phoneys", bumbling his way through life.
The novel begins with Holden being kicked out of Pensey, the 4th college he has been expelled from, and chronicles the subsequent 48 hours or so of him fooling around in New York City (refusing to go home because he doesnt want to break the news of yet another expulsion to his parents.) The novel is less concerned with what Holden actually does and more concerned with what he thinks, as is conveyed by the stream-of-consciousness style employed to write the novel (from the first person, might I add).
Salinger succeeds in getting inside Holden's head very well and, despite my lack of knowledge about adolescent behaviours in 1951, it does seem very authentic... especially on the part of the lingo and the many things that feature on Holden's mind, such as sex, his attitude towards his peers, being cool and independence.
Ultimately, in terms of social commentary, this book is fairly scathing in its depiction of adolescent America in the '50s. It is a hedonistic, "phoney" world of sex, bullying and underage drinking... 3 things that seem tame/normal to us now but were rather taboo at the time. The "phoneyism" in particular is something that Holden/Salinger really hones in on in the book. Generally speaking, the people that Holden refers to as "phoney" are more or less, people that do things just to be cool. The ironic thing about this is, that Holden is completely hypocritical, in the sense that he displays the very same tendencies.
This shows him to be, ostensibly an outsider, but one who is hopelessly sucked in to the many things he himself criticises. He takes a swipe at a number of social norms in the book. Here are some examples:
Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 20
Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 17
In that sense, this book strongly resembles Camus' The Outsider, in that it depicts a seemingly reasonable person outcast by society based on absurd social norms that he cannot follow. The book also strongly reminded me of Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero, which is similarly themed by an outcast adolescent caught up in a hedonistic world... but updated for the 80s.
Overall though, Catcher is a powerful depiction of the absurdities of American society and some of its more unlikely (ie. white, middle-class) victims.
The reason why we sympathise with Holden is because he see is an underdog, trying to be honest, to get by, he stands up for himself when he's being bullied by a pimp, he loves his sister and wants to do right by her, he spends money selflessly on others and throughout the whole novel, all he wants to do is build connections with people and love them... but whenever he reaches out, he is never satisfied and constantly let down...
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." ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 22
Labels: literature
posted by LX @ 3:03 AM
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