I like to make my own judgments on these works rather than rely on the proclamations of either the cultural yes-men or the anti-cultural naysayers. In some cases I am pleasantly surprised – in the case of Blue Like Jazz I was astonished; in other cases I think I must be missing something.
The Catcher in the Rye is one of the latter. What am I missing? Why has this book been idolized and often banned? Why the iconic status? I have intentionally avoided reading reviews and other’s thoughts about the book, so what follows are my unadulterated impressions.
A few things that I liked about the book:
First, it is a good read. The dialog is good, the characters are alive, and the supporting cast is colorful.
Second, I do understand how iconoclastic it must have been in the 1950’s when it was first published, although now it seems a rather tame and meandering tale of youthful delinquency.
Third, it was interesting to notice while reading how Donald Miller cops plenty of style from it for Blue Like Jazz. Miller uses “if you want to know the truth” throughout Blue Like Jazz just like Holden does. That’s fine with me – it’s an appropriate homage, a wink and a knowing smile from Miller to his readers who make the connection.
Some notable passages:
“I can’t always pray when I want to. In the first place, I’m sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don’t care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the h— out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were alright after Jesus was dead and all, but while he was alive, they were about as much use to him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting him down. I like almost anybody in the Bible better than the Disciples.
If you want to know the truth, the guy I like best in the Bible, next to Jesus, was that lunatic and all, that lived in the tombs and kept cutting himself with stones. I like him ten times as much as the Disciples, that poor b—–d.”
This is no surprise, since Holden is telling his story from within the asylum in which he now lives. But you don’t know this until the end of the book, so maybe you just see it as an attempt to shock the reader. Holden pities the lunatic, probably without seeing the parallel to his own life in which his younger sister seems to pity him in the same way.
Holden is absolutely obsessed with phoniness. He goes on about it at every opportunity. For example:
“In the first place, my parents are different religions, and all the children in our family are atheists. If you want to know the truth, I can’t even stand ministers. The ones they’ve had at every school I’ve gone to, they all have these Holy Joe voices when they start giving their sermons. G–, I hate that. I don’t see why the h— they can’t talk in their natural voice. They sound so phony when they talk.”
Authenticity is paramount in Holden’s hierarchy of social virtues. Authenticity is freedom, and freedom is liberty to do what one wants.
I’m finding this book more likable in the reviewing of it than I did in the reading. Because of the “surprise ending”, you want to read it again, now with your lens adjusted to account for the setting in which the story is being told. In this way it is like the movie “The Usual Suspects” – the only movie my wife and I have ever watched, then rewound (rewound, yes, back in the day) and immediately watched again. The surprise ending here is not as surprising, but I do think I’ll read this again sometime and the experience with be richer.
What follows is the dialog between Holden and his younger sister from the title of the book is taken:
“You know what I’d like to be?” I said. “You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had my g—-m choice?”
“What? Stop swearing.”
“You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like-“
“It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.”
“I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.”
She was right though. It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though.
“I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’” I said. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing a 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’d 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. I know it’s crazy.”
So the title of the book is actually taken not from the Robert Burns poem but from Holden’s faulty memorization of it. (Admit it, the title would not be nearly as compelling if was “Meeter in the Rye”.)
In this telling passage I see Holden’s longing for protection, his desire for someone to watch over him. At one point he takes refuge at the home of a former teacher whom he has always admired. He feels safe until he wakes to find this former teacher whom he trusts, Mr. Antolini, sitting on the floor next to couch on which he is sleeping, petting and patting Holden’s head. When Holden demands to know what he’s doing, Mr. Antolini replies “Nothing! I’m simply sitting here, admiring-”
Holden reveals that he “knows more d–n perverts, at schools and all… and they’re always being perverty when I’m around,” and “When something perverty like that happens, I start sweating like a b——. That kind of stuff’s happened to me about twenty times since I was a kid. I can’t stand it.”
Does anyone have a psychoanalytical take on those statements? I draw from that that he’s been a frequent victim of abuse. The next morning he considers returning to Mr. Antolini’s house, wondering if he’s misjudged the whole incident. “I mean I wondered if just maybe I was wrong about thinking he was making a flitty pass at me. I wondered if maybe he just liked to pat guys on the head when they’re asleep. I mean, how can you tell about that stuff for sure? You can’t.”This incident occurs near the end of the story and seems to put him over the edge with anxiety and worry, so I imagine it is shortly after this that he enters the asylum.
At the end of the story Holden regrets having told so many people his stories, since it makes him miss all the characters in them. “Don’t ever tell anybody anything,” he says, “If you do, you start missing everybody.”
I have to admit it – I’m seeing a lot more depth now than when I was reading the book. I was tempted to put it down, write a short, negative review, and forget about it. But right now, I’m more interested in picking it up and reading the whole story again.
And that is the way great art becomes great and memorable – the way it becomes a classic.
_____
Read more about The Catcher in the Rye at Wikipedia
_____
