So, this week we began our study of The Catcher in the Rye. When I first read this book, I have to admit that I hated it or, as Holden might say, “I thought it was lousy”. It didn’t go anywhere and I wanted, I don’t know . . . . more.
After re-reading it a number of times now, after engaging with it from the point of view of its production context and considering it as the first of its kind — a bildungsroman that features a teenage protagonist — after reading it through different lenses (a father of a teenager, a teacher of teenagers, a young man who raised his teenage brother and sisters, a man who values history) I found (and continue to find) it fascinating. Not just because it offers a powerful insight into the teenage experience. Not just because it offers us an insight into the context of post-WW2 America and its conservative moralism. Not just because it speaks for and to youth who feel betrayed by adults who had sent them to slaughter on the beaches in Normandy. And, not just because it captures the 50s and 60s zeitgeist of a burgeoning counter-culture revolution. I find it fascinating because, even today, it gives voice to a generation of teenagers who are alienated within a world that grows them too fast, acknowledges maturity within a narrow set of rules, and demands conformity to an apathetic cultural norm:
“It’s no surprise . . . that Salinger’s experience in World War II should cast a shadow over Holden’s opinions and experiences in The Catcher in the Rye. World War II robbed millions of young men and women of their youthful innocence. Salinger himself witnessed the slaughter of thousands at Normandy, one of the war’s bloodiest battles. In Catcher we see the impact of Salinger’s World War II experience in Holden’s mistrusting, cynical view of adult society. Holden views growing up as a slow surrender to the “phony” responsibilities of adult life, such as getting a job, serving in the military, and maintaining intimate relationships.”
In discussions this week in class, I asked did people enjoy the book; very few hands went up . . . and that’s okay. I did have a chuckle to myself and wonder if this was actually true or whether the teenage audience whom I had asked were merely ‘rebelling’ against the question itself; how ironic would that have been? I then asked whether they felt the novel was a critically valuable text, one worth reading for its historical worth, for its representation of Holden as the archetypal teenager, for its understanding of the nihilistic, existential and often paradoxical mindset of the teenager. Almost all of the hands went up.
I wonder if this happened because, at one level, students know that the text tries to show growing up as a real thing. It acknowledges it rather than ignoring, glossing over or denying that growing up is hard, alienating, confusing.
When all is said and done, Catcher is about Holden Caulfield, a teenager, just like them who is struggling and fearful of change. The reader, through Holden’s first and second person point of view, accompanies Holden during this tumultuous year and his awkward process of maturation. To say that we ‘arrive’ anywhere by the end of the text is difficult; there does not seem to be any discernible resolution or moment when Holden becomes or is ‘mature’. Rather, what we see–and why I think my students ultimately appreciate the novel– through Holden’s perspective is that change is painful and that moving from childhood to adulthood is not simply one step in front of the other, but a process of irrepressible momentum – one step forward two steps back, a scary thing. To have this recognised, even in a book given by their English teacher, can be (and I hope it is) comforting somehow.
Overall, the important lens through which to read this book is the one of growing up. What does this story tell about growing up? What does it tell us about change and crisis and angst? What does it tell us about love and sex and friendship, a family, and peer pressure, and status, and alienation? How does it tell us these things? Through character, setting, point of view, voice, perspective, conflict?
In one sense, Catcher takes off from where the documentary Teenage leaves us, right at the beginning of modern understandings about teenage identity. Whether it offers a realistic, relevant or sophisticated enough representation is open for debate (especially in light of later texts like Rebel without a Cause, Some Kind of wonderful, Dead Poets Society, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower). But, one thing we cannot deny is that it is the best place to begin, the best place from which to start our journey into the mysterious world of the teenager.
