When I finally decided to read The Catcher in the Rye in 2021, it didn’t quite go to plan. I wasn’t much older than Holden Caulfield when my 11th grade English Language teacher recommended J.D Salinger’s polarising novel to me. It would take a number of years before I finally took up the challenge. Trying to read the thematically dense, surprisingly intricate book while also juggling uni work probably wasn’t the best idea. It’s no surprise that entire chapters and vitally important sections went right over my head and into the void.
But while I did get the gist, there’s a quite big difference between reading a book and actually understanding it.
See, reading is harder than people think. It takes time and a whole lot of mental energy to fully comprehend a book, to extract all the meaning you can out of it. This is what a handful of mind bogglingly misguided Goodreads reviewers unfortunately forget. If you’re reviewing a book, you need to commit to it, to sit down and analyse every word you come across. Simplistic as it may seem, The Catcher in the Rye is a surprisingly complex and intricately written novel. While taste may be permissible, basic understanding and comprehension isn’t. So, with ample time before my final year of uni kicked off, I decided to read The Catcher in the Rye for real, thoroughly examining the book and its questionable protagonist.
Context is an important part of any book review. It helps shed light on the writer’s frame of mind. This is especially true for The Catcher in the Rye and its reclusive writer J.D Salinger. By borrowing from their own life, writers give real-world depth to their stories and characters, helping readers around the world resonate with them. Cross between an autobiography and a work of fiction, The Catcher in the Rye is a deeply personal book. Growing up in New York City, Salinger’s childhood was strikingly similar to Holden Caulfield’s. Like Holden, J.D found formal education stifling, often acting out against authority figures. But like his teenage stand-in, he loved and excelled at English, showing tremendous aptitude for the subject. Turning his interest into a career, Salinger found success as a short story writer, with his work published in the prolific New Yorker Magazine. But after America joined the war effort in Europe, Salinger set aside his burgeoning career to work in counterintelligence. While there, Salinger bore witness to some of the bloodiest episodes of the war, walking away a jaded and traumatised man. Like Holden, Salinger wound up in a psychiatric hospital. The war and all the horrors that came with it put a significant strain on his mental state. But through it all, Holden Caulfield kept J.D company. By the time he returned to the States, Salinger was a shell of his former self. The war turned him into a jaded, cynical man, taking away the easy charm and humour of his youth. When the Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, J.D Salinger was catapulted to the height of literary stardom. Holden’s piercing words resonated with an entire generation of young people. Enamoured fans from across the country would come to meet their favourite writer, with many encroaching on his privacy. To escape his growing stardom, Salinger moved away to a small town in Pennsylvania. Vowing to never write about the war, Salinger focused on youth and adolescence, about life rather than death.
With age comes wisdom. How we read and understand a book at 17 should be different to how we read and understand it years later. Unlike many American readers, I came to The Catcher in the Rye rather organically. I could go with the flow, enjoying the book at my own pace. Having let the story wash over me, I could see Holden for what he truly was: a scared, lonely little boy in desperate need of care and understanding. Some books just should not be taught in school. And unfortunately, Catcher in the Rye is one of them. While The Catcher in the Rye is, at least on the surface, a young adult book, it is much more than meets the eye. Its themes and subject matter are a little too dense, too complicated for teenagers to understand. Aside from loneliness, The Catcher in the Rye touches on grief and the impact it has on our lives. These underlying themes are just too difficult for teenagers to understand. But therein lies its true genius. At face value, Holden is an annoying, oftentimes irritating little brat who thinks he has the world all figured out. Readers might see Holden as a role-model when they’re younger, someone to base their beliefs off of. These readers take his word as gospel, modelling their own worldview off his. But as they grow older, as they learn from life, they come to understand the book, and Holden Caulfield, a little better.
Having read the book again after a number of years, Anne Roipke had this exact experience. In her Guardian article from 2002, Roipke touches on how she saw Holden in her youth, how she idolised and revered him, and how she saw him years later. Seeing him as a teenage prophet, Anne clung to Holden’s every word. Holden symbolised authenticity and originality to the then 17-year-old, starkly contrasting the conformity and hypocrisy of the 1950s. Holden was a counter-culture hero to Roipke and her equally inspired friends. In a world gripped by stardom and celebrity culture, Holden saw through Hollywood and its supposed phoniness. But after reading the book again decades later, Roipke came away with a completely new understanding of the story and its main character. Rather than teenage angst and rebellion, Roepke saw that The Catcher in the Rye was actually about grief and its toll on children. Rather than the tough, enlightened prophet of her youth, Roipke saw Holden as a scared, lonely little boy in desperate need of comfort and reassurance. She came to understand his struggle, his search for companionship. He strikes up a conversation with almost everyone he meets – the mother on the train, the cab driver, and the nuns – to form a connection, to stem the tide of loneliness.
But not every reader comes to understand the book like this. Some, despite their age and wisdom, still can’t grasp the book. These readers even grow to resent Holden Caulfield, with some even wishing physical harm on the poor boy.
Like Roipke, Kathy idolised Holden in their youth. She found the book “profoundly moving” at 16, going so far as to call it her favourite. But when she finally read the book again in her 40s, Kathy wanted nothing more than to strangle Holden and tell him to grow up. She sees Holden’s insight as “superficial” and “banal”. She even accuses Holden of being a phoney character. It’s honestly amazing how close one person can be to actually getting the book, to reading between the lines. But like many people on Goodreads, Kathy has missed the mark completely. Older readers should recognise how shallow and misguided Holden’s world view is. You’re supposed to see the error of his ways. With wisdom and age at their disposal, older readers should see what they missed as younger readers, every device or clever tool. Older and more learned, they should understand the difference between right and wrong. But unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.
The Catcher in the Rye’s shining light, and perhaps also its flaw, is its subtlety.
And in writing, nothing is done by accident. Having spent years working as a professional writer, having written for one of the world’s most prestigious literary magazines, Salinger certainly knew a thing or two about this age-old craft. With The Catcher in the Rye being such a deeply personal book, Salinger would have laboured over each and every single word, putting all of his talent into the book. Which is quite shocking considering how small and relatively easy to read it is. But then again, reading and comprehending are two completely different things. Every scene and every character have their purpose in the story. They teach Holden, and us the reader, valuable life lessons. But because of the book’s inherent subtlety, these deliberate choices often go unrecognised and unappreciated by the vocal minority,
One such scene is Holden’s trip to the museum. This all-important scene sheds light on Holden’s biggest fears: Death. Holden’s reluctance to grow up, his vehement rejection of adult life, stems from a fear of death. He is desperately clinging on to his youth, doing everything he can to stay young. Passing time before meeting up with his younger sister Phoebe, Holden decides to visit the museum. With it being his first visit since primary school, Holden looks back on those fond memories. He goes to the same exhibits. He remembers all the pranks he pulled with his friends. But happiness quickly turns to sadness. Holden realises that none of the exhibits have changed. Untouched by the passage of time, they’ve stayed the exact same, stood in the exact same spot. The only thing that has changed is him. Holden’s grown older, much older. And he’ll keep getting older with each passing year, taking one step closer to death. And this realisation shocks Holden, it scares him to his core. He wants to stay young forever. He wants to clown around for as long as he can. But he can’t. Sooner or later, he has to grow up, he has to face his fears.
Salinger bookends the story with two key characters: Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini. These characters speak not only to Holden, but also the disillusioned readers. Through Mr. Spencer, and later on Mr. Antolini, Salinger warns impressionable young people about being like Holden, about following in his footsteps. Having taught Holden at different schools, they understand Holden on a personal level. They understand his latent potential. They know what he can offer the world if just knuckles down and tries. Sitting Holden down both at the start and towards the end of the book, Spencer and Antolini plead with him, urging him to wise up and start caring about his education. They see the dark path Holden is walking down, they know where it’ll lead. But like most adults who read The Catcher in the Rye, they don’t seem to grasp the root cause of Holden’s issues. They’re too concerned with the bigger picture, ignoring the storm raging within Holden.
How Salinger chose to write The Catcher in the Rye is particularly interesting. Holed up in a hospital bed, Holden has nothing to do but write about those whirlwind couple of days before Thanksgiving. The Catcher in the Rye is less a novel and more a diary entry. Despite there being an ocean of years separating him from his childhood, Salinger recalls that period with shocking clarity. So shockingly accurate in fact, that certain readers hate its main character with a burning passion. His potent words spoke to an entire generation of young people. Growing up in a post-war era fixated on capitalist ideas and productivity, Salinger’s readers felt seen, felt represented. 74 years on, The Catcher in the Rye is as polarising today as it was in 1951.
The fact that it is still being talked about today, still taught in school, speaks to its power as a work of fiction.
The death of his younger brother at such an early age left an indelible mark on Holden’s life. Only a couple years older than Allie, the two were incredibly close, with his brother being perhaps Holden’s only friend. From what little information Holden gives us, we learn that Allie passed away from leukemia at an early age. Holden describes Allie as the light of everyone’s life. A shy yet profoundly intelligent boy, Allie’s teachers, and everyone that knew him, had nothing but nice things to say about him. So, the deterioration and death of Holden’s closest friend and brother affected him, stunting his emotional maturity. Holden has an aversion towards sickness, linking it to Allie’s death. Visiting Mr. Spencer before he is ultimately kicked out of Pencey, Holden can’t stand to look at his elderly teacher’s withered body. He is reminded of Allie’s own steady decline. Watching someone you love wither away before your very eyes would impact the strongest, most emotionally mature of adults, least of all a growing teenage boy. Holden’s fear of growing up could be seen as a fear of death. Having watched his own brother die before his very eyes, Holden knows what he has to look forward to. No matter how hard he tries, Holden creeps closer and closer to death with each passing year. But despite what he symbolises, Holden turns to Allie in his darkest moments, seeking comfort and reassurance. Holden’s immaturity speaks to this fear. He doesn’t want to grow up, and he will do anything he can to stave off father time, even moving away to the woods.
Older readers should recognise this fear and sympathise with Holden, not wish physical harm on him. While his worldview and attitude towards women needs work, we can chalk this up to emotional maturity and the lack of a positive role model. With absent parents, Holden doesn’t have anyone in his life to guide him, to push him in the right direction. While Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini certainly fall into this category, they’re too preoccupied with Holden’s education to care about his mental state. Rather than lead by example, they put the onus squarely on Holden, forcing him to fend for himself. With no one to look up to, no one to model his life on, Holden turns to the “phony” movies of Hollywood, copying golden-age stars like Humprey Bogart. A little empathy, especially from older readers, goes a long way when rereading the book. Seeing and understanding the book differently with your adult brain is part of the point. You shouldn’t think or feel like your teenage self.
