The Catcher in the Rye question

Dang, I saw this thread title and I thought the question to which it was referring was the question itself. That would have been a brilliant recursion.

Oh well...

Demetrius wrote: "Maybe the question should not be what does the book say about Holden Caufield, but what does Catcher in the Rye say about the world?
Are Holden's commentary and criticism of the world valid?"


Yes.
"Phoney" is just a negative way of describing normal human behavior. We all have to tell "white lies" to make people feel good. Holden does it two or three times-with Ernest Morrow's mother, with the tourists. The people in the hotel he calls perverts are just people getting by the best way they know how. We're all flawed, but we're afraid to show our flaws publicly. Calling people phoney is the phoneyist way of being phoney.

I feel that's the point of Catcher in the Rye. That is how Caulfield sees the world - as a reflection of how it is in Salinger's mind. I think most of it is based on the social conditioning we undergo as we get older. Of course instead of accepting it as it is, and not let it get to him, Caulfield resists, which in itself reveals a character who's ego need's to be validated.