The Catcher in the Rye
discussion
Did anyone else just not "get" this book?
A good exposition, Kevin, I think. My idea of the bones of plot is this: something happens to someone with consequences that we are told about. Ulysses satisfies these conditions magnificently.
Andie Stockwell wrote: "I read it to see what all the fuss was about and I still have no idea. All I got out of it was a teenager whining about his life and college and girls and how everything sucks. I don't understand w..."yeah your'e right andie , but that's the life of a notsosocial person , disgusted with your own life and all . when i finished it ,I found no meaning in this book too ,i was just like wtf what was that ? , but not every book has to have a meaning right ? this book was so depressing that it comforted me in lots of ways .. idk why , but it just did ..
I agree...this book sucked. I had to read it for class and honestly it was one of those books that I simply couldn't get through...it was that bad.
Nancy wrote: "I agree...this book sucked. I had to read it for class and honestly it was one of those books that I simply couldn't get through...it was that bad."Does it make sense to you that Holden was so traumatized by the deaths of his brother, Allie, and his dorm-mate, James Castle, that he couldn't function? Today's diagnosis would be PTSD. Do you know anyone with that condition? If you did, you would recognize the symptoms in Holden.
Has anyone close to you died? Do you get it that people can be so torn up over the loss of a loved one that it takes them years to get over it unless they get professional help, if even then?
Does the book make sense to you knowing that JD Salinger, himself, spent time in a mental ward for "battle fatigue" during WWII after participating in the Normandy landing at Utah Beach, the heart of the action, where he could see hundreds of men, some of them perhaps close friends, cut to pieces by German machine guns and blown apart by mortars. He was also among the first Allied soldiers to visit a concentration camp where bodies were piled up to be burned and the air stank of burning flesh and the inmates he helped to liberate were walking skeletons?
Does it make sense to you that someone who had experienced what Salinger had might have acquired a heightened sense of compassion for his fellow man and want to protect the innocence of children? Doesn't it make sense that he would create a character like Holden to express those feelings?
And doesn't this make the "teenaged angst" explanation of the book seem a bit superficial, even dismissive?
Nancy wrote: "I agree...this book sucked. I had to read it for class and honestly it was one of those books that I simply couldn't get through...it was that bad."Fortunately, I wasn't assigned this book when I was in high school. I've tutored a couple of students who were required to read it, and was shocked at how detailed the questions about the book were. (e.g. Describe at length why Holden's hunting hat was red, and explain its significance.) The book is more enjoyable when read quickly. Two chapters at a time was torture.
Kressel wrote: "Jodie wrote: "I am curious to see if many Australians "got this book" my guess is not a lot of them did, perhaps it is an American classic because it speaks to American teenagers but it seems so fa..." Hi Jodie! I'm an Australian. I loved Catcher in the Rye and I consider it a pivotal moment of my teens. I first read this book when I was a teenager. It was the first school book that I ever related to. More than that I loved it. Holden is a typical teenager, questioning everything. This book has urgency, it contains philosophy, it talks to base driving forces of humans and especially it speaks the language of a frustrated pubescent boy who is no longer a child but has yet to be treated as an adult. It contains all of the same triggers that I imagine a young woman might respond to but perhaps with too much bile and aggression? It is still one of my favorite books.
In related story, I listened to Beatles and who cares about Yellow Submarines ...
… and Babe Ruth looks fat, Charlie Chaplin’s mute and Mona Lisa just sits there.
Are you talking to me or Kressel?
Doesn't what I noted convey that?
I didn't realize you were Australian. Have you read other Salinger? Perfect Day For Bananafish? Down At the Dhingy? (SP)
Thank you! That's brilliant, for some reason I thought Salinger was a one hit wonder. I'm about to buy both of the books you recommended. Cheers!
I read Catcher when I was 16. Four years ago. And I didn't get it. When it ended, I was relieved. I'd had enough of Holden's annoying whining and I felt like I was wasting my time reading it because the story just went nowhere. At the same time, I'm interested to know why people enjoyed it.
I read it when I was in high school and I was amazed by it. I was talking to one of my daughter's friends who was reading it a couple of years ago and he was also amazed by it. I think the book is written for a certain person. I know people who have read "Ulysses" and hated it. I know people who have read it and consider it a masterpiece of English Literature. I don't expect any book will be loved by everyone.
Thanks! I'm looking forward to reading the rest.
Rebecca wrote: "I'm interested to know why people enjoyed it. "Does it make sense to you that Holden was so traumatized by the deaths of his brother, Allie, and his dorm-mate, James Castle, that he couldn't function? Today's diagnosis would be PTSD. Do you know anyone with that condition? If you did, you would recognize the symptoms in Holden.
Has anyone close to you died? Do you get it that people can be so torn up over the loss of a loved one that it takes them years to get over it unless they get professional help, if even then?
Does the book make sense to you knowing that JD Salinger, himself, was hospitalized for a nervous condition during WWII after participating in the Normandy landing at Utah Beach, the heart of the action, where he could see hundreds of men, some of them perhaps close friends, cut to pieces by German machine guns and mortars; and was among the first Allied soldiers to visit a concentration camp where bodies were piled up to be burned and the air stank of burning flesh and the inmates he helped to liberate were walking skeletons?
Does it make sense to you that someone who had experienced what Salinger had might have an exaggerated sense of compassion for his fellow man and want to protect the innocence of children and create a character like Holden to express those feelings?
Doesn't this make the "teenage angst" explanation of the book seem a bit superficial, even dismissive?
Come on guys, this book is a classic! Without this book, emo wouldn't exist as a social clique/movement. Would you really want to live in a world without emos?!
Ian wrote: "Come on guys, this book is a classic! Without this book, emo wouldn't exist as a social clique/movement. Would you really want to live in a world without emos?!"I've theorized that emos were stung by a bee when they were in the crib. Or some other trauma that sensitized them at an early age.
Monty J. I think you nailed it. Good job.
I forgot to mention that this wasn't the very first whiny emo book. That belongs to the sorrows of young wurther. If catcher was the father of the movement, sorrows would be the grandfather.
I am partly joking of course. I realize this book has more going for it than that. I just really couldn't get myself to remotely like this book! Sorry for all the emo jokes if they offend.
OMG I was hoping I wasn't the only one. I could not get into the book, and it took me a long time to read. It was basically my backup book. It seemed to have a good story to it, and usually I like older and classic books, but this one definitely didn't make the cut. For me, I think it may have been because of the main character's personality. Holden was exactly the kind of person that annoys the heck out of me in real life. I guess I really don't know, though. I agree with what Melissa said: you either love it or you don't.
Yeah, I’m on same page with Kevin. I have read and re-read everything by Salinger. Also recommend the Franny and Zooey stories and Raise High The Roofbeams. As far as Catcher, I liked it as a teenager but when I went back and re-read it in college and then later I realized I’d missed a great deal, but that’s just me. Two finals thoughts: Catcher, more than most books, is very … American in its sensibilities. Secondly, one primary thing I’d missed due to my tendencies towards idiocy was physically where Holden is at the beginning….am I the only one?
Mark wrote: "one primary thing I’d missed due to my tendencies towards idiocy was physically where Holden is at the beginning….am I the only one? "Nope. Same happened to me.
I wanted to read the book because I've always seen it viewed as a "classic." Well it took me awhile to get into it because GD was literally in every sentence. He complained about everything and he was always so lonely, but whenever he was with someone he would complain about how stupid they were. I don't really understand the whole meaning behind the book. The time frame was literally like 3 days? And I just felt like it lasted forever because it kept dragging on. I feel like it was an okay book, but I wouldn't read it again.
Marianne wrote: "I don't really understand the whole meaning behind the book."Does my above post #864 help?
This whole thread makes me crazy. Don't read books just because people consider them classics. That is a horrible way to live your lives. Read books because they appeal to you in some way. And if you are 50 pages in and just can't stand it, stop reading and don't bitch about not getting it. Sometimes there is nothing to get. Like Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. I loved Catcher. But Moby Dick can fuck off.
Mark wrote: "Well, you’re entitled to your views, Andrew, but books … don’t usually become classics for no reason and your opinion aside, the fact a book is rough reading early on isn’t always a surefire indica..."Of course you are correct about books becoming classics for a reason. That doesn't really mean much. Life is too short to read things that don't inspire something in you. I do think it's silly to read something and say "I just don't get what all the fuss is about." because you don't have to get it. And just because something isn't your cup of tea doesn't mean it is rubbish. I know loads of folks who love Moby Dick. I don't judge them, I just really dislike it. A lot. I believe that reading the Platoon script was tough. Scripts are not really inherently meant to be read. Which is unfortunate. And I am all for growing intellectually from reading, but if you are reading something and hating it, can't even see the point of it, then you aren't learning anything. Although, I did learn that I really dislike books about great white whales.
Mark wrote: "Well, you’re entitled to your views, Andrew, but books … don’t usually become classics for no reason and your opinion aside, the fact a book is rough reading early on isn’t always a surefire indica..."Some good points … To be honest, Moby was a tough read for me back in the day; it wasn’t until I focused on Ahab’s obsession during the re-read that I got into it but scripts should be -- and generally are an easier read than a novel but Stone’s script was so dense in detail
…
Monty J wrote: "Marianne wrote: "I don't really understand the whole meaning behind the book."Does my above post #864 help?"
Wow....that puts everything in a different aspect. Thank you for explaining that to me!
It's also very funny at parts. BTW, Bananafish is a PTSD story too
The thing about "getting" this book is to remember it's something like a snapshot of someone's life and thoughts. A mostly unhappy stream of consciousness. Holden is a spiritual person living in a nonspiritual world. He's searching for something he can't find: meaning in what seems meaningless. He meets a series of people who are adults, with "the answers." He can't imagine himself like them. He has no decent role model, no superhero. Without a good role model, he wanders aimlessly, but finds glimmers of happiness in an idea of protecting others from becoming like him: floundering in the misery and depression in his own head, otherwise known as becoming an adult without a purpose.
This is why it's thought to be a classic "coming of age" novel. Many people find it depressing, however, because it doesn't really answer life's questions for you. That's because Holden, at the end, only barely understands that he's found the threads of future happiness in a purist love for his sister. We see this by his first real happiness and joy - watching Phoebe on the carousel.
This is very much the kind of book that appeals to teens with suicidal thoughts. It shows you something of what is going on in the minds of someone for whom life has come to have no meaning. The soiled minds and misguided actions of those you meet in the book only serve to drive Holden deeper into unhappiness.
Interesting. Where did you see the spiritual angle exemplified?
It's more what's not there, as opposed to what is there. It's somewhat existentialist thinking, don't you think? You seek the meaning of life in your experiences. Your experiences are what make you what you are. You become the sum of your experiences.
The NYT explained what I was trying to say this way: "...(Catcher in the Rye is) a book that intimately articulates what it is to be young and sensitive and precociously existential, a book that first awakens them to the possibilities of literature.
Whether it’s Holden or the whiz-kid Glass children or the shell-shocked soldier in “For Esmé — with Love and Squalor,” Mr. Salinger’s people tend to be outsiders — spiritual voyagers shipwrecked in a vulgar and materialistic world, misfits who never really outgrew adolescent feelings of estrangement. They identify with children and cling to the innocence of childhood with a ferocity bordering on desperation: Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye, who keeps kids from falling off a cliff; Seymour communes with a little girl on the beach about bananafish, before going upstairs to his hotel room and shooting himself in the head.
Such characters have a yearning for some greater spiritual truth, but they are also given to an adolescent either/or view of the world and tend to divide people into categories: the authentic and the phony, those with an understanding of “the main current of poetry that flows through things” and those coarse, unenlightened morons who will never get it — a sprawling category, it turns out, that includes everyone from pompous college students parroting trendy lit crit theories to fashionable, well-fed theater-goers to self-satisfied blowhards who recount every play in a football game or proudly wear tattersall vests..."
Here's the rest of it, if you're interested:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/boo...
P.S. Have you seen the abuse this book is taking in the next thread over, about are we too old for Catcher in the Rye?
Don't worry if other folks bash the books you like. I wouldn't sleep at night if I did that. I am a Russian lit fanatic that lives in the deep south for God's sake!
I grew up in the deep South! Love it! Quite different from the rest of the world, daount chya'all theink? I sometimes think the Southern drawl should be treated as a new language, like Creole or something. Maybe someday.
Thanks DM, I appreciate it. And really, who cares if anyone doesn’t get Salinger -- btw have you read Bananafish or Down At The Dhingy?
When you write a book successful enough to support you for two or three lifetimes, make you internationally famous send you into hiding and refuse throughout your entire lifetime to allow it to be a movie my guess is you don’t care if a numbskull or two don’t “get it.”
Mark wrote: "When you write a book successful enough to support you for two or three lifetimes, make you internationally famous send you into hiding and refuse throughout your entire lifetime to allow it to be ..."Yup.
Mark wrote: "Thanks DM, I appreciate it. And really, who cares if anyone doesn’t get Salinger -- btw have you read Bananafish or Down At The Dhingy?"I have, but it was too long ago for me to be coherent about them.
I don't know if it was that I didn't get it when I read it back in school or if it was that I was already too mature for it when I read it or if it's because I'm female, but I didn't take to it. It doesn't seem like a complicated book to understand, so I don't think it was that I didn't get it. It seems like a lot of the people who like this novel are teenagers, but I've always been too mature for my age - too shy and too formal - so maybe it was that I didn't relate to Holden. It could also be that I was too naive to relate to the idea of phoniness and showing others only the side of yourself that you want them to see. I've never been deceptive and have a hard time disguising myself. Perhaps it's just because I'm female and didn't understand the perceptions of Holden as a teenage boy. I don't know, but I can't say that I have the urge to read the book again as an adult to find out. I have a strong feeling that Holden would just be an annoying, know-nothing kid looking for attention to me now.
I read this book recently because it is a classic and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I think generalizing who would enjoy the book (ie. suicidal, emo teens) is a bit much. That said, everyone has different tastes and some just don't like the book. That's fair.
I doubt very much that there is a single book out there that every single person either "gets" or likes. I loved Catcher in the Rye and I loved Ulysses and I loved Moby Dick. But I despised Turn of the Screw. Such is life.
I haven't read The Catcher in the Rye since high school, however when I read it it made a huge impression on me and I still have an emotional reaction when I think about it. I find it heartbreaking- the narrator wanted so badly to protect the children of the world from loss of innocence and he was frozen in place by hiw own loss of innocence too. Because of his vulnerability (and unawareness of it in himself), I found myself wanting to protect Holden Caulfield from himself. It aroused very powerful emotions in me, but I can also understand how others might not understand it. Also, the incessant swearing is something that turns off many readers.
Jessica wrote: "You have to pay attention to the symbolism in this book to "get" it. Look past the seemingly whining teenager who feels like he's been dealt a bad hand. Here's one example of the hard-to-catch sy..."
Is Holden really "whiny". His interactions with most people are either deferentially polite(Ernest Morrow's mother,the cab driver he invites for a drink), respectful(old Spencer,Mr. Antonioli, or compassionate(the nuns, the three girls from Seattle). People who criticize Holden as "emo" or "whiny" have merely given the most shallow of readings.
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Read A Fine Day for Bananafish. Remember existential alienation, the mark of the intellectual. Salinger translates this pose into real anguish and ultimately suicide. I myself haven't encountered the Catcher/Gatsby dichotomy. I do wonder whence the idea of Catcher being plotless, or that modern literature in general is so. This makes me wonder what people's idea of a plot is, which would itself make a good discussion topic, methinks. Anyone? How to frame the question with the requisite nuance?