The Catcher in the Rye
discussion
Did anyone else just not "get" this book?
Mark wrote: "I didn't realize you were Australian. Have you read other Salinger? Perfect Day For Bananafish? Down At the Dhingy? (SP)"If you read other Salinger works, you find "bsnanafish" is the culminating episode of the Seymour Glass story.
Robin wrote: "I think since it was written from a teenager's point of view, it was unheard of when the book was first published, I am thinking early 50's or so. Or 60's. So given that it was written in that vei..."Yes, Robin, that was exactly it! I hated this book (what little I read of it) as a ninth grader, but when I taught it ten years ago to high school juniors, I fell in love with it.
I gave the students extra credit to go see "Girl Interrupted". I thought it was good to see the difference between how society reacts when it is a boy lost in the world compared to how society and the parents act when it is a girl.
It makes me so glad my family was NOT wealthy! Who knows where I would have ended up!
Robert wrote: "I think the guts of the novel are encompassed in his relationship with his sister. Wanting to connect while remaining an outsider & being misunderstood is a pretty timeless theme, but the writing s..."Hah! Good idea, Robert! As teachers though, we can help the kids read it and make sense of it.
I totally get both sides. I originally read this during my first trip to New York when I was about 24, and absolutely hated it. Couldn't see the point, and took nothing away from it aside from the whinings of a teen.But when I read it again in my mid-30s I saw it much differently. It's an intimate book about a kid who's too sensitive and too estranged from the world around him. Holden feels it all, but can't express it. He sees hypocrisy and shallowness, but can't do anything but float through it.
For me it became a story about a person who saw through the matrix, and found nothing but loneliness on the other side.
The modern west is a society of image and surfaces. Holden came of age while that society was taking root and acted as a conscience for those who craved depth and intimacy while being stuck in the shallows. In a way, he's an adolescent precursor to the psychoses of Brett Easton Ellis.
That, or I'm just full of it.
I think Holden is "ALL of us," especially all of us as teens and those of us artists who are still finding our way in a dog eat dog world. Yes, Holden came from a rich family which turns out to be both good and bad, but his feelings have been felt by anyone who takes the time to tune in (to himself) and unplug from this crazy world long enough to really look at it.At heart, Holden is the artist waiting to be born.
P.S. Kori, who is Brett Easton Hills?
Hey Sherrie. Brett Easton Ellis is the author of Less Than Zero, Glamorama and most recognizably American Psycho.
Hmmm, I must be out of touch with the current reading world. ;-( . . .
I blame the vastness of the world ;)
Mark wrote: "I didn't realize you were Australian. Have you read other Salinger? Perfect Day For Bananafish? Down At the Dhingy? (SP)"Were these published postmortem? I understood that Salinger wanted no attention for his first book and went into hiding. I know his daughter wanted to publish his books, but he told her NO.
No, they are part of Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
I don't want to ruin them for you, but they are both very strong
Jon, you may come to see more there as u age. I did
Meh. I think that sums it up.
I read this book back in school and just recently again as an adult because I don't remember liking it back then and wanted to give it a second chance. I thought maybe I could like it now, but I just can't like it more than two out of five stars. It was OK, I suppose, and there are some lines that made me chuckle a little. I think I definitely do get it because I could analyze Holden as a character and the symbols/themes/etc. - but I just don't relate to Holden at all. It's not a matter of comprehension. I just don't think the way Holden does, I'm not as cynical as he is, and I just don't connect in any kind of personal or emotional way with this novel.
I can completely understand those who don't really "get" this book. The story can't be described as "pleasant" really. For me, I can't even say that I "enjoyed" the book as much as I "appreciated" it. There was just so much for me to learn from it when I did my undergrad in psychology.
I personally did not care for this book! Someone reccomended it to me but I could not connect or get into it! As a teenager myself I thought it was boring.
i can so relate to you all. my husband suggested i read this because he is clearly impressed by it. i on the other hand couldn't see it any further than you guys did. where we all mostly coincide is the fact that most of us have read the book around our 30s. maybe thats where the special grey cell to 'get' the book expires. LOLwhat i liked in the book though is the relationship of the guy with his sister. i also felt that maybe he finds everyone phony, because deep down somewhere he is phony too. i dont know in what way but he kinda is. a sorta wannabe.
also, lets accept that we are reading about a past cultural era, i mean even including the lingo he uses. i guess its already passe.
I too started this book, hoping to learn what classic stuff is made of. Couldn't get past couple of chapters!!
Melissa wrote: "Referencing Paul's comment about a classic standing the test of time, I find myself wondering what makes a book a classic? And why? I picked up "Moby Dick" recently expecting a rollicking good re..."Mellville wrote the novel that way to chase off what he considered to be readers not up to his intellectual standards.
I found it dry as dust as well, although I learned more than I ever wanted to know about whaling.
I'm told the novel is a masterful display of subtext, metaphor, all things wise and wonderful, etc. I do think the novel's core idea about an idealistic cause taken to fatal extremes speaks to the 20th century and all the people who died believing in or resisting fascism and communism. Didn't speak so much to people in the century the book was published.
Bill
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..."The book isn't "plot driven" which is a turnoff for many readers. It's about connecting with yourself and someone else, and/or the inability to do so.
Bonnie wrote: "The book isn't "plot driven" which is a turnoff for many readers. It's about connecting with yourself and someone else, and/or the inability to do so."Hooray, someone finally said it.
Some people like Indiana Jones movies. Some want a film that makes them think, enlightens them. It's all a matter of taste.
Yashvardhan wrote: "I too started this book, hoping to learn what classic stuff is made of. Couldn't get past couple of chapters!!"Yashvardhan, 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?
Yashvardhan wrote: "I too started this book, hoping to learn what classic stuff is made of. Couldn't get past couple of chapters!!"Yashvardhan, it is worth giving it another try, at least in my opinion. If you can relate at all to teen angst, you should try to read on.
"Yashvardhan, 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? A war veteran perhaps? If you did, you would recognize the symptoms in Holden."Monty, I had forgotten about Holden losing his brother and friend. That is embarrassing since I was teaching this. Though, it was about 14 years ago.
Remembering this and knowing about Salinger fighting in the war, makes the book that much valuable - TO ME.
I would sure love to read a book about Salinger. I thought I heard his daughter was going to publish stuff he wrote and might actually write a book about him. I really hope it happens.
To me, Salinger was a very special guy. He could have gotten rich off the other books he wrote, but he 1) didn't like the public OR the publicity and 2) didn't seem to care that much about money. He spent most of his life holed up in a small cabin and spent little time even with his family. It all makes a lot of sense now!
I just read this a few months back. Everyone told me "Read Catcher in the Rye!! It's SOOO good!". So I read it. I wasn't blown away. In fact, after I finished I just sat in muddle confusion because I didn't get it. The plot was so repetitive. Holden walks around all night and goes into bars and smokes and thinks the world is "phony". And then it just ends. I know it's supposed to be about "coming of age" and stuff, but I just don't see the big fuss.
At first I thought the book was just about a precocious boy who had a particular bent towards being an extravert but soon discovered this was a unique character altogether who was waaaay too cynical for someone his age. No I did not get what JDS was aiming for with this character.
Funny but I felt just like Holden growing up. Too cynical? I grew up with an older brother in Vietnam and Richard Nixon. I honestly thought the world would end when we dropped the bomb on each other. I doubted that I would reach my 30th birthday. I know exactly what JDS was aiming for with Holden.
Oh well, I guess that's the way it is. No book will be liked by everyone. But, I personally believe JD Salinger is a genius. And so do many others . To capture the mind of a teenage boy so well either means he has a great memory (of his own teenage years) or has an amazing imagination! I can't wait to read his other books.
I don't think there's any doubt of Salinger's genius. Not from any credible sources, anyways. Though someone raised on vampire novels may not "get it;" history did, and a thousand hollers of silly voices claiming "The David" is just another sculptre of a naked guy with small nuts hardly makes it so.
This book was published in 1951 and was meant for adults. Then someone thought that reading this book might help teenages, boys specifically, struggling with their high school years and growing up. At the time, I believe, psychologist were struggling to help teens -- recall 1956 Rebel Without a Cause and the James Dean allure. I read this book then and was amazed that anyone else had similarly awkward feelings. I tried to reread the book later and couldn't get through it. The book is really dated and I don't believe teens feel the same way. At the time, the book caused a stink because of the quasi sex scene and the one abusive word. (I just happen to be writing a blog about this book on my website. So strange to remember all the fuss years ago.)
I think JDS aim was to capture the musings of a coming-of-age boy but given that Cauldin was a kid of privilege his thoughts might be in-line with how the kid of an elite upbringing post WWII might have thought. I understood some of the ramblings against pretense but some of the cynicism, I thought was overkill. I think the boys in Kleinbaum's Dead Poets Society were more on-point in how boys think and struggle. I just did not understand JDS in this book.
I read the book when I was 17. I think it is old-fashioned (obviously) since it plays in a time I can't relate to and in a country I can't relate to as much (I live in Austria) and actually a whole world I can't relate to. Neither can I relate to the character, in my eyes he's a very very weird person. Nevertheless I strongly believe it's a classic and I've enjoyed it very much. So why is it a classic if the setting is out-dated? I think it's the main character himself who makes this book a classic. Holden might be very weird, but in fact he's nothing but a very confused teenager who doesn't know what to do with his life, is not content with how the world is at the moment, but doesn't know how to change anything so he procastrinates a lot and does random stuff. I think this is EXACTLY how a lot of teenagers feel since they are born into a world they didn't create, and suddenly without any experience they have to deal with their lives on their own.
Furthemore, and this is now why I liked it, I think Holden is despite his weird characteristics a very likeable character. Despite his flaws he sometimes takes action out of his good nature, and this makes him very charming (although he is not really a charming person). Also he tells his story in a funny way which made me laugh a couple of times.
Again, as a teacher, I believe older teens can understand & relate to Holden and his situation if the story is set-up with talk about teen angst and psychological and behavioral problems. When I read, then saw "Girl Interrupted," I so related to the real life character (it is a memoir) that I was glad that MY family didn't have money. If you were working class or lower, your parents may have complained about you and tried to punish you, but they did not have access to psych wards, not do I think they would have put us there if they did. It would have been an embarrassment to tell anyone that they put their child in a place like that. Plus, I know my parents would have thought it morally wrong. And believe me, my bros and I gave my mother so many worries she began to have panic attacks. But NEVER would she have handed us off for someone else to deal with.This made a great conversation in the classroom. It kind of made kids proud to be working class and to have parents who love them despite what a pain in the neck they are.
Students should never read anything, let alone an entire book, with no context. There always needs to be context to help students understand. Then if a student has a different take on the story, that can be discussed too.
I didn't get the controversy until I read more about the time in which it was written. It was exposing independent "youth" thinking that was NOT widely accepted at the time. The main character's behavior, honesty and bravado, were not new but not accepted or encouraged into mainstream. I appreciate the book for what it exposes about the taboos of its time.I think the connection with the sister made him real and human. It was a necessary part of his nature.
Jon,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?
I totally agree. I knew it was a classic, and after I read it, I didn't know what the fuss was about.I didn't feel like there was a plot.
I'm so beyond giving a damn if anyone got it. Your analysis is about you and really of no value if you don't "get it."
Oh, well, Jon,That's just "the way it is." That's why some books need to be TAUGHT so the reader understands not only WHAT they are reading but also, WHY the author wrote it that way. I don't remember my teacher helping us understand it, which is partially why I didn't get it, but I also think I was too young to get it. And maybe too working class, though I did rebel against my loving parents too. Sometimes, we just don't know any better.
Sherrie a good teacher makes all the difference. Do you teach "A Separate Peace"
I am only subbing now, as I am writing a novel. I am almost to the end of it. In fact, I will be sending it to an editor next month.I never taught "A Separate Peace". My favorites were "Of Mice & Men" and "Romeo & Juliet." I mostly taught freshmen. I also taught "Huck Finn" (to Juniors) which was hard because of all the old language, but once they saw the movie, they really got into the story.
I also taught a portion of "The Odyssey". There is a great movie to go with that. That helped a lot too.
I always tried to expose my students to the classics so that IF they went to college, they wouldn't be bowled over, like I was, at the literature.
Sherrie - my 8th grade reading list for Boys School : For Whom The Bell TollsMoby Dick, Gatsby, A Separate Peace, Catcher In The Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird. Rebecca. Its been all downhill ever since and we got same books in public school as juniors and seniors.
Sherrie, which film did you use with The Odyssey? I have yet to find a good one. This year I showed O Brother Where Art Thou and had students pull out all the references and similarities to The Odyssey but I'd like to find a decent film that captures the actual tale!
Bonnie,Oh no, there is an actual movie of "The Odyssey" that is excellent. It has some wonderful actors and follows the real story.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118414/
http://www.amazon.com/movies-tv/dp/B0...
And there is a new one too, but I can't vouch for how good it is.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1424712/
There is even a 1954 version with Kirk Douglas. I haven't seen it. I recommend the '97 version as it has great acting and shows all the people and places mentioned in the poem, at least the ones in the part of the poem that I am familiar with.
Not sure what grade you teach, but "O Brother" sounds like a huge stretch for the students I have taught.
Mark wrote: "Sherrie - my 8th grade reading list for Boys School : For Whom The Bell TollsMoby Dick, Gatsby, A Separate Peace, Catcher In The Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird. Rebecca. Its been all downhill ever sin..."
Wow, Mark, I hate to say it, but I think all those books have too mature a subject for 8th graders. In my opinion, they should be reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" and other books like that. They could write their own diary. Other books where they write letters to the character, etc. Man, who on earth decided that 8th graders should read that stuff? It is just plain crazy!
Maybe "Moby Dick" is o.k., but I don't know because I never read it.
Best of luck to you, Mark. How many years before you retire?
You are probably right, but God I loved them
I had a great teacher who really broke the books down for me
Sherrie wrote: "Mark wrote: "Sherrie - my 8th grade reading list for Boys School : For Whom The Bell TollsMoby Dick, Gatsby, A Separate Peace, Catcher In The Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird. Rebecca. Its been all down..."
I vote for Moby Dick...I found "The Diary of Anne Frank" pretty depressing whereas Moby Dick fired my imagination. I think students in any grade should be give choices and be allowed to pick what interests them. I would hope the objective is to get them to read...but I am not a teacher.
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I have taught Catcher in my AP Lit class and find that readers still make connections.