Posted on 12/31/2018 8:35:31 AM PST by Borges
Tuesday is J.D. Salinger’s 100th birthday, but Holden Caulfield is still 17. The iconic teenager of “The Catcher in the Rye” is forever suspended in the amber of our youthful alienation.
Although a few pious schools continue to ban Salinger’s only published novel, for millions of adults, a faded copy of “The Catcher in the Rye” is a sweet teenage treasure, as transgressive as a trophy from band camp. Ninth-graders who secretly read the book with a flashlight when it came out in 1951 are now in their 80s.
To read it again as an adult is to feel Holden’s pain lingering like a phantom limb. His righteous cynicism is adolescence distilled into a sweet liquor. But the novel also feels like revisiting your first house. The familiarity is enchanting but discombobulating. The story is smaller than you remember, and some details you had completely wrong. But what’s most striking is how common the novel’s tone has become over the intervening decades. Holden is Patient Zero for generations infected by his misanthropy. We live in a world overpopulated by privileged white guys who mistake their depression for existential wisdom, their narcissism for superior vision.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Still one of my favorite books.
No. because pedophile homos are BAD in Catcher in the Rye.
“liberal” garbage forced down innocent children’s (my) throat in “school”! I learned the impetus of revolution at a young age!
We had to read it in class around 1960. I never did understand what it was trying to say.
There’ nothing liberal about it.
We had to read it in HS. It was AWFUL!
Our English teacher was right out of college, 1970, and we had to read this piece of crap.
What on earth makes educators believe that reading a book about ‘angst’ [I hate that word] or being horny will make a teenager feel better?
Maybe they ought to have them read the Curt Cobain Story.................
Dang. I never knew it WAS “relevant”.
Did I miss something important?
Stories about the maturation of young men are a long standing literary tradition.
I went to an elite all girl catholic school. We were told to read it. I refused. Detention....again.
As decided by.........................
Decided what? There is a long string of such stories.
“I never did understand what it was trying to say.”
Neither did I. But then again, I was in junior high at the time and there were always more important things to think about at the time.
Maybe I’d appreciate it more now.
I remember that I had to read it in HS English, along with other horrible books like The Octopus, The Scarlet Letter, etc. What was the point? I’ll never know.
What do you think would have been better reading material at the time?
Now they have to read....I have two mommies...One insane world.
Trimma tree, Sally?
Mine too. Wasn’t assigned it in high school but read it when I was about 20. It made quite an impact.
For awhile I read it every year around Christmas.
How could the story of a young man in transition from youth to young adulthood, learning that the world is full of phonies and perverts and that one should look for beauty in the world, not be relevant?
LOL.
I was going to post,”When was it ever relevant?”.
.
Stories like this are pretenders to the literary world just like "modern art" is the participation trophy to the visual arts. It's the output of a Western World in decline.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.