Before starting my discussion on J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, I want to mention why I chose to discuss Salinger’s novel out of all the books I have read recently. I had difficulty finishing this book. Continuing to read this book became too strenuous for me. Too many details! Too much digression! Too many flashbacks! These things kept going on in my head as I kept reading. For some reason as much as this book gave me reasons to not go back to it again, it also gave me reasons to ponder why it has been so difficult to even think about holding this book again. That’s what made me write about this book. So, writing about this book is more of a selfish act than just a literary or creative act. Writing about this book is going through self-reflection. Writing about this book is a journey that I have embarked on to understand why Holden’s painful, long, and sometimes redundant narration hit me so hard!
The plot of Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951 revolves around a boy called Holden Caulfield and his story before and after his expulsion from Pencey Prep School in Agerstown, Pennsylvania for failing in a few subjects a few times. As much as the plot discusses Holden’s failure of maintaining his status as a student in a prestigious school it also expresses Holden’s difficulty in understanding how “phony” (Salinger 12) the world, people, words in conversations, and human connections can be. He finds it difficult to stay in places or in between people who are not genuine. He even quits a school because he felt he was “surrounded by phonies” (17). Holden cannot go back to school after the Christmas holiday, and he decides to stay in a hotel in New York instead of going home. During his hotel stay and before he decides to go back to his home and see his little sister (the only person he feels an authentic connection with), he comes across different people, that give rise to conversations that Holden tries to hold on to desperately. He engages in conversations with taxi drivers, three girls in a room close to the hotel lobby, a prostitute, his friend Sally Hayes, two nuns, and his friend Luce from a former school. While meeting these people and visiting different places, he keeps thinking about his little sister Phoebe. He goes back to his home ending his stay in the hotel after he feels cold and lonely while strolling in Central Park for a while. He spends time with Phoebe and talks to her about the play that she is going to be a part of, the record that he bought for her but is broken, getting kicked out of school, and his decision to go away from home. After dancing with Phoebe for a while, Holden decides to leave as his parents come back home. He stays in one of his teachers Mr. Antolini’s house until he goes back home on Wednesday (as he is supposed to). He later decides to leave Antolini’s house as he could sense Antolini’s perverted behavior towards him and sleeps in a station. Holden decides not to go home on Wednesday and to hitchhike and go away. He tells Phoebe about this decision in a letter that Phoebe receives later. Phoebe meets Holden with a bag as she decides to leave with Holden, something that Holden disagrees with. Holden takes her to the zoo all the while trying to make her understand to go back to school instead of going away with him. They leave the zoo and go to a park. Phoebe rides on a carousel which makes Holden so happy that he almost starts “bawling” (234). The story ends with Holden’s reluctance to give a detailed description of what happens after he goes home, his selection of school, and his future plans. He ends his story by saying how much he misses the people that he has talked about so far and how funny it is that he misses them. The way Holden, the narrator of the novel, narrates the story tells a lot about Holden as a character. Even the first line of the novel is quite insightful in understanding Holden as a character.
“IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth ” (Salinger3)- the first line from Holden, where the narrator Holden establishes the boundary between the reader and the narrator. It insinuates that the narrator can tell his story from the beginning with detailed information about his life if the readers want to listen to his story. But in the same sentence, he makes it clear that he has no intention of doing that and draws a line between him and the readers. “I’m not going to tell you my goddamn autobiography or anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy” (3). It’s as if he’s saying “I’ll tell you my story and ‘IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR about it’ you have to get on this journey where you don’t know where and how far I’ll take you.” He takes his narration in the direction that he wants with full control. This also shows that this is the only place where the world does not get to intervene in telling him how to tell his story or live his life or fast forward his story or not show vulnerability or authenticity when it comes to conversations or worldly pursuits (like getting into a school or securing a career). Holden’s voice wanders through lots of digressions throughout the novel but he is very vocal and clear about how lonely and depressed he feels.
He does not hide his depression and loneliness from the readers and gives them distinct examples of what and who makes him depressed or angry. For example, certain words like “Grand” (12), “I don’t know” (18), and “Good Luck” (19) make him feel terrible. Looking back at Pency while leaving, and the emptiness of the hotel lobby, nuns eating only toast and coffee for breakfast, and sleeping in the waiting room of a station make him depressed. Holden also carries a deep sense of empathy and sensitivity in his heart. For example, he keeps wondering what happens to the ducks near the lagoon in Central Park once it gets all frozen and icy. He gets concerned if they would fly away or be taken away to a zoo for being safe from the ice and cold. Elkton Hills, one of the schools that he leaves had a headmaster called Mr. Haas, who was “phony” (17) and would behave differently with students’ parents based on their looks and clothes. Holden mentions “I can’t stand that stuff. It drives me crazy. It makes me so depressed I go crazy. I hated that goddamn Elkton Hills” (17). In other words, holden dislikes those who would fake their behavior based on the way people look or clothe. He dislikes it so much that he would leave the place to not be consumed by his hatred towards anything or anyone “phony”, a word that he mentions quite a few times in the book. He mentions how he fails the Oral Expression course in Pency because he could not bring himself to follow a rule where students have to yell “Digression” (202) if another student giving a speech digresses from the topic at all. He says, “I mean it's dirty to keep yelling ‘Digression’!” (203). He thinks that yelling digression while an anxious student is giving his speech is nasty. It shows his detest for being around people who are fake and inconsiderate of others’ feelings. He also says, “That digression business got on my nerves. I don’t know. The trouble with me is, I like it when someone digresses. It’s more interesting and all” (202). This can be another reason why he digresses a lot while telling his stories. He does not like to tell his stories in a linear way because his stories are not linear and the way that he perceives life and people are not linear. It can also be his way of revolting against rules that require students to humiliate another student for digressing from the topic of discussion. In Holden’s narration, two things that come across very strongly are his hold on the things that seem familiar and his desperation for engaging in conversations with strangers and seeking companionship in order to escape from the lethal agony of loneliness.
Holden’s entire story voices his desperate grasp on strangers out of the morose feeling of loneliness and depression. But at the same time, it reflects his lack of interest and growing annoyance towards things and people that lack integrity or authenticity, which leads him to find things that bring him close to some sort of connectedness. This can be why he keeps digressing and going into flashbacks; to find some sort of familiarity in the world where things and people keep changing, or to find connectedness in the world from which he feels severely detached. For example, he loves to visit the museum that he and his sister used to visit as a kid because it has a similar smell and atmosphere as it had when he was a kid. He also searches for certainty in the world even though he knows it might not be possible. His desire for some sort of certainty or assurance is asserted through his monologue, “Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that’s impossible, but it’s too bad anyway” (136). This monologue also shows that he is not delusional and knows what’s possible and what’s not, but still, there are some things he would like to keep safe. Like, the ducks in a freezing cold lagoon, Phoebe’s innocence, or saving children from losing their innocence or diving into the rat race of life mindlessly or meaninglessly. This is where he gets his love for a line from Robert Burn’s poem “Catcher in the Rye”. The line is, “If a body meet a body coming through the rye” (191). He misremembers the line as “If a body catch a body coming through the rye” (191) and he explains why he remembers the line in this way. It is because of his desire to become the catcher in the rye by saving kids and by catching them if they played in a field or rye and they start to run towards a cliff. Thinking about being the catcher in the rye is one of the things that makes Holden happy.
There are a number of things that make Holden sad or depressed or frustrated, but very few things that make him happy, and the thought of being the catcher in the rye or listening to a kid singing a line from the poem “Catcher in the Rye” is one of them. It hints at his desire to save these kids from being lost in the uncertainty, frailty, or phoniness of adulthood once they transition from childhood to adulthood. Another thing that makes Holden so happy that he almost cries is when he sees Phoebe riding on the carousel. Even though it was raining profusely, and he was all soaked in rain from watching Phoebe going round and round on the ride instead of taking shelter from the rain, he feels “nice” (234) and content. He describes his emotions related to rain in one of the times when he visits his childhood museum. Holden expresses his love for the Museum of Natural History, a museum that he often visited with Phoebe when he was a kid. He explains how the auditorium of the museum smells like it is raining outside. He says, “It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn’t, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world. I loved that damn museum” (134). He feels safe, comfortable, and nice thinking that if it were raining outside then he is in a place like a museum which is dry and smells nice. This emotion contradicts his happiness while watching Phoebe on the ride even though he is soaked in rain. But at the same time, it shows that his happiness leans more towards sharing moments with Phoebe. While watching Phoebe on the ride, he shares Phoebe’s innocence going round and round on a carousel and at this moment rain or being wet from the rain does not make him sad or unsafe. At this moment he does not think about saving the kids from the cliff or the phony world. He does not go back into his pattern of digressing into past stories to find familiarity or connection. He does not have to think about saving this moment in a glass jar to save it from being taken away or changed. Holden, for the very first time, lives in the moment and shares his happiness with his little sister who is happy just by riding on a carousel, without dreading the possibility that this moment might be taken away from him.
I feel that this book is about an individual who struggles to accept the hardships of not living according to the manual that the world provides him and who strongly rejects anything that he does not feel connected to. But somewhere between this acceptance and rejection he desperately tries to hold on to things that he can connect with, things that don’t make him feel lonely or depressed. To be honest I had a hard time finishing this book. I have a lot of bookmarks in the book where I have expressed how many unnecessary details and descriptions this book has and how it sometimes becomes boring or complicates the actual story (which I had a hard time figuring out). For me, Holden’s story is about a boy who cannot accept things as they are just because they have to be that way. He looks at life, people, words, emotions, and relationships from a perspective that often makes him look like someone who is not willing to grow up. But in the depth of all his questions and his dislike towards fake people and ridiculous systems (that look down on people and force others to do the same), he craves meaningful human connection, conversations where he will get some comfort of being understood (maybe that’s why he quits telling whole stories about anything from time to time because he believes that no one would understand him) and a sense of comfort and safety in knowing that there are some things that cannot be taken away (like the moment Phoebe goes on the carousel). For a reader who first found this book to be rather boring and somewhat going round and round like Phoebe on the carousel, I have come to understand the pain that Holden carries; his pain comes from not being able to accept the way the world works. I understand his desperate attempts to come out of situations and places that make him feel lonely and depressed and his innumerable mentions of his hatred towards phoniness. I understand that he wants to be the catcher in the rye because he doesn’t want any other kid or Phoebe to go through what he goes through. He wants to be there for them when they mindlessly run towards a cliff, even though there were times when nobody was there to catch him. He wants to be there for the kids in case there would be no one to save them. As a reader, there is a slight sense of comfort knowing that this boy who is holding onto so many thoughts, feelings, repressed emotions, and suppressed memories of childhood sexual abuse, could finally find his happiness in the carousel. Towards the end there is the insinuation that he consults a psychoanalyst, which also lets me know as a reader that there is someone to help him figure things out, to listen to him, and to let him speak without asking him if he has failed in yet another course.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has a hard time understanding the world, people, systems, and institutions and the many ways in which they force a monolithic understanding of success. I would also recommend it to people who find it difficult to connect or relate to anything or anyone, or to find stability and comfort in life. It is also a book that I feel is quite vocal about expressing depression and loneliness, something that those who connect to can read. I am glad that at the end of the review, I can understand that the reason why I thought I’ll never be able to touch this book again is that some of the troubles that Holden goes through to accept the world as it is, are mine too.
Few quotes from J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye that stayed with me:
“When I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse” (7).
“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it” (22).
“When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down the goddamn corridor. I was sort of crying. I don’t know why” (59).
“When you’re depressed you can’t even think” (102).
“It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn’t, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world” (133).
“Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know it’s impossible, but it’s too bad anyway” (136).
“‘Did you ever get fed up?’ ‘I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something?” (144).
“I’m not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about. I mean she’s only a little child and all. But she was listening, at least. If somebody at least listens, it’s not too bad” (190).
“lots of time you don’t know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn’t interest you most. I mean you can’t help it sometimes. What I think is, you’re supposed to leave somebody alone if he’s at least being interesting and he’s getting all excited about something. I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It’s nice” (204).
“‘I think one of these days,’ ‘you’re going to have to find out where you want to go. And you’ve got to start going there. But immediately. You can’t afford to lose a minute. Not you’” (208).
“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry’” (208).
Work Cited
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Little, Brown and Company, 1991.
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