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The Catcher In The Rye: Classic Literature It Ain’t

February 3, 2010

The Catcher In The Rye. Classic Literature It Ain’t

I have a confession to make: I don’t like some of the books that are considered by many people to be eternal classics. I have tried to like them, I read them and re-read them, but they still do appeal to me. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is with me. I do not like the characters, the plot, the main idea and I don’t like what the author stands for generally.

So why should I say that I like this book or that just because it is considered a classic? What would be the point? It so happened that with the death of J.D.Salinger a lot of praise has been showered on his book The Catcher In The Rye. ‘If I had to choose one book that I would have given my soul to have written it would be Catcher,’ one hack has written.

I’m sorry to go agaunst the tide on this one, folks, but I don’t consider ‘The Catcher’, as it is known among its die hard fans to be a great book. Yes, that’s how I feel about it. I didn’t like the book very much when I had read it many years ago and I sure did not like it when I read it again, recently. To check whether my initial impression had been right the first time round.

For those of you, who have forgotten what the book is about, I will try to refresh your memories by briefly describing the plot: 16-year old Holden Caulfield is kicked out of his boarding school before the Christmas break for failing his exams. Holden is not exactly keen at the prospect of meeting his parents, having been already expelled from two other schools. So he decides to postpone the encounter, especially as his parents, who live in New York, would not find out about his expulsion for several days at least. So young Holden travels to New York, incognito, leaves his baggage in the locker at the railway station and checks into a hotel. He then goes clubbing, tries to get laid and fails, goes on a date which ends in disaster and manages to get into his flat at night for a chat with his little sister, Phoebe. He then goes on a drinking binge, suffers a mental breakdown and is placed in a psychiatric clinic. Curtain falls, the end.

This is the plot of the book. Of course, as the story is told by Holden himself there are a many flashbacks and reminiscences of people whom he had met in the past. Not to mention the many observations of life and events that Holden makes. And that is where a problem arises for me because Holden very often sounds not like a teenager but like a grown man and tries to appear original while not being original at all.

And then there is this dream that Holden has of being the catcher in the rye. The idea originates from his mistaken belief that a rhyme in Robert Burns’ poem goes, ‘If a body catch a body coming through the rye.’ Not ‘meet’, you see, but ‘catch’. And young Holden, being original and all, wants to be exactly that – the catcher in the rye. As he explains to his sister Phoebe, he imagines thousands of small unattended children playing in a field of rye while he stands on the edge of a cliff to catch them before they might fall to their deaths. And that, he tells his little sis, is what he really wants to do for the rest of his life – be the catcher in the rye.

I don’t know about you, but that sort of stuff does not really impress me much. It is a case of trying to sound original for the sake of sounding original. You sort of suggest something meaningless and stupid and then pretend that it’s all extremely original, because no one else had thought of it before.

But it just does not work for me. It is plain daft. It’s the sort of thing that junkies like Pete Doherty would come up with. And now that I think about it, I am actually starting to realise that The Catcher In The Rye is a druggy sort of book. Sure, there are no drugs in it as drugs per say, but it still has a druggy feel to it. You know, Holden talking complete nonsence most of the time, and not being able to concentrate on anything, and jumping from one subject to another, and slowly approaching that point of mental breakdown.

Hmm, I think I now begin to understand why this book has been so heavilly promoted by all those bohemian characters.

It is cleverly written – I won’t take it away from J.D.Salinger, because what he does is he picks the subjects that are guaranteed to get young people hooked – girls, booze, sex – and weaves his web of words around them, making his main character, Holden, a bit of cynic, a bit of a rebel, a bit of foulmouthed know-it-all cool dude. And it all holds the book together, and for an impressionable reader it might even seem like a story with a substance in it.

As I have already mentioned, you constantly feel that the book is written by a grown man pretending to be a youngster. And in way it is rather creepy, to be honest. You know, like when you hear about those perverts, who pretend to be teenagers on the Internet to groom their victims.

And here you have a teenager, who is supposed to be still naive in many things and yet, time and time again he thinks and behaves like a grown man. And, of course, it’s quite annoying to hear Holden using ‘goddam’ in every other phrase. Sure, there has to be a rebellious streak in him, but I found that I wanted to say to Salinger on more than one occasion: ‘Hey, Jerome, please, cut it out. We got the message. Please, spare us this “goddam” stuff. Don’t be like a bloody scriptwriter for the Sopranos, who plug the F-word into every sentence for so-called authenticity.’

But I think that the biggest problem with Holden Caulfield is that he is actually quite a nasty and unappealing character. He doesn’t really like anyone, he gets easily excited over irrelevant things and, as I have said already, he tries to be original but ends up looking pretty stupid.

And I’ll tell you something else that just isn’t right about The Catcher In The Rye: I think that when Salinger was writing it, he would occasionally stop and say to himself, ‘Right, I need to introduce something here that would make Holden look a bit more appealing. Because he does come across as a piece of shit.’

And so Salinger would introduce a dead brother, Allie, a kind, loveable boy, intelligent and caring, so that Holden would reminisce about the good old days that they had spent together, and all of a sudden he would not look all that bad after all. And, naturally, throughout the book Allie’s image would come up, time after time, and on each occasion we’d be expected to warm up to Holden because he still had fond memories of his dead brother.

But a dead brother is a dead brother, so there had to be someone wonderful, whom Holden could love and worship in his present life. So in came his little sister, Phoebe, the one whom Holden tells about his dream of becoming the catcher in the rye.

Boy oh boy is she nice, that Phoebe: caring, understanding, loving, intelligent, pretty and kind. The lot. And Holden thinks of her all the time and wants to call her and ‘chew the fat’ with her. And it becomes really sloppy and weepy at times, and we sort of have to love Holden for loving his sister, forgiving him for being an indifferent and self-centred prick that he is.

No, honestly, Phoebe is just too good to be a real person. She should have been dead, like Holden’s brother, Allie, and then it would have been easier to accept her as a real human being. Because it is always like that with dead people – we remember the good things about them and omit the bad. Or do not remember them at all.

Sorry, but I don’t like The Catcher In The Rye. And I think that it was a very bad idea to make it required reading in schools. There is nothing worthwhile in it that a teenager can pick up. Nothing at all.

Classic literature it ain’t, that’s for sure.

– End –

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    I have a confession to make: I do not like some of the books that are considered by many people to be eternal classics, great...

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3 Responses to “The Catcher In The Rye: Classic Literature It Ain’t”

  1. Ixolite on June 7th, 2009 6:54 pm

    glad someone finally said it

  2. Kate Mack on August 11th, 2009 4:38 pm

    I myself have just finished reading “The Catcher in the Rye” as a required reading book for my 11th grade AP english class, and i can’t help but disagree with you completely. I do understand that not everyone likes the same things, this in fact is what makes the world go round. However, i think that it is a timesless book that deals with the issue of growing up. To say that there is nothing to gain from reading it is a subjective opinion. While many people may find no point in it, i myself learned many lessons from Holden’s aimless wandering and erratic behavior. What you may see as a mind influenced by drugs, i believe is a realistic look into the mind of a lost, lonely, and confused adolecent. Holden struggles with the same problems that most teens struggle with, that i myself struggle with. Though i heavily disagree with you, i must say your argument is a good one with many supporters. I do believe this book is viewed differently by teens who can relate to it than it is by adults. I also must thank you, your critique of this book has helped me with the english assignment that i must do on “The Catcher in the Rye”. So thank you for your thoughtfulness!

  3. David on December 23rd, 2009 9:19 pm

    Hmm…I’m not sure if this is a joke or not although I lean towards joke. In case I’m mistaken:

    “But I think that the biggest problem with Holden Caulfield is that he is actually quite a nasty and unappealing character. He does not really like anyone, he gets easily excited over irrelevant things and, as I have said already, he tries to be original but ends up looking pretty stupid.”

    That is not the problem, that is the point. Who we think we are on the inside and who we appear to be on the outside rarely match up. Holden’s struggle is something familiar to every person. Especially teenagers.

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