In Honour of the ALA’s Banned Book Week: A Book Review!
by John J. Madonna
Everyone reads The Catcher In The Rye in high school. I did, my parents did, my children—err… my hypothetical children will. J.D. Salinger's oft-banned book is oft lauded as a classic tale of teenage angst. Holden Caulfield, the would-be titular catcher and the smoking, drinking, prostitute-soliciting (for conversation only, mind you,) prep-school-flunking antihero has angered parents since his first publication. Even though not all teenagers smoke and drink (or flunk or solicit) Holden is a typical teen, rebellious and occasionally preoccupied with the opposite sex. Of course, to write this off as merely a wonderful story of teenagerism would hardly give it enough credit (slight spoilers ahead.)
Despite his teenage everyman qualities, Holden lost his brother/best friend to leukemia (a personal tragedy he has yet to move past) and saw a kid kill himself at prep school after being bullied. These two experiences, hardly everyday for teens, put Holden in his unfair world full of phonies. I don’t mean to downplay the idea that teens can get a lot from this book, but I also don’t want to downplay the fact that this is also a unique character study about a young man angry at the fact that his innocence is gone.
When I told an English professor I didn’t like Charles Dickens, she said, “Of course you don’t you read it in high school.” The joke, of course, was on her—I read it in middle school—but her point was clear enough: I was not old enough to appreciate it. Likewise, when I revisited Catcher a few years after I had read it, and having in the interim read the other three books by Salinger, I knew I hadn’t been old enough to truly appreciate it. It’s hard to explain outside of the vague, but in his last three books, Salinger’s books teemed Zen Buddhism and other asceticism also present in Catcher. Not to mention that the critical, cynical, sarcastic protagonist like Holden is one of Salinger’s favorites (take a look at Buddy or Zooey Glass) often represents his own voice.
I’m trying to keep this more fawning praise of The Catcher In The Rye, rather than a long discussion, but this book, combined with Nine Stories, Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Franny and Zooey make up such a compelling collection of writing, and present such a frustrating collection of writing too. Whereas Salinger’s devoted fans eagerly await the release of everything Salinger has privately written and not published up to now since 1965 (a.k.a., the last year he officially published a new story,) we also know that it will never see the light of day until he dies. Tough position.
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