A Literary Life

Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

Ah, Holden. How nice to meet up with you again. It’s always an eye-opener to become reacquainted with you, with adolescence, with my teenage self, with the part of all of us that will never grow up and wants to curse at the “goddamn” world. Who wants to break all the windows and smoke all the cigarettes and watch the kids go ’round and ’round on the carousel. I find something new whenever I return to Holden. This time it is the repetition that strikes me. How Salinger crafts these redundant thoughts with such purpose. The technique makes Holden’s voice both smart and young–he is struggling to find the words to elaborate on a thought but comes up dry. So he then repeats himself and asks the reader to make the leap he is too inarticulate to pin down exactly, sometimes with a direct question to the audience. Plus, all the slang that is heavy with meaning–”That kills me,” “That knocks me out,” “It’s kinda funny,” “all those phonies.” And here it is from Holden himself:

“That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact.”

Well, in a way I hope there is a day when I don’t relate to Holden. When I have a plan and don’t feel like the weight of my purpose (What’s your purpose? What do you want to be? Why can’t you apply yourself?) like an anvil tied to the cuff of my pants. When I don’t feel like just taking off into the distance with a single suitcase and hitch a ride into transparency. Here’s a good plan. “Just so people didn’t know me and I didn’t know anybody. I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend to be one of those deaf-mutes. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they’d have to write it down on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They’d get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I’d be through with having conversations for the rest of my life.”

Such a pleasure to reread a good book. And, well, I need to get to library.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars = Buy the hard cover (Ha! As if Catcher in the Rye could be anything but a paperback!)