On Re-Reading "Catcher in the Rye"

It was almost 40 years ago that I actually "studied" this book in high school, so forgive the lack of scholarly insight. I picked up Catcher in the Rye at Barnes & Noble shortly after finishing another novel written in the first person with a young male narrator (which I'll write about later, soon, I hope).

I'm sure I re-read the book several times in my late teens, even without (eleventh-grade English teacher) Marek-lady's oversight, because several vivid images came back to me before I read them. At the first mention of Ackley, for instance, I remembered him as the guy with the "mossy" teeth. (Ugh!) The other thing I remembered was, of course the use of what Marek-lady called "the ultimate profanity," which is probably why the book kept getting banned.

Yeah, "Catcher" being banned makes as much sense as "Huck Finn" being banned, which is None. You take two of the best young men in fiction and ban them because - why exactly? They cuss? They defy authority?

Without rereading the Cliff Notes or whatever they're using now to understand "what it all means," I'll just say I still loved the book and Holden's deep yearning to protect innocence. In the end, it was innocence (Phoebe) that protected him. The idea that Holden didn't change his attitude or mature at all throughout the book is ridiculous. He was running away from his problems, but in the end he faced them.

Holden ran away from Mr. Antolini's "flitty" gesture ("petting" Holden's forehead while he slept on the Antolinis' couch) but in the end realized it was more tender and caring. I loved that realization, though Holden was too far gone in his breakdown to have recovered that friendship just then. I wonder what happened after Holden got out of the mental institution.

The innocence of "old Jane" was the critical thread in the story, I think. It was the idea of his childhood friend losing her innocence to his womanizing roommate that Holden couldn't face. He kept meaning to give "old Jane" a buzz, but never did. And again, I wonder what happened later.

The story that this began to make me think about was "Rebel without a Cause," where James Dean is frustrated trying to explain to his dad, Jim Backus, that grown-ups just don't understand. Holden is the gray-haired teenager, between youth and adulthood, where nobody really understands anything. He can't communicate with his parents, but he knows he can't rely on Phoebe to understand him either.

I don't wonder why people have long wanted to dramatize this story. It is very visual, and the immediacy of first-person narratives always put the audience in the scene. But I'm fine with the pictures in my own head that the book gave me. And like Huck, I don't think Holden needs me to analyze him. Just listen.

love, hosaa
reading the catcher's mitt