now reading: The Catcher in the Rye
Surprisingly, this was not assigned reading. I decided to read this one day, and actually got really close to putting it down because Holden is annoying AF and it didn’t seem like a plot was gonna present itself before the end of the book. But, a little more than halfway through, this boy started spitting! He was referring to the boy’s school he got kicked out of, but my angsty high school self was like “YEAAAH BOI, SAY THAT SHIT!” The shit that was said:“It’s full of phonies. and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. The guys that are on the basketball team stick together, the Catholics stick together, the goddam intellectuals stick together, the guys that play bridge stick together. ”
This in NO WAY reduces his ability to be one of the most annoying book characters ever. Let’s stack his shortcomings with his tall demands.
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Pathetic, because he “arouses pity, especially through vulnerability and sadness”, but also because he’s so “miserably inadequate”. The “pity” you feel for him is washed away as soon as he interjects his twisted reasoning into his rants, and then he becomes pompous - “irritatingly grand, solemn, or self-important”. It’s not things he does or has accomplished that makes him so wise…it’s just constant criticism.
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The whole novel is Holden “showing or feeling no interest, enthusiasm, or concern” (I’ll cut him some slack on that last one, because he is quite concerned about young Phoebe and Old Sally girl). But the arrogance, oh the arrogance! His “having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s [his] own importance or abilities” is literally why he gets beat up before he leaves, how he forgot the sports equipment on the bus, how he got played by a prostitute and her pimp, why he did not impress nor fool a single person in the club, and got put in a mental ward to top it all off.
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Naive like the rest of us in thinking he could make more difference as he is now versus maturing and learning from the people he encounters. But still hopeful, too, that he can at least save the next generation if this one is too phony to fight for. By the end of the book, I’m not convinced he’s more “present” to reality than when he started his tale…but maybe feeling that push. (The fact that he starts to miss other people is only a little caveat.)
I wrote an “article” review the first time I reread it, but this is where it all belongs. Here’s some more words about Holden:
I used to have beaucoup tolerance for phony white boys. Holden’s bitching about phony [New York] preps echoed my own suburban laments and piqued my interest back in the day. I’ve reread and researched, and I peeped more and sympathized less.
Holden is too loose at the mouth, talking big game for someone who can’t competently play. He observes & challenges his pretentious yuppie society, but poorly impersonates skilled players and stays putting himself in unnecessary, antagonizing situations. If, back then or even now, I’m too black for the white kids and “too white” for the blacks, then he is too annoying for the rich kids and too childish for the rest. He exhibits at least 10/15 signs of narcissism, but his tragic tattle tale bypasses subtle childhood traumas may be a key influence for him to “catch” children in his phony-polluted world.
His intentions are pure, but his actions are painstakingly shortsighted and hypocritical. Alfred Armand Montapart said:
“Intentions are invisible but they are the truest test of character.”
His character is inconsistent, which he wantonly expresses with worldly critiques and lectures. There’s spoiled effort, let alone negligent diligence, toward building his character. Learning about Salinger’s personal life and his beloved Glass family of other stories, I’d be curious to further cross-examine Holden’s actual life, and tie all this research into my American Psycho Ghost Essay.
If he’d run away post-visit to ‘Savior Phoebe’, would he heal from Allie’s death & embrace D.B. 's Hollywood career? Would he actualize his cabin dreams, and at the cost of permanently ceased communication with society? Did his time with the psychoanalyst unpack the Mr. Antolini visit, plus those twenty other perverted predicaments? Does he become a gentleman and a scholar at his new school?
I recognize his desire to be missed, resonate with wanting society to give more fucks, and commend Salinger’s discreet attempt at
vulnerability and reflection. But I condem Holden’s self-induced shenanigans. Salinger coddles Holden’s demons and allows him to pester those who are comfortable with and/or in control of their own.
Ultimately, it’s certainly nothing to kill for or live by, white boys.
