The Catcher in the Rye
By J.D. Salinger
Back Bay Books, 9780316450867, Nov 2018, 288pp.

The Short of It:

Read back in high school and re-read today for book club, and it’s just as wonderful as I remembered.

The Rest of It:

The Catcher in the Rye is of course, a classic. Everyone’s heard of it but I’ll tell ya, not everyone will love it. Why? Because Holden Caulfield is a piece of work! Tossed from private school for failing nearly all of his classes, Holden goes on a three day sabbatical from life. Delaying the inevitable, when he has to return home to his family for the holidays and clue them in to the fact that he has once again been kicked out of school.

Holden packs up his belongings, smokes a lot of cigarettes and ponders life as he hits bar after bar, considering his options. He’s underage but wise beyond his years so he goes from place to place making observations and hoping, longingly for people to spend time with him. He makes a few calls. Meets a few friends. Feels a bit homesick for his baby sister Phoebe, but mostly just flits from one interaction to the next, lost.

Holden is ALL of us. That’s what makes this such a good read. His insecurities are balanced by his overblown opinion of himself. Minus the bluster, the fancy hat, the cigarettes and booze and what you have is a teenage boy desperate for love. His loneliness screams at you while turning those pages.

Funny story. When I was pregnant with my first child, the name Holden was a frontrunner. We decided to go with Evan, instead. But after reading this classic again, my son really IS Holden in real life. I highlighted many passages because they could have actually come right out of my son’s mouth. I shared this observation with him and he wasn’t impressed or compelled to read the book. See? He is Holden.

What stays with me after reading this book is Holden’s voice. Salinger creates this living, breathing, sometimes seething Holden. He’s not the most well-liked guy but he can be charming, and often is, when not overcome with  loneliness and doubt.

If you haven’t read this classic, or you read it long ago. I mean, I was 16 the last time I read it, I highly recommend you pick up a copy.

Source: Borrowed
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