Seathruin O hAirt-
Everyone has felt it. That sense of loneliness and uncertainty inspired by the world and the forced upon order of things. In times when we’re told what to think, when to think and how to think, by others, it’s a wonder are we even free at all?
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is a novel about Holden Caulfield.
The story follows him from the white halls of his boarding school Pencey Prep and through the bars, hotels and seedy underbelly of New York City. He chats to taxi drivers, barflies and prostitutes, all the while accompanied by his own internal monologue. The urgency and importance of this book is not because of the plot, but because of his accompanying thoughts.
Holden Caulfield brings us respite from all the white noise and “phoniness.” The novel is written in the manner of a stream of consciousness from the protagonist’s perspective. This allows us to follow all his thoughts; from the angry and often humorous monologues on superficiality, to the heart-wrenching melancholy he feels with regard to his sister Phoebe or deceased brother Allie.
It was once said that the job of the writer is “To Comfort the Disturbed, and to Disturb the Comfortable” and our hero (or anti-hero, whatever way you want to put it) fills this role expertly. No one can doubt Holden’s honesty or his passion in his own thoughts and opinions. You can only empathise with his complaints due to the sincerity that suffuse through them. He brilliantly ridicules those around him and the “phoney” adult values instilled upon him.
A novel about teenage rebellion, tension between teens and society, cynical adolescence and ideologies in post-war Europe are all ways that could been used to describe The Catcher In The Rye, and yet it has so much more to offer to students and young adults and not just to college professors or “intellectuals”.
Written in 1951, the book remains as relevant and insightful today as it did sixty years ago. I was surprised to find that it was hardly dated at all. The novel’s style is deceptively simple. Holden’s anxieties in social surroundings or even on the threat of nuclear warfare are as incisive as they ever were.
The resonating chord it strikes cannot be denied and its allusions in film, music and art are ubiquitous.
A strange effect that the novel has is in its accessibility. Having, the first time dispensed of it, it really did not seem like the masterpiece it was lauded as. However, this is precisely why it is so important. It is how relatable the story and its protagonist are. The feeling that you, yourself, could have written this, and how Caulfield manages to verbalise thoughts, the same thoughts that have crossed your own mind time and time again, only reinforce its power. After reading about Holden again and again, you come away with something new every single time.
It is equal parts hilarious and disturbing; satirical and poignant by turns. To me it seems to be a novel primarily about uncertainty and alienation, about a fast approaching future, and ironically it is from this that a sense of comfort and solidarity can be derived. But that’s just me.
