Ermahgerd! Mah fervert berk!
Ermahgerd! Mah fervert berk!
My coworker said that it was required reading for him in high school. He's considerably younger than me. I graduated high school in '94, and when first read this book, it was rather counter-culture. To think that this book is now compulsory reading kind of loses its "edgyness" effect. Although considering how the book disparages the whole LGBTQP+ stuff by flat-out calling trannies "perverts" as well as speaking ill of homosexuals, so I can imagine that Leftists may want to censor this book. Replace it on the school library bookshelf with some gay porn comics or something and then act upset and indignant when parents want that crap removed while complaining about censorship. I really do not understand American culture anymore. It's been launched into the deep end these days.
Perhaps the book does mostly resonate with boys... I'll give my sister that. Most of all, the book should really connect with anyone who is a nonconformist. Anyone who is sick of phonies. I've certainly had to deal with my share of phonies in my lifetime. This book is mostly an experience rather than much of a story, taking place in just two days' time, from a Saturday afternoon until Monday afternoon in December. Holden Caufield is a troubled boy stuck in prep schools and flunking out. He comes from a family of writers, so English is the only class he enjoys. He loses himself in books like nothing else in life, and hates watching movies because they are phony. His older brother, D.B., was once a great writer, but now is a screenwriter for Hollywood, much to Holden's dismay. He views D.B. as a sellout, having abandoned what he was really good at in favor of writing dumb movie plots for Hollywood. Holden's younger brother, Allie, enjoyed writing poetry, but the boy died from leukemia at a young age. The littlest is his beloved sister Phoebe, who enjoys writing detective stories involving a young girl protagonist called Hazel Weatherfield.
Holden is 16. He hates school and hates having to endure prep schools. He misses his deceased brother Allie so much that he often speaks to him when he is deeply troubled. He's witnessed horrible bullying at these schools, even to the point of seeing a boy fall out of a window and die. His little sister Phoebe is his one anchor of stability in his life, a lovely, witty, and charming 10 year old little sister. She means everything to him.
Holden has been expelled from his prep school Pencey, and he knows that he faces the wrath of his parents. He's on the verge of a breakdown. If his parents would actually keep him close, they could help him through this difficult time in his life instead of sticking him in prep schools. So he ditches his school before winter vacation begins and has an adventure in his home town of New York City until he runs out of money. I didn't know this until fairly recently, but up until the 1980s, the legal drinking age used to be 18. Due to Holden's patch of gray hair on one side of his head and because of his lanky height, he's able to bluff his way into getting alcohol. He's a troubled youth, trapped between wanting to remain a kid and remain genuine, and wanting to avoid having to become a phony to live in the adult world. He's a boy who has had to deal with death and witness cruelty that he could not handle, and it only makes it worse that his parents have stuck him in prep schools, living away from home, where he has to deal with his sadness alone, away from his rich parents. The most important person to Holden is his darling little sister, Phoebe.
The book is hilarious in the way Holden describes people, in the way he pretty much hates nearly everyone. Nearly everyone gets on his nerves. I completely relate to how Holden feels like an outsider, incapable of relating to others, and how irritated he gets with people. Depressed, sad, and lonely. Unable to connect with others properly. And most of all, the fear of growing up. Being made to decide on what sort of career you'd like when you're just a teenager. I hated that when I was in high school. It can only be much more intense when being stuck in prep schools. I always figured that prep schools are where rich parents stick their kids because they are too important to be real parents to their children.
Holden's love for Phoebe is beautifully captured, and the author did such a fantastic job capturing the essence of a 10 year old girl in the story. It makes me regret not having a little sister growing up. The closest I had was my cousin Bethany, as she was like a little sister to me. Holden adores Phoebe, and even promises the reader, "Old Phoebe. I swear to God you'd like her." The stress of his life piled up on Holden to the point where he'd decided to just run away to escape it all, but the one thing he wanted to do before then was to see his kid sister again. She understands him completely, and knows when he is not being honest. She has him figured out. She loves him so much that she is willing to run away with him. She really brings tears to my eyes because I wish that I could have had such a beautiful relationship myself. So when Phoebe enters the story, I just completely fall in love with her. I swear, it's either there aren't that many books as well-written as this one is, or apparently I haven't read enough books.
And at the end, when Phoebe gives Holden a kiss and rides the carousel a second time as he watches her and gets soaked in the rain, it's just one of those magical moments in one's life you just wish you could freeze in time. A moment of pure beauty you wish could last forever. The type of moment in which if your life were to suddenly end, you wouldn't mind it, as long as you could be stuck in that moment forever. I felt that way the first time when Mayu and I flew to America together for the first time, looking out of the plane's window at a cloudless night and the moon shining brightly over the placid ocean, with my arms wrapped around her tightly. I could have died happily at that moment and I would not have minded. So Holden tells we the readers that we'd like Phoebe, but it's more like we fall in love with her. God, I love this book.
Memories of my college days at ASU West
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"I'm afraid of people who like Catcher in the Rye" ~Too Much Joy
mail: greg -atsign- stevethefish -dot- net