Reticulating Splines

I don’t think I’ve ever had such radically mixed feelings about a book. While I enjoyed Salinger’s writing style in The Catcher In The Rye, the narrator annoyed me so much at points that I began feeling detached from his experiences and unable to emotionally connect with much of what I felt I should’ve. I chalk a lot of that up to my reading this now in my mid-twenties and not as a teenager when I could’ve more easily identified with old Holden Caulfield and his aimlessly disaffected, self-obsessed and judgmental attitude. Catcher In The Rye is a coming-of-age novel, yes, but only in the last couple chapters is there any sort of maturity taking place…everything up until then illustrates just how undeveloped a person the narrator is yet, an experience that, for me, fluctuated from rather interesting to very dull depending almost entirely on the circumstances Caulfield finds himself in and the characters that are surrounding him. However, when it’s good, it is very good. There’s real poignancy in some of the relationships (specifically the one between the narrator and his sister Phoebe, who really helps put the whole story in perspective), and the book features some excellent dialogue and a strongly crafted, consistent narrative. Sure, Caulfield is a whiny brat who really doesn’t have it all that bad, but his brand of personal dilemma is heartfelt and valid nonetheless.

A favorite passage from it which I felt summed up much of the ideals the book was aiming for: “Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.”