Catcher in the Rye

It’s quite hard to express what I feel about Catcher in the Rye. I like it, but I don’t love it. It was an enjoyable but inconsequential experience. Perhaps it’s the hype that surrounds the book, but I expected to have extreme feelings one way or the other. To find myself quite indifferent, albeit overall more pleased than otherwise, seems strange.

Holden is rather an extreme character, kept purposefully vague. I can see why so many teenagers relate to him; he’s unpredictable, rebellious, afraid of change yet eager to be an adult, wildly imaginative, and – more importantly – despite his many idiosyncrasies, his real thoughts are quite indistinct, making it easier to fill in the blanks yourself. However, for me, there just wasn’t enough to him. He was charming, yes, and sweet, and vulnerable in an endearing way. Flawed, too – selfish and snobbish and hypocritical, plus unhinged in a very teenaged way. A hero for the outsider. But for all that, he just wasn’t very engaging. The novel was very short, but I actually got quite bored of Holden. I’m not sure I believed entirely in his realism. I understood him, yes, and recognised some of my own teenaged thought process, but I’m sure I would have felt at fifteen what I feel now: I recognise elements of myself, but there’s a whole lot of Caulfield that’s alien, and I’m always aware of a ‘phoniness’ – I can see that the reason so many people relate to him is the same reason magicians and con artists can use cold readings. Beyond that, I’m left cold. After all, besides Holden’s character, there’s not much to the book at all.

Some of the other characters are superb, but it actually bothers me how well-sketched they are. Phoebe and Antolini are excellently-portrayed, believable characters in their brief appearances, but I don’t believe for a moment that Holden could ever have rendered their characters so well. Antolini seems to be Salinger’s way of proving he can write conventionally, not just in the slang-strewn, accessible style Holden uses (which I must admit kept making me think of Bugsy Malone, but I could accept it was realistic despite the distance between our worlds). Clearly Salinger COULD write in Antolini’s style, but for one moment, I can no longer believe it’s Caulfield telling me this story. To a lesser extent, the same goes for Phoebe.
I know how controversial the book was, for its directness and realism, but both are entirely commendable.

My final impression was that I liked Caulfield, and certainly related to him, but there’s just not much to the story. I feel that the reason it resonates with so many people is that there’s actually something lacking. Enjoyable, but in the end, only average.