Catcher In the Rye didn’t make a huge impression on me when I read it in high-school, but I loved the Franny part of Franny and Zooey. James Wolcott has an excellent, short piece on why that’s his favorite part of Salinger’s work.
The New York Times also has a terrific obit of Salinger, emphasizing in particular the varied reactions people had to him (I like the phrase “either a crackpot or the American Tolstoy”, from the obit). I think one of the best illustrations of this varied reaction is dueling reviews the Times published of Catcher In the Rye in 1951. Here’s a bit of the negative one (the entire thing is written in mock Caulfieldese):
That’s the way it sounds to me, Hel said, and away she went with this crazy book. “The Catcher in the Rye.” What did I tell ya, she said next day. This Salinger, he’s a short story guy. And he knows how to write about kids. This book though, it’s too long. Gets kind of monotonous. And he should’ve cut out a lot about these jerks and all at that crumby school. They depress me. They really do. Salinger, he’s best with real children. I mean young ones like old Phoebe, his kid sister. She’s a personality. Holden and little old Phoeb, Hel said, they kill me. This last part about her and Holden and this Mr. Antolini, the only guy Holden ever thought he could trust, who ever took any interest in him, and who turned out queer–that’s terrific. I swear it is.
Holden’s story is told in Holden’s own strange, wonderful language by J. D. Salinger in an unusually brilliant novel, “The Catcher in the Rye.”
Comrade Kevin
The Onion had the best death notice for Salinger.
DougJ
The Onion had the best death notice for Salinger.
I agree. I actually think, in a way, the various parodies of Caulfieldese are a very sincere form of flattery.
srv
Here’s George Will’s dimwitted rant on Catcher in the Rye. Warning, pdf.
http://homepage.mac.com/mseffie/assignments/catcher/Dimwitted_Legacy.pdf
General Winfield Stuck
We may be getting a lot of new JD works if rumors are true about him continuing writing in seclusion.
I liked CITR, and learned something from it, I think, years ago. Maybe time to reread and also Franny and Zooey
MTiffany
It wasn’t the book that made an impression on me (other than I thought it read very stilted and contrived. English teacher: “That’s the way kids spoke back then” Me: “You mean they were all retarded? That explains a lot.” Him “Detention!”), it was my English teacher’s opinion of the book that made an impression on me. The lesson I took away from his dewy-eyed fawning over this book is: time does not stop when you are 25. There are great books still to be written and great songs still to be sung.
Anon Anon
The vanity fair piece is great. Thanks for that.
Has anyone seen any Holden Caulfield generators on the web?
p.s. The! It’s The Catcher in the Rye.
ajr22
From the last post. “Whatever residual enthusiasm I felt for the venture dissipated, with shocking speed, as she nibbled at my ear and whispered—’You know, I’m on the pill.’…On that night, in that dank basement bedroom, she spoke for all of us, the whole young American elite. Not I love you, not This is incredible, not Let’s go all the way, but I’m on the pill.” This has got to be one of the lamest things I have ever read.
Phoebe
@ajr22: wait, what? what post? George Will? I deliberately avoided that. Now I’m in pain. Thank you.
Nine Stories, everyone. Read that again. I would but it’s only been a couple of months.
DougJ
@ajr22:
Yes, I know. It went over the edge from “so terrible it’s run to repeat” to “so terrible it should never be spoken of again” when I saw the last lines about “Let’s go all the way”.
The whole tone of it was awful — Lord of the Rings meets a very special episode of Family Ties.
eemom
Nine Stories, folks. Nine Stories. If you want the best of Salinger, read those.
George freakin’ WILL on Catcher In The Rye?!?! That’s hilarious.
I hope we see more published Salinger now too — but I’m wondering if having been a hermit for so many years, he might have run out of new and interesting things to say. Guess we’ll find out.
eemom
@Phoebe:
yay! No one’s been listening to me about Nine Stories.
DougJ
George freakin’ WILL on Catcher In The Rye? That’s hilarious.
It starts off okay but veers into self-parody very quickly .
licensed to kill time
I read Catcher In the Rye when I was about 10 and it made a big impression on me. That prepubescent time when you’re making a transition from kid to quasi-adult and looking at the adults around you with newly scale-less eyes and not liking what you see all that much.
I never wanted to be like Holden, but I could relate to his disgust with phonies. And Salinger created a beautiful image in his title – Holden hopelessly trying to catch those kids before they ‘fall off a crazy cliff’ into adulthood.
Steeplejack
Gotta go to work–in the snow! 18°! eek!–but I’ll be back later. Just wanted to say that I have always preferred the Glass family saga to The Catcher in the Rye, and Nine Stories is one of the all-time great story collections, right up there with Joyce’s Dubliners, Borges’s Ficciones and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. “The Laughing Man” is a masterpiece. Just read that one story.
asdf
It’s been a very long time since school but I think Mr. Will doesn’t quite know what picaresque means.
But then, I was never one of the young American elite. When a nice young lady offered to kiss me, I was happy about it, unlike Mr. Douthat.
What a bunch of phonies.
Martin
I liked Catcher in the Rye, but honestly, I don’t care that the man is dead. He’s been invisible to society for my entire lifetime. What’s the difference now that he’s stuck in the ground?
Phoebe
I really liked that second review of Catcher in the Rye. It was simple and on the mark. I had to read this book for 9th grade English, in a boarding school no less, and we had to suffer through being force-marched by the teacher into “learning” that the whole point of this book was that — irony! — Holden was himself a phony because he lied to that woman on the train.
Ugh. Thank goodness I’m done with school. It’s been years and years, and I’m still grateful.
McGeorge Bundy
I’ve never been an admirer of Salinger’s work, but I have always got a kick out of seeing Salinger described as America’s chief literary recluse. Thomas Pynchon, anybody?
Chad N Freude
@Phoebe: Whatever became of your older brother?
ajr22
@DougJ: “He first gained attention for Privilege, a bittersweet 2005 memoir of his years at Harvard, where the drinking, partying, and hooking up left him feeling alienated.” If publishing this information about yourself is what it takes to be noticed as a young conservative, I’m pretty sure i chose the right side.
SGEW
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters was my absolutely favorite piece of writing when I was an adolescent, and still has a tremendous amount of resonance for me today. Catcher in the Rye still has some sentimental value (it was very important to several people who were very important to me as a teenager, if you can follow that), but it never had nearly the same staggering impact that Raise High did.
For what that’s worth.
licensed to kill time
@Chad N Freude:
He became a phony.
Ash
Whenever I tell people I hated Catcher in the Rye they look at me like I’ve got horns growing out of my nostrils. :(
McGeorge Bundy
Anyways: American Tolstoy? Really? What about Melville?
John T
“J.D. Salinger rest in peace.”
“But he’d already been doing that for the past 40 years!”
dr. bloor
@McGeorge Bundy:
Never heard of him.
Incertus
@McGeorge Bundy: I could certainly be wrong on this, but I think Salinger has been read by way more people than Pynchon, and has had a greater impact on the population at large.
Chad N Freude
I think the George Will piece tells us more about George Will than Holden Caulfield.
DougJ
Anyways: American Tolstoy? Really? What about Melville?
When people say “American Tolstoy”, they usually seem to be making a comparison with Tolstoy’s shorter work. I don’t know why that is.
Chad N Freude
@dr. bloor: Gravity’s Rainbow. (Very long.) The Crying of Lot 49. (Very short.)
Pynchon was very famous and very popular in the 70s. If you seek realism in your fiction, he’s not your guy.
Jean
“For Esme with Love and Squalor” was one of my favorites, and “A Young Girl in 1941 with No Waist at All” was, I think, one of last uncollected stories I read. I read all most everything by Salinger when I was in high school. Nine Stories is wonderful as is Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters. As someone above mentioned, “The Laughing Man,” is good.
SiubhanDuinne
Sign me up with the group who never much warmed to The Catcher in th Rye, but who loves Nine Stories, Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters, and Franny and Zooey. I haven’t read Catcher all the way through in probably 30 or 40 years, but I hang out with the Glass family at least once a year. Usually right around this time of year, in fact. Hmm, I think I know how *I’ll* be spending part of this cold, bleak weekend.
licensed to kill time
__
I made a “breakup” compilation tape for a friend once and titled it ‘For (X) With Love and Squalor’.
Such a great title.
jimbob
@ Incertus
Says a lot about our “population at large,” doesn’t it?
McGeorge Bundy
@Incertus: I’m sure he has, but that doesn’t mean he was more reclusive than Pynchon. Salinger wasn’t shy about phoning up the Times about his latest lawsuit, for example. But it’s a silly argument. I just didn’t want Pynchon to be lost in the shuffle.
Jean
@licensed to kill time: It is a great title!
McGeorge Bundy
@DougJ: I wasn’t aware of that. Either way, Melville’s work is much more culturally compatible to Tolstoy’s than is Salinger’s. But that’s my opinion, and I happen to think Melville is the greatest writer America ever produced.
Alan
@Chad N Freude: :)
Mnemosyne
@McGeorge Bundy:
I think Pynchon gave up that title when he appeared on “The Simpsons.”
Don’t get me wrong, I think his appearances on “The Simpsons” are hilarious, especially since they draw him with a paper bag over his head, but I don’t think you get to stay that much in touch with popular culture and retain your title as chief recluse.
(Yes, that really is Thomas Pynchon. Not a joke.)
MikeJ
@McGeorge Bundy: Pynchon did a guest shot on The Simpsons. Granted they animated him with a paper bag on his head….
Damn you faster typist/thinkers!
marcopolo
JC has probably done this already but going to the TED website and watching presentations might be a good way to pass time recuperating…here are two I will recommend for starters…
A chef talking about a farmer in Spain who produces amazing foie gras by raising his geese humanely & sustainably…the last 3 minutes take the talk to the next level…
A scientist talking about how spending more time looking at how nature solves problems will help us solve them better, cheaper, and sustainably…
Good stuff…
McGeorge Bundy
I know about Pynchon’s “appearances” on The Simpsons, and I know about his doing the narration for the ‘trailer’ of his latest book Inherent Vice. I think this Slate piece sums it up well enough:
http://www.slate.com/id/31263/
scav
nah, it’s simple. false dichotomy. Clearly, only a crackpot could be the American Tolstoy.
wenchacha
The big deal about Catcher for me was that my Dad was on the school board back when there was a question of allowing it to be taught in high school. I can’t even tell you the outcome or how Dad voted, but the whole uproar made me want to read it like mad.
Then later, a boyfriend loved it, and loved quoting it. He was legally blind, and had the book as a recording, so I think it made an even greater impression on him than most teens.
Finally, when I got to college, I took a class studying it. I had read it by then; I had bought a copy to read at work, away from the house and Mom and Dad.
The prof who taught it was very close to a grown-up version of Holden: sarcastic, profane, and suicidal too much of the time. He loved the book, and let me explore lots of different aspects of it in my paper.
I was all hot to get my teens to read it, and share it with them. Well, the experience was not anywhere near the same for them as it had been for me. Time has moved on, and I didn’t shelter them half as much as I had been. The big coming-of-age book for both of them, 21 and 18, has been Youth In Revolt, by C.D. Payne.
All the stuff I read about Salinger in my later years sort of bummed me out. Elaine Joyce? Seriously? I have put Salinger in that category of artists whose work I admire, but leave something to be desired when it comes to their personal lives. Still, he meant a lot to me at a point in my young life.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Chad N Freude:
Sorry, but someone had to point that out…
Annie
I remember loving Catcher in the Rye in high school, or at least I remember having a huge crush on my English teacher in high school, who loved Catcher in the Rye…His name also was Mr. Will.
Our Mr. Will had us all believing that we could be serious authors, or least serious literary critics.
Chad N Freude
@The Republic of Stupidity: Please, don’t mix political theory with Internet psychoanalysis.
San
Completely OT but had to share.
There is a crazy wingnut woman on one of the niche forums that I frequent. I love reading her because she basically gives a digest of the Rush/Hannity/Beck talking points.
Well, apparently the narrative in the Fox land is that SOTU was a failure because Obama said “I” a bazillion times.
And yesterday’s meeting with the Republicans was a major embarrassment for the president because he came across as hysterical and rude (interrupting the questions). He was “nervous and I expected him to break into impotent tears at any moment”. He came begging and the wise Republicans whipped him. That’s the story and they are sticking with it.
Sharing the same reality with folks like that is hard work, hard, hard work.
Chad N Freude
Time for a Steinbeck reference: The Invisible Hand of the Marketplace is attached to Lenny’s wrist.
Chad N Freude
@San: That’s what I was afraid of.
CMcD
I’ve lived close to Cornish NH for about fifteen years, and while I’ve been a fan of Salinger’s ever since reading “Catcher,” I had zero desire to try to find him or bother him. Still I always wondered if I’d recognize him if our paths should happen to cross. Then last January, a few days after Salinger’s 90th birthday, I was at a restaurant in Lebanon NH (about 10-15 miles from his house) and noticed a very tall, thin, white-haired man munching a sandwich at the next table. He chatted a little bit with the waitress, and it was clear that he was hard of hearing. I didn’t go over and ask him to whip out his American Express card or anything, but I’m. pretty. sure. it. was. him.
Anyway, I got a kick out this Ian Frazier parody a few years ago, shortly after a coyote was spotted in Central Park: Caught
licensed to kill time
@San:
Who was it who was counting the “I’s” in his speeches before? I remember this meme but don’t remember from where.
I went to the Google (Obama too many I’s) to find out and it suggested:
Obama too tired
Obama too thin
Obama too white
Obama tv too much
Obama too liberal
Obama too awesome
heh. funny Google.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Chad N Freude:
Is that somewhat akin to drinking and driving?
YellowJournalism
The negative review reads as choppy, amateurish, and difficult to really understand. I don’t remember Salinger’s novel being like that at all. It flowed quite nicely; Salinger made it work for the story.
That reason is just one of many for all the admiration bestowed on Salinger’s works.
dr. bloor
@Chad N Freude:
Yup. Just making a joke on the “reclusive” thing which was a little too subtle for the context.
Pynchon >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Salinger, and I like Salinger just fine.
jeffreyw
Worse than buffalo gnats.
Chad N Freude
@The Republic of Stupidity: More like mixing ephedrine/pseudoephedrine with whatever chemicals are under your kitchen sink.
dr. bloor
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Getting hit by a drunk driver hurts less than reading George Will.
Chad N Freude
@dr. bloor: Around here, subtlety has to be hammered home.
The Other Steve
Would you say Caufield was Emo? Or was he more of a Punk? What about Grunge? Where does that fit into the hierarchy of stereotypes?
MikeJ
@YellowJournalism:
Just recently we were having a discussion here about what a shame it was that Hunter S Thompson made it look easy because so many less talented people keep trying to do his thing. I think that applies here too.
@licensed to kill time:
Awesome.
eemom
@wenchacha:
I believe you mean Joyce Maynard.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Chad N Freude:
Hmmm… whilst I’m no stranger to… uh… ‘unusual combinations of substances’… I do recall swearing off the chemicals under my kitchen sink quite some time ago… been a while since I had ‘the clinks…’
The Republic of Stupidity
@dr. bloor:
Indeedy… long before the Mustache of Understanding… there was the Bow Tie of Omnipotence…
Seriously… have NEVER been able to stomach G Will…
DougJ
Would you say Caufield was Emo? Or was he more of a Punk? What about Grunge?
A little of all three, kind of like the Replacements.
I’m sure there’s some awful Cambridge, Blake Babies-type band that bears his name or the name of something associated with the book, but I don’t think that’s really what the character was like.
MikeJ
@DougJ: Don’t you dare say anything bad about Blake Babies.
Didn’t Too Much Joy have a song about him? Just like Holden Caulfield or something? TMJ was more of a power pop band. Possibly my favorite genre.
fraught
You need to put George Will into context in order to properly understand the multitudinous ways in which he’s an uptight little prick. Born in 1941, he was 10 when CTR was published. Yet, you can see how Will, in the linked piece, expresses utter contempt for all of the iconic role models of his own generation, Holden, James Dean, Marlon Brando, calling them whiners and phonys. By the late 50s George was at Trinity College in Hartford, a third rate men’s college for guys who didn’t have legacy admission to the Ivy League and who couldn’t get accepted at the second tier men’s schools like Williams, Amherst and Wesleyan. At Trinity everyone took their social, fashion and political cues from the smarter, richer and more savvy guys at Yale which was 50 miles away. It was not a very liberal place. Trinity, in fact, was one of the most socially self-conscious schools on the Eastern seaboard. Full of bourgeois, Babbity pretenders who were obsessed with the right ties and shoes, deb parties, “mixers” and the proper way to drop a name, Trinity was where Will honed the disdain we all now know so well. This is a man who claims never to have owned a pair of jeans.
George’s contempt for Holden came out of the, perhaps unconscious, recognition that there were a lot more Holden’s on the horizon, entire generations of them, and that he, Will, was the real misfit and phony.
rootless_e
“either”? Tolstoy was an uber-crackpot. You gotta read his essay on Lear for the full flavor.
Omnes Omnibus
@MikeJ: William Holden Caulfield
Couldn’t find a YouTube, sorry.
Omnes Omnibus
Ok, FYWP
William Holden Caulfield
wiley
I thought Catcher in the Rye portrayed real grief over the death of Holden’s little brother. It was buried most of the time, but he was in real pain. It seems that losing a little brother is second only to losing one’s child in the grief category. Or am I confused about the story? I don’t see that being mentioned. Have I got the wrong story?
eemom
@wiley:
funny, I was just thinking the same thing. Yes, that was Holden, and those passages where he talks about his brother Allie are some of the most moving in the book.
Brachiator
@MTiffany:
Hmm. A very Holden Caulfieldish observation. I wonder if, sometimes anything other than contemporary literature is wasted on high school students, most of whom spontaneously repulse anything that ain’t new.
I agree with others that the Slate piece lays out a good case for the ongoing influence of Catcher. I particularly enjoyed Rushmore, which may be too ancient for teens and young adults. For some, Truffaut’s 400 Blows still holds up, for others its stale and dated.
Probably because they haven’t really read the longer works.
Phoebe
@Chad N Freude: He’s the one who introduced me to the book, way before that stupid teacher could ruin it. Once I read it, I figured out where “Release yourself from my vice-like grip!” came from. He used to say it to me when putting me in a full nelson, claiming that it was inescapable. I escaped as easily as Stradlater, via wriggling instead of brute strength, though. He and I also came to the independent conclusion, in later years, that “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period” is way way underrated, from Nine Stories.
I was named after the Phoebe in House of Seven Gables, though.
Steeplejack (phone)
Predictably slow evening at work. OMG! Snow!
Just wanted to add that The Royal Tenenbaums is a great pass at a Salinger movie.
wenchacha
@eemom:
The Elaine Joyce romance is not as publicized as the Joyce Maynard romance. Both women were involved with him.
I just thought of Elaine Joyce as sort of game-show cute and witty, but not all that substantial. Maybe that was the whole point.
http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/features/2162/index2.html
eemom
@wenchacha:
oh, ok, sorry. I had never heard of Elaine Joyce before.
For a hermit, he sure got around, eh? : )
Mum
@McGeorge Bundy:
In the late 70s at the University of Chicago, some wit posted a flyer announcing an upcoming literary event headlined by Salinger AND Pynchon. It was in the closing weeks of winter quarter, and everyone was immersed in their papers and research, practically living at the Regenstein, and sporting the usual University of Chicago winter (okay, year-round) pallor. There were some students, die-hard Salinger or Pynchon fans, who fell for the gag despite the posted date of the event – April 1.
Mum
@McGeorge Bundy:
Greatest? One of the greatest, certainly. I read “Moby Dick” once a year, and I’m a fan of “Bartleby,” “The Confidence Man,” and “Pierre,” too. But we have some other great writers: Twain, Poe, Auster, Bellow, James, Lewis, Updike, Faulkner, Roth, O’Connor, Stegner, McCarthy, Morrison, to name a few.