Salinger

J.D. Salinger has died. This is probably very sad for a certain segment of the population, but I must admit I've hated Catcher In The Rye for many years. Its atmosphere of alienation and juvenile self-righteousness--everyone but Holden is a "phony," don't you know--may be brilliant as a documentary device, but as art, it seems to me to preserve some of the worst characteristics the human mind can reflect. It's the perfect novel for the unaccomplished loner who papers over his lack of genuine self-esteem by convincing himself that the world is just too off kilter to understand him and too inhumane for him to understand in turn. What he really needs is to accomplish something; instead, he finds solace in the embrace of Holden Caulfield, who tells him that there's something noble about his state. He finds an excuse to relish his lack of a real self. Catcher is one of those books that diagnoses without proposing any cure, but worse: it encourages the reader to boast of his sores, if not to the world, at least to himself.

Update: Shawn Klein writes,

I think you nailed Catcher in the Rye in your post. At the same time, I still love it, if only because of the place it held for me when I was a young teenager. Reading it as a somewhat geeky 13 year old, I thought Holden was cool, I wanted to be like him. He seemed to know what was up. At 17 or 18, I could identify with his alienation and that feeling of living in world filled with bullshit. By the time I reread it later in or after college, I looked back at it and thought, "stop your fucking whining and get off your ass". I would think an adult who still admires Holden is seriously disturbed. But I think Salinger captures the experience of adolescence perfectly: that confused, even aimless, waiting for adulthood that seems to be a feature of the extended adolescence in which many lived and that to often felt like it will drive one insane.

I'm not sure, however, I agree that it encourages the reader to boast of his sores and flaws. Holden loses himself instead of achieving autonomy and adulthood, so I read it as more a cautionary tale. Looking back, I think I picked up on that even as young teenager. I wanted to be like Holden in certain respects, but I also sense that something goes terribly wrong in Holden's life. Salinger, as you say, does not propose a cure or even an explanation of what goes wrong (and thinking about some of his other work, that is a pattern of his) I guess I'm okay with that. Maybe I'm more comfortable with the naturalism in this instance, or maybe I'm just trying to rationalize an experience I relished as a kid but now would reject now?