The great American author JD Salinger passed away on Wednesday. The author who gave us Holden Caulfield, a character with whom generation after generation of angsty teenage headcases could relate, was 91.
I first read The Catcher in the Rye in high school, and I loved it. Even though it was about a teenage boy from a different generation in a different part of the country, I felt like it was about me. A kid struggling with growing up, horrified by the superficiality of the adult world.
It was later, in college, that I discovered Franny and Zooey, and Nine Stories. But it was Catcher that always held my imagination. It was one of the books that made me want to be a writer. I wanted to be able to describe experiences with that same authenticity.
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.
- Holden, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 22
Rest in peace, Mr. Salinger. Thanks for writing.
I re-read Catcher about a month ago right before Salinger died. Ya gotta think why did I choose to re read it at that time. I do pick it up every 5 or 6 years since my friend Julie introduced it to me almost 30 years ago. Good (or bad) timing or some cosmic strange connection, who knows. I try not to be a phony but of course I am. I wish I could say that I'm a phony in recovery but I don't think I can. All I know is that I don't know much -- or even if I know anything. Take care good old Jess
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely one of those books that stays with you - or at least it did for me. You might like Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which has a similar feel. I gave it to D a couple years back and I'm sure he never read it. It's a ittle green book.
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