I just finished reading “The Catcher in the Rye”. For the third time in my life. I swear. I am not kidding, I have read this particular book THREE times. It was bugging the heck out of me that I didn’t understand it, so I read the dang thing again. Now while I do not think it a GREAT book, as I confessed to another Deardiary member, I think old Salinger really had a way with inner dialog. I hate to admit it. But I mean he was practically brilliant. A gosh darn prince of a dialogist. It’s too bad that the subject matter was so gosh darn depressing. But sometimes you just have to write about stuff that depresses the heck out of you. You know what I mean? But actually I think I finally got what some people might see in this book, that from a strictly literary point of view that it might have some merit. But what confuses the heck out of me is WHY in the world they would expect kids to understand it. I mean really, there were things in there that a decent kid wouldn’t even know what they meant.
Can you imagine being the high school teacher who had assigned this book to your class and wondering in the morning when you got up and there you are getting ready for work, and your wife is getting your breakfast and everything, and you are there tying your tie and looking in the mirror, and you knew you were going to be discussing it in class and all, and you were wondering, “Are any of these morons going to GET this story?” And of course when you got to school, you had to look at this class full of adolescent blockheads who didn’t have a CLUE what the book was about. And there was no way in the world that you could TELL them what it was about, because their parents would be all over you the next day and demanding that the school board tar and feather your sorry butt and chase you out of town. So really, it is a grown up kind of book although even that is a kind of stretch, because it’s about a 16 year old boy and all. But what are you going to do? It’s on the recommended reading list for your blockheaded adolescent mob and you have to assign something! And let’s face it, Moby Dick is just too long of a book for teenagers to read. Heck, it’s too long for most adults, even if they were really interested, which I doubt. So when you looked over the list, which was what they told you that you had to work with, there it was, this fairly short book about a kind of really mixed up cynical, teenager who thinks everyone is a phony. And you think maybe, just maybe some of your class will relate to him. Yeah right, like a bunch of kids from the midwest are going to GET a New York lawyer’s kid flunking out of a bunch of phony prep schools because they are all full of crooks, even if they do come from wealthy families and all. It’s just TOO much I swear.
So here’s the main point I am trying to make. If you haven’t read this book, don’t. Well I don’t mean NEVER read it, I mean don’t read it until you are at least 52 years old or something. Because I swear you will be wasting your time completely. Honest. Just take my word for it, wait until you are 52. And then you should make sure you are really in the mood for it you know, because if you’re not, it’s going to make you want to puke and you won’t finish it and get to the end which is really not that good, but once you have started it you might as well get the satisfaction of saying you HAVE read the book in case someone ever asks you and then you won’t have to lie to them and all. I mean you don’t want people to think you don’t have an education or something right?
Well, that’s about all I have to say about it. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
If you want to know the truth, I swear I was a madwoman to read this book again.