Is Catcher in the Rye Outdated? (A Goodreads.com Conversation)

(From the "Most Overrated Books" Discussion, 12/31/14)

The Catcher in the Rye has been criticized as outdated because modern schoolkids can't relate to what has been described as a "spoiled rich kid" from the 1950s. The following conversation lifted from a discussion on Goodreads.com addresses this issue.


Cemre: Why do you think Catcher [in the Rye] saw such a huge backlash ?

I mean there are so many articles all over the internet about it aging badly. Words "spoiled rich kid" are frequently used, but then aren't most of the main characters of classics are rich ? Why is Catcher the biggest victim of this ? Is it because it is easy to read or is there any other reason that ı can't understand ?

Mochaspresso: Perhaps it's that the internet reaches the reader before the actual book does and influences their perceptions of it? It could also be that other literature, films and music have reached that reader and shaped their pov before the novel. I know of people who read it for the first time because of the movie, "Six Degrees of Separation". I also knew people who read the novel for the first time because it was mentioned in a Green Day song. I haven't read this particular book, but I read an article that claimed that the book "The Collector" references "The Catcher in the Rye" rather negatively.

Cemre: Yes Mocha. Even stranger, people sometimes have negative perceptions of a book without actually reading it, based solely on its representation in popular media. Furthermore, their expectations of the novel can colour their reading and even then, it's arguable if they had actually read it.

I haven't read The Collector, but ı've gazed through it in a book fair, mainly for finding that passage (yes, I'm obsessed.) If ı've understood it correctly, a girl recommends it to a man, because she thinks that man can identify with Holden, but the man doesn't like it because Holden is a rich prep kid who didn't suffer as much as he did, etc. etc. Same thing.

Books sometimes have cultural reputations that doesn't have anything to do with the actual text. People come CitR expecting a novel of a rebellion, a book that inspired the killing of a rockstar, a life changing manifesto. What they find is the life story of a confused 16 years old boy who have lost his little brother. This might have disappointed a lot of them, and made them to see it as worse than it actually is, despite the fact that Catcher is rather good at the thing it's trying to do.

Monty:  <Cemre wrote: "Why do you think Catcher saw such a huge backlash ?">

Two reasons. First, I believe the backlash reflects present political realities. Holden representsthe privileged 1%. Wealth and income disparity are reaching new highs every year and there's growing frustration and unrest among the poor and Middle Class who feel victimized by the job-destroying Mitt Romneys and Kochs who pull the strings behind the curtains of government and industry.

I am afraid that Holden has, unfairly, become a literary insult to those suffering the grim realities and hopelessness of the economic disparities of this age.

The second major reason, I suspect, is psychological. The book deals with the transition from juvenile to adulthood, a transition that young readers are still experiencing when they read it for the first time. I suspect reading about yourself as you are struggling with vital issues of personality development can feel theatening. It's also about a guy, and girls have their own issues.

Additionally, many older readers are still wrestling with unresloved issues of an incomplete transition to adulthood themselves. Many were forced by parental expectations into unfulfilling roles and careers, and the book reminds them of it.

A book that sells this well is an easy target. Expect the attacks to grow until the economics and politics reverse their present course. The other issues are timeless, and for this reason CiTR can never become outdated. Attacked for socio-political reasons, but never outdated.

Cemre: Is Holden 1% though ? USA is one of the richest countries in the world, Holden's family seems to do well, but can they represent 1% of United States of America ? Wasn't Holden's father a lawyer? I'm sure they're doing rather well, but c'mon ı don't think they eat money? There has to be richer characters in American fiction.

Monty: <Cemre wrote: "Is Holden 1% though ? USA is one of the richest countries in the world, Holden's family seems to do well, but can they represent 1% of United States of America ? Wasn't Holden's father a lawyer? ...">

True, but corporate lawyers are major facilitators of the Kochs and Romneys, and they're paid immensely well for it. They write the legislation that chains us. They sit on the Supreme Court that redefined money as speech.

It is perception that matters, and Holden, merely by attending prep school, represents that privileged class.

The Catcher in the Rye: A Review

Pound for pound, The Catcher in the Rye would win the American novella category and rank highly among all the novels I have read to date.

First-person narrator Holden Caulfield is America's first literary teenager, opening the door for a new genre, the teenage confessional. Like East of Eden, Ordinary People, The Outsiders and Rebel Without a Cause, The Catcher in the Rye authentically portrays the struggles of teenage boys in a certain place and time. The quality of the writing is exceptional. While first-person point of view can be a challenge for young readers, the authenticity of the narrator's voice and the book's compactness make it more accessible. A lot happens in four days trapped inside Holden's head.

The Catcher in the Rye can be seen as a young adult novel or an adult novel about the teenager within us all, a lament on the necessary loss of innocence on the way to adulthood. You can't read it as an adult without getting personality insights than were impossible as a teen because teens are by definition living within the transitional state exemplified in Holden. They can't see it as transitional because it's the only reality they know, the fog they are living within.

Caterpillar, pupa and butterfly are different states of being. The vast majority of teens are emerging from pupae-ville, just starting to sample the sights and smells of the world. For them, death--James Castle's mangled body--is an abstract notion, something in a video or book or some stage or screen rendition of Romeo and Juliet. The average teen has never been in the presence of a lifeless body and smelled death's pungent vapors--well, maybe a frog in biology class--let alone lost a beloved sibling.

Only an adult can look back on their teenage years with perspective, yet academia keeps throwing The Catcher in the Rye at teenagers because of what it says about the challenges of growing up.

The Catcher in the Rye depicts an upper-middle-class male in an urban setting going through a crisis. He's overwhelmed by the pressures of becoming an adult, but too much has been thrown at him at once. He hasn't gotten over the death of his beloved younger brother, Allie, when he witnesses the suicide of a dormitory mate, James Castle. He's been traumatized and can't function. How much can a guy take?

He's looking for answers and can't seem to get them, like Conrad Jarret in Ordinary People and Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. All three boys struggled with the death of people they cared about.

And the one person Holden respects and looks to for help, Mr. Antolini, he mistakes for a pervert, a threat. It's too much; so Holden withdraws. He wants to go live in a cabin in the woods, which is a metaphor for "Time-out! I need a break!" Phoebe rescues him with unconditional love. She accepts him no matter what. If she'd been a brat,the message would have been entirely different.

Holden goes from being antagonistic and callous to highly empathetic. He wants to protect children from the brutal realities of adulthood. But the trip has been too exhausting and he ends up in a rest home.

Cal, in East of Eden is similar to Holden--acting out, raging, doing strange things. But all four of these books/films are about males. The world of teenage girls is different; so all the guy stuff (fighting, jealousy, possessiveness, etc.) may not come across for the female reader.

I reread the book at age 67 and discovered that Holden could be suffering from PTSD stemming from the death of his brother and from witnessing the suicide of dorm-mate James Castle, who bailed out of a dorm window wearing the sweater Holden had loaned him. The symptoms Holden was exhibiting: depression, poor concentration, attention deficit, crying, uncontrollable rage, lack of motivation, self-isolation, sleeplessness, etc., are typical of PTSD.

To me The Catcher in the Rye is partially about a kid struggling against the downward spiral of mental illness. Without professional help he was doomed to submerge, and did. Holden was barely "holdin' on."

There's a lot of cultural and psychological meat in there: a) how boys interact with each other when living in close quarters, b) particularly when two have or are dating the same girl (Jane Gallagher)and one feels protective or possessive of her, c) how a sensitive boy might behave because of a deep emotional wound and d) how that boy might become neurotically protective toward his younger sister and toward children in general because of c).

Most teenagers aren't mature enough to comprehend the psychological ramifications of what I've just described unless they've been prepared for it by a mature adult who does comprehend. And there are many adults who can't.

Most adults have psychological defenses that don't allow even them to comprehend what I've just described. It's either too abstract, too complicated or too scary. I suspect this is the main reason the book is so controversial. Most people don't get it unless someone points the way.

A greater sense of Holden Caulfield through JD Salinger can be found in the film Finding Forester, which is purported to be based on Salinger's life. The reclusiveness of Forester appears rooted in the trauma of losing his beloved brother in a car crash.

In World War II, Salinger was at Utah Beach at Normandy and at bloody major campaigns like the Battle of the Bulge, where Allied troops were decimated. He was among the first Allied troops to liberate a German concentration camp. He was hospitalized for battle fatigue; he understood first-hand the effects of trauma.

In a 1953 interview with a high-school newspaper, Salinger said that the novel was "sort of" autobiographical: "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book ...it was a great relief telling people about it."

Salinger, when writing The Catcher in the Rye wouldn't have had a clue about PTSD, as it wasn't even in the diagnostic manual (DSM) for psychologists until decades later. He was just writing what he felt, blasting his feelings onto paper and letting the chips fall.

Many people see Salinger as a sort of literary genius because he sold 70 million copies of one book. I'm not saying he wasn't talented and educated; he had plenty of both going for him. I'm saying he leveraged his talent on top of some inner need to get this desperate crisis part of his life onto paper and out of his head.

A great segment of the literary world has quite understandably interpreted Holden's PTSD symptoms as mere teenage angst, but this is a gross oversimplification. It is his masterfully presented array of extreme symptoms that is largely responsible for the success of the book.

It's too complicated, or too sensitive, for English teachers to talk about mental illness; so they focus on the simple and more obvious interpretation. Such teachers are missing a phenomenal opportunity to reach kids who are in crisis or know someone who is. We'd have fewer cases of teenagers going postal if The Catcher in the Rye were used for exploring mental illness.

One point of the book is the redemptive power of unconditional love, revealed and brilliantly illustrated in the climax scene at the carousel.

Even at Phoebe's tender age, she knew how to get her point across. On the way to the carousel she digs in her heels, throws a fit, making Holden promise not to run away. Because of the depth of her devotion, Holden realizes she's doing it because she loves him, wants him to be safe and come home and return to school.

This revelation makes him so happy he begins to cry. He shows his love for Phoebe by fussing over her, making sure she gets a good seat, watching over her as the tears stream down his face in the rain. Teenage guys are supposed to be tough, but he's "practically bawling." And as if that weren't enough, Salinger practically spells it out with those two songs ("Oh Marie" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".)

Holden wanted Sally Hayes to run away with him, but all she wanted was someone to trim the Christmas tree, skate and go to the theater with. All Jane Gallagher wanted was someone to play golf and checkers and hold hands with in a movie. The raw fierceness of Phoebe's simple, innocent devotion redeemed Holden by showing him that among all the "phoniness" and flaws of mankind there is a niche of happiness if we open our eyes hearts to the possibility.

There was no one in Holden's life--not parents, not friends, not teachers, to let Holden know he was loved--except Phoebe. She proved her love by standing her ground to keep him safe. Phoebe represents family, clan or tribe. People are social creatures, like most higher forms of the animal kingdom capable of love. Love is a bonding emotion with survival implications.

If a writer has to STATE the obvious, it ruins it for the reader, cheats the reader of that glorious "Ah-ha" moment of discovery, or worse, insults the reader's intelligence. But by not spelling it out, he/she runs the risk that some readers won't get it. Herein lies the artistry--the use of symbol (ducks, fish), metaphor (pond), mood setting (rain).

Salinger strikes a balance between showing and telling, with the knowledge that some readers will get it and others will walk away shaking their heads, or come up with interpretations that he had not intended. We tend to find what we are capable of seeing, or need to.

Nature symbols are used sparingly but effectively. Ducks flying south and the "part frozen, and part not frozen" pond can symbolize Holden's transitional state--neither boy nor man. The fish symbolize nature, a reminder that a natural process ("Mother Nature") is taking place. The seasons come and go; we live; we die; we get sick; we get well; we get hurt; we heal. Are the Central Park ducks there to remind us that to survive and thrive we must stick together? You decide.

A final word on the so-called "Peter Pan" interpretation of Holden. I find little support in the text for the position that Holden was resisting growing up.

The passage often cited as evidence for the Peter Pan perception concerns the naked-breasted squaw diorama at the museum. Holden: The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. . . . You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, . . . and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.

In an article in the October 14, 2014, The New York Times Sunday Review of Books, author Mendelshon says, "The all-too-evident regret in that last sentence is striking — one of the novel’s many markers of Holden’s problem, which is a refusal to grow up." What regret? There is nothing in the text that conveys regret. Mendelshon may be projecting from his own history or it could be academic influence, some popular professor's interpretation that caught on because it was easy to relate to.

Practically everyone, Youtube star John Green included, parses out this naked-breasted squaw passage and Holden's liberal use of the word "phony" as evidence Holden doesn't want to grow up, while overlooking a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Holden smokes, drinks, lies about his age, critiques theater and music performances, frequents museums, hires a prostitute, repeatedly seeks out adult conversation with peer-level engagement, acts protectively toward children. How many examples are needed to prove Holden is experimenting with adulthood? Criticizing adults as phony means he's evaluating adult behavior, not resisting. This is engagement, not avoidance.

Note further that Holden never seeks advice from his parents, or even thinks about it. Not consulting parents shows independence of mind, the embrace of maturity, not dependency or disengagement from the responsibilities of adulthood. Holden expresses compassionate concern about his mother, indicating that she hasn't been the same since Allie died. Compassion toward a grieving parent is adult thinking.

It shouldn't escape notice that Holden was also eagerly embracing the dessert of adulthood--sex, smoking, booze, nightclub music, dancing, flirting, dating, literature and the dramatic arts--while agonizing over the spinach of social hypocrisy and rationalization.

So, how DO we interpret Holden's comment about the bare-breasted Native American?

The key is in that last sentence, underlined above: "The only thing that would be different would be you." Holden is telling us he is aware that he is changing. This level of intuitive self-reflection is adult thinking. It also shows maturity to appreciate that "some things don't change and never should," because they are part of our cultural identity.

Nostalgic awareness is mature thinking. Mature people want to protect and preserve cultural icons.

Think of the loss and disorientation after the Twin Towers were destroyed. Icons like the Statue of Liberty are signposts reminding us of who and where we are. Holden was feeling lost. In his agitated state he desperately needed that bare-breasted squaw to be right where she had always been. That's all he was getting at with his comment. You Peter Pan theorists, give the kid a break and stop projecting your own history onto him.

Holden pondered and wrote down the Wilhelm Stekel quote Mr. Antollini gave him: "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." This is another sign he was putting a lot of serious and strenuous thought into growing up.

There are teenagers and even some adults, who resist growing up because their parents don't want to let go. They've been infantalized, encouraging dependency. Holden shows no evidence of having been infantalized. Quite the contrary, sending a kid to a military-style prep school could be evidence that Holden was too independent and possibly hard to control.

Many readers are perplexed by the book, for it is way over the heads of many, even some who teach literature. The book must be read slowly and thoughtfully in order to absorb its meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye even gets into the very meaning of life in the Steckel quote cited by Antolini: "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." You can shrug your shoulders and flip the page or you can sit and ponder what it means, which could take days.

Many readers, teens in particular, resist The Catcher in the Rye because of the book's capacity to trigger self-reflection. It resonates with their own transition from juvenile to adult, a vital period for personality development, when boys and girls become men and women and are confronted with one another's sexuality and the struggle to think and "be" independent from their parents.

Check out the date rape scene in Ed Bankey's car when Holden overhears Stradlater abusing a girl in the back seat. You can't just blast through that scene without stopping to ponder your own early dating experiences.

The evidence on the page shows that Holden was not resisting adulthood; he was aggressively embracing it. Holden was no Peter Pan.

The book is a masterpiece of art and insight. Who will ever get into the head of a teenage boy so deeply, so thoroughly and with such an authentic and authoritative voice?


(More about me at http://www.wattpad.com/user/MHeying/works/page/1)

Understanding The Catcher in the Rye

What we take away from a book is a function of who we are, the sum of our life experiences--our world view. After two readings thirty years apart and a great deal of study and analysis, here are my insights.

The teenage years are when we reject our parents and look for answers outside the family/extended family circle of comfort and trust. They've lied to us about Santa Claus and the Boogey Man; what else have they been lying about? We've begun noticing their flaws and started looking elsewhere for answers. We want to be prepared for life, for making our own decisions. The hypocrisy (phoniness) within our formerly godlike inner circle of family has discredited them. Who can we trust? Where are the answers? And so today we pick up books like Dianetics and Atlas Shrugged and Hunger Games.

What I've not seen replicated elsewhere in literature is the concentrated depth and breadth of The Catcher in the Rye's socio-cultural footprint. Through the protagonist/narrator's interactions with a host of minor characters we are treated to slice after relentless slice of the world of an upper middle-class New York City teenager's life during the early 1950s.

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and Homer's The Odyssey do something similar, but they're not as intense because they cover much more real estate. Catcher is only 220 pages. Instead of the usual linear plot line, all three of these books treat us to the adventures of a journey. It's the trip that's important, not the destination or goal.

Salinger throws us scene after scene of Holden's urban life in a near kaleidoscopic array of snapshots--current and former teachers, current and former classmates, his sister, flashbacks to his brothers and parents, cab drivers, girlfriends and former girlfriends, a teenage prostitute, doormen, chance meetings with tourists, nuns and some kids at the museum. With each engagement we learn something about Holden and we learn something about his urban life. We go to movies, a play, the park, the museum and a carnival. We ride a bus, a train, then a series of cabs with him. And we end up in a "rest home" with him.

Due to the limitations of first-person point of view there's a sparseness of literary tools such as simile, metaphor, lyricism, etc., but the reader is forced to buy into the character so quickly that literary trimmings don't matter. Were Scott Fitzgerald the author, we would be treated to brilliant descriptions of the glittering city lights and rhythms of the street. But we are in Holden's head, and he is in too much of a panic to notice much beyond his immediate crisis. 

Holden's the kind of guy that, if you met him on a bus you'd wonder what's wrong with him. Some people would move away, but I'd sit next to him and engage him in conversation. I would be curious what's wrong.

In rereading the book last fall I discovered that Holden seemed to be suffering from PTSD stemming from the death of his brother and from witnessing the suicide of a schoolmate, James Castle, who bailed out of an upstairs dorm window wearing the sweater Holden loaned him. I began noticing the symptoms of PTSD: depression, poor concentration, attention deficit, crying, rage, lack of motivation, self-isolation, sleeplessness, hyper-vigilance, etc. I'm intimately familiar with these symptoms because my own childhood trauma. I live with that same feeling Holden has of needing to protect children. 

To me Catcher is less about teenaged coming-of-age angst and more about a kid struggling against the downward spiral of mental illness. Without professional help he was doomed to submerge, and did.

Holden was barely "holdin' on."

There's a lot of cultural and psychological meat in there: a) how boys interact with each other when living in close quarters, b) particularly when two have or are dating the same girl and one feels protective of her (Jane Gallagher), c) how a sensitive boy might behave because of a deep emotional wound (e.g., the trauma of losing a younger brother and from witnessing the suicide of a classmate and d) how that boy might become neurotically protective toward his younger sister and toward children in general because of c).

Most teenagers aren't mature enough to comprehend the psychological ramifications of what I've just described unless they've been prepared for it by a mature adult who does comprehend. And there are many adults who couldn't.

Indeed, most adults have psychological defenses that don't allow even them to comprehend what I've just described. It is either too abstract, too complicated or too scary. I suspect this is the main reason the book is so controversial. Most people don't get it because they can't afford to, unless someone points the way or they experience PTSD first-hand.

Until you've been stung by a bee, "bee sting" is an abstract notion.

A greater sense of Holden Caufield through JD Salinger can be found in the film Finding Forester, which is purported to be based on Salinger's life. The film leads us to conclude that Forster's reclusiveness is rooted in the trauma of losing his beloved brother in a car crash.

In World War II, Salinger participated in tne Normandy Landing and Battle of the Bulge and other combat where his fellow troops were decimiated. He was among the first Allied forces to visit a German concentration camp. He was hospitalized for "battle fatigue." He understood the long term effects of trauma.

In a 1953 interview with a high-school newspaper, Salinger said that the novel was "sort of" autobiographical: "My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book ...it was a great relief telling people about it."

When writing the book, Salinger wouldn't have had a clue about PTSD, as it wasn't even in the diagnostic manual (DSM) for psychologists until decades later. He was just writing what he felt, blasting his feelings onto paper. 

Many people see Salinger as a sort of literary genius because he sold 70 million copies of one book. I'm not saying he wasn't talented and educated; he had plenty of both going for him. I'm saying he leveraged his talent on top of some inner need to get this desperate crisis part of his life onto paper and out of his head.

A great segment of the literary world has understandably attributed Holden's PTSD symptoms to teenage angst, but this is a gross oversimplification. It's his masterfully presented array of symptoms that's largely responsible for the success of the book. It's too complicated or too sensitive for English teachers to talk about mental illness; so they focus on the simple and more obvious interpretation. These teachers are missing a phenomenal opportunity to reach kids who are in crisis or know someone who is.

Bearing in mind that we're talking about a fictional character,  no one can actually diagnose Holden, but I have plenty of experience with the condition. I can spot symptoms in an instant. For example, a hyper-vigilant person likes to sit where he can see the door and with his back to a wall. He/she glances around constantly instead of holding a steady gaze while in conversation. I went through the book and itemized instances of the symptoms. Give it a shot and see if you don't reach a similar conclusion.

By wanting to save others Holden was saving himself and did so, with Phoebe's help. I see the the carousel is a metaphor for the connectedness of humanity. We see ourselves in others.

He was traumatized by the death of his brother Allie, sensitizing him to the reality of unjust death and suffering. It was personal, not just something he read about or saw in a movie.

In it's worst form PTSD originates not from a single event but from repeated trauma taking place over a period of time, months and years, as in military combat. There is a compounding effect. It can drive people crazy, make them want to commit suicide. And they sometimes do. Holden reacted voilently, breaking every window in the garage and breaking his hand in the process.

Holden had plenty of time to anticipate his beloved Allie's demise because it took place over a period of months during which he watched him deteriorate as the cancer worked its grotesque way through Allie's body. And the trauma built up in compounded layers.

Holden was in this highly sensitized state when James Castle threw himself out a dorm window, and the shock of it was too much, putting Holden into an emotional tailspin.

Innocent children were dying and it upset him, but he wasn't obsessed over protecting children's innocence; he didn't know what was wrong. He was just groping for answers, trying to regain control over his emotions, his life. 

He was lonely, depressed, sick and run-down. He had crying spells. He didn't know why and no one had any answers. He didn't understand why he couldn't concentrate on his studies and be motivated to do schoolwork. He was so distracted he even left the fencing gear on the train. He was so hyper-sensitive he exploded at the sexually experienced Stradlater over a girl they had both dated.

Holden felt lost and out of control, and his love of Phoebe and hers for him redeemed him, pulling him back from the potential disaster of running away and got him home where he would be safe.

Labels like "teenage angst" and "PTSD" can be dismissive and do not relieve readers from the duty to probe for meaning. Whatever the cause, Holden is a highly sensitive boy who's suffering and searching for relief.

No matter how hard an author tries to imbue his or her work with what is to the author a very important and obvious message about the human condition, he or she may fail simply because a reader lacks the capacity to comprehend it or misconstrues the story's basic truths. The Grapes of Wrath, for instance, was (and still is) attacked by wealthy corporate agricultural interests in California who refuse to accept it. I've heard one actually say that Steinbeck exaggerated the plight of the workers in order to sell books. It's human nature to believe what you need to believe, despite countervailing evidence.

CITR obviously meant something unusual to those two young men who had copies of the book when one killed John Lennon and the other shot President Reagan. Perhaps this meant they were looking for answers. Their value systems were running amok, and Holden's angst resonated with their sense of being lost and unable to cope with the phoniness of life.

Atlas Shrugged give a simple solution to all decisions, do only what is in your self interest. But that's in direct conflict what we are taught by most religions in the Judeo-Christian world, to do unto others as you would have done unto you and love thy neighbor as thyself. People who haven't yet learned to reconcile self interest with the common good can be thrown into mental conflict and feel angst. Maybe this is why some people don't like Holden/CITR; it doesn't offer answers. It just describes how it feels to be lost. It reminds them too much of themselves.

All that said, if you can enjoy Holden just as he is, without analyzing "every grey hair" (as someone put it) then by all means do so. But in case you want to go deeper, well here it is.

Update-The John Green Videos on Youtube:

Green is good, but he tends to regurgitate academia. Go straight to the book and pay attention to how it speaks to you. Wait a few years, then reread it. You'll be amazed at how the book seems to change. But it will be you that changes.

I don't agree, as Green alleges, that Holden was resisting adulthood. He embraced it. He did adult things, drinking and going to nightclubs and stage performances. He seems proud that he has a streak of grey hair and can pass for an adult. Seeking the company of a prostitute is adult behavior. He sought out adult company and conversation on the train and at the nightclub and with the nuns. He joked with kids at the museum. He was comfortable and confident with both children and adults. 

Green misinterprets Holden's comment at the museum that some things should  never change. Holden was talking about that deja vu feeling you get when you go to some familiar place after being away, like when you go away to college and return to the drive-in where you used to cruise. Or you visit the neighborhood you grew up in after moving away.

The diorama with the bare breasted squaw was a landmark for Holden as it is many New Yorkers to this day. It's like in Breakfast at Tiffany's when Holly Golightly goes to hang out in front of Tiffany's in the wee hours of the morning to cure "the mean reds." It was a place that made her feel secure.

We all have our favorite landmarks. That's what Holden was getting at. And yet Green cites it as evidence that Holden was resisting change, resisting maturity. It is a matter of interpretation.

Holden wanted to run away to a cabin in the woods. That' where Salinger lived, and died. Phoebe pulled him back from making what could have been a bad mistake with a lifetime of consequences. That's redemption, an adult concept.

Misjudging Mr. Antolini (from The Catcher in the Rye)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R66eQL..."

I just watched a John Green video (see link above) interpreting The Catcher in the Rye. It has some pretty good analysis. A little on the frenetic side, but decent overall given how much is wedged into the narrow timeframe.

But I've got an issue with describing the apartment scene with Mr. Antolini as a sexual come-on. It's irritating to think that a man can't pat a kid on the head without having it blown out of proportion. A woman can stroke a boy's hair and it's fine. But let a man breathe on a kid and the world comes down on him. That's rotten. Men care about children, and they can be just as loving and nurturing as a woman. More than many that I've seen, short of breast feeding, and plenty of women don't breastfeed.

I think Holden's reaction was way over the top. We know how unreliable he is.

In that scene, Holden pushed away the only person who had recognized his panic, who expressed empathy and concern and gave him great advice and a place to crash.

Remember, it was Antolini who was there when James Castle committed suicide at another prep school Holden attended before Pencey. Antolini covered the bloody corpse with his coat and carried it away, proof that he was a compassionate man. Patting Holden on the head is hardly a gay pass when he knew Holden as well as he did. Like a doofus, Holden overreacts and leaves.

What I'm saying to the guy who made the video is: don't blame Antolini for Holden's touchiness.

Nevertheless, Holden took it the way he did and rejected a valid and valuable adult source of solace and consolation, not to mention world class advice. There's a lesson in this: Sometimes we misinterpret good intentions out of mistrust and are the worse for it.

The teenage years are when we begin questioning or rejecting our parents' world view and look for answers outside the family and extended family circle of comfort and trust. They've lied to us about Santa Claus and the Boogey Man; what else have they been lying about? We've begun noticing their flaws and started looking elsewhere for answers. We want to be prepared for life, for making our own decisions. The hypocrisy (phoniness) within our formerly godlike inner circle of family has discredited them. Who can we trust? Where are the answers?

And so we pick up books like Lord of the Flies, Dianetics,  Atlas Shrugged and Hunger Games.

This teenage crisis period of searching is brilliantly rendered by Salinger in the character of Holden Caulfield.

Flash forward in the novel to where Holden is in the rest home, reflecting on Antolini's quote of Wilhelm Stekel, The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. Holden kept Antolini's handwritten quote.  It's doubtful that he would have kept it if he hadn't resolved his concerns about Antolini.

So what if someone is gay? That doesn't mean he/she's a pedophile or that you can't trust what he/she says. Crapolla! Holden would say.  One of my best teachers was overtly effeminate and he never made a pass at anyone that I'm aware of.

I like to think that Salinger would be a lot like Mr. Antolini.