A Boy Named Holden Caulfield

Some believe that there was a pattern in the suicides among young Americans who had read it. It was branded anti-Christian, disrespectful and vulgar. John Lennon's assassin was found with it when he was arrested. The above factors and others ensured that The Catcher in the Rye became and still remains a book steeped in controversy. More than half a century after he was created by J.D.Salinger, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of this book remains one of the most provocative and enigmatic characters of world fiction. When I read this book as a schoolboy I felt immediately connected with the alienation, confusions and discontent that Holden feels. Nothing I have read, seen or experienced portrays so unashamedly the conflict and semi-innocence of an adolocent. His aversion to phonies (fake people) is ageless and not limited to adolescence. It is part of the human experience itself. Holden is terrible at small talk and even more terrible at dealing with plastic people. His cynicism, utter scorn and disregard, for living by and for popular society and its rules, are endearing. I never understood what made this book unacceptable to a lot of people. The only conclusion I can draw is that Holden Caulfield succeeds in making them uncomfortable. His observations of people around him and the isolation a young idealist feels in a big city (New York) where an individual’s identity gets trampled, I believe shattered the myth of a perfect post war society. It made people uncomfortable in their little comfort zones. Holden’s views, as his moods, vary from funny to obnoxious (to some), to downright innocent. We were studying Shakespeare’s Hamlet when I was reading this book and Holden’s utter dismissal of him, as a “sad screwed up kind of guy”, was hilarious to say the least. His pondering,” Where do the ducks go in winter?” is a desperate attempt of not wanting to let go of his boyhood. This is not a review or discussion of images and motifs in this book or any such thing. It is mearly an attempt to give one of fictions greatest literary mirrors, Holden Caulfield,his due. I thought I would end this article with an excerpt from the book. "I woke up singing this morning.I mean, I was happy and all. But last night, what I really felt like was jumping out the window. All I could see were these phonies -I never left the house though. They were on TV, in books and stuff,acting out madman stuff in the goddam movies.I swear sometimes I think I'm crazy,surrounded by these goddam princes making out like life's perfect and all.That kills me.Then someone wakes them up,and they all get sore as hell about it.But I lie singing in bed -there goes my crazy sense of humour again..."