Upon rereading Catcher In The Rye 20 years on from the first time

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I expected to cringe, but I thought it held up very well. There were a few overly sachrine moments, only to be expected in a 50 yr old novel. The mystic dead brother Ally doesn't work, and unfortunately serves as a template for all the other stuff Salinger did that doesn't work. I think I go along with the received view that Catcher and Nine Stories are largely brilliant (although the short story Teddy is bad), but afterwards he took a wrong turning. Franny is quite good, Zooey is bad, Raise High is OK-ish, Seymour is v. bad, Hapworth is quite simply atrocious.

For those interested, most of the Salinger works unpublished in book form can be found here:

http://www.freeweb.hu/tchl/salinger/

Some of these short stories are actually not bad at all; although others are pretty appalling.

― H., Tuesday, 4 November 2003 12:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Have you felt motivated to go kill someone yet?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 14:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Errr... a propos of what?

― H., Tuesday, 4 November 2003 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Ask Mark David Chapman and David Hinkley.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah yes. I'm slow on the uptake today. I think you're allowed to be sane and like Catcher In The Rye as well... besides, I would have gone for Paul not John.

― H., Tuesday, 4 November 2003 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm just messin' with ya. It's a great book. I too re-read it last summer....simillarly expecting to be underwhelmed (having not read it since 8th Grade or so), but it's still brilliant.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

In grade 9 I was told by an old (and very bizarre) high school English teacher that I should read "Catcher in the Rye" once a year--at the time it was frowned upon at my high school. He gave me an old dog-eared copy and I followed his advice for about 7 years. Maybe I should go back and read it again--it's been quite some time.

― cybele (cybele), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

thanks for that link H - been trying to find Hapworth (for better or worse) for a long time. I disagree with you on Zooey tho - I think its fantastic.

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 15:07 (twenty-one years ago)

'catcher' is one book that i've never really liked, i guess i just get really annoyed with holden. but i love franny/zooey/raise high/ and nine stories. 'inverted forest' is fantastic too.

― joni, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I loved it even more on a recent re-read tha i ever have. What this says about my state of mind i would rather not speculate on.

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Jed, I admit I haven't read Franny & Zooey for quite a long time. Last time I did, I thought Franny represented what was the best in Salinger - it was short, it was a great character portrait of troubled adolescent, it had a great sidekick odious character, great sense of detail, it ended on a mystical note. Conversely, I thought Zooey represented everything I didn't really like about Salinger, it was verbose, plotless, self-indulgent and overly sentimental, overplays the whole New York sophistication. The big pay-off line at the end about how the fat lady's really Jesus Christ - I don't know I just found it hokey. Salinger plays a fine balancing game when it comes to sentimentality, he gets it right as often as he gets it wrong. Anyway I'll have to reread it to see if it still strikes me that way.

― H., Tuesday, 4 November 2003 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I read it at 14 and thought it was hilarious, read it again at 19 and thought it was sad.
I should have read it again 2 or 3 years ago, depending on how old I am.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I suppose I just love it (zooey) cos i really do find it hilarious - and not many books make me laugh other than a confederacy of dunces - the dialogue between zooey and bessie is scintillating. I must re-read that too to find out if it's still funny.

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

a great book, though i found it a little embarrassing to re-read recently and release how much holden influenced my 16-year-old self. a bit like looking through your high school yearbook or something. i think much of it is hilarious ("he was always hanging stuff up in the closet - it drove me crazy"), and i think that's an element that's been missed by most of its imitators, from "the bell jar" on.

"zooey" and "raise high" are both great: the "fat lady" revelation is moving but also hilarious, revealing salinger's oft-ignored bizarre sense of humor. (it's with "seymour" that j.d. started to seriously go off the rails - i cling to the belief that "hapworth" was some kind of dadaist prank)

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

the bell jar is very funny

― ryan (ryan), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 17:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i read this when i was 16 expecting it to be the greatest thing ever,and didn't like it at all,didn't even finish,then i read it properly about a year ago and still didn't like it at all...

i can't stand holden,he's such a whiney little shit...

― robin (robin), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

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