Top 30 Modern Classics - VI

The Cathcher In The Rye

By J. D. Salinger

Written originally for adults, the book was published in 1951.

The novel takes place over three days in December 1949. It is a novel on teenage alienation.

The narration begins at Pencey Preparatory, an exclusive private school on the Saturday afternoon of the traditional football game with rival school Saxon Hall. Holden ends up missing the game. He is the manager of the fencing team and loses their equipment on a New York City subway train that morning, resulting in the cancellation of a match. He goes to the home of his history teacher named Mr. Spencer. Holden has been expelled and isn't to return home until after Christmas break, which begins the following Wednesday. Spencer is a well-meaning but long-winded middle-aged man. To Holden's annoyance, Spencer reads aloud Holden's history paper, in which Holden wrote a note to Spencer so his teacher wouldn't feel bad about failing him in the subject.

Holden returns to his dorm, which is quiet because most of the students are still at the football game. Due to trouble with his dorm mates Holden gets fed up with Pencey Prep. He catches a train to New York City, where he plans to stay in a hotel until Wednesday, when his parents expect him home for New Year's vacation.

In New York Holden's efforts to escape from himself by liquor, sex, night clubs, movies, sociability are fruitless. Misadventure piles on misadventure, but he bears it all with a grim cheerfulness and stubborn courage. He is finally saved as a result of his meeting with his little sister Phoebe. She is the single person who supplies the affection that Holden needs. 

After a short sleep, Holden, lonely and in need of personal connection, calls Sally Hayes, a familiar date, and they agree to meet that afternoon to attend a play. Holden leaves the hotel, checks his luggage at Grand Central Station, and has a late breakfast. He meets two nuns, one an English teacher, with whom he discusses Romeo and Juliet. Holden shops for a special record, "Little Shirley Beans", for his 10-year-old sister Phoebe. 

Holden shares a selfless fantasy he has been thinking about. He pictures himself as the sole guardian of thousands of children playing an unspecified "game" in a huge rye field on the edge of a cliff. His job is to catch the children if, in their abandon, they come close to falling off the brink; to be, in effect, the "catcher in the rye". Because of this misinterpretation, Holden believes that to be the "catcher in the rye" means to save children from losing their innocence.

When his parents come home, Holden slips out and visits his former and much-admired English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who offers advice on life along with a place to sleep for the night. Holden is upset when he wakes up in the night to find Mr. Antolini patting his head in a way that he regards as homosexual. Confused and uncertain, he leaves at dawn and spends most of Monday morning wandering the city. 

Holden decides to head out West and live as a deaf-mute. When he explains this plan to Phoebe on Monday at lunchtime, she wants to go with him. Holden declines her offer, which upsets Phoebe, so Holden decides not to leave after all. Phoebe was looking forward to acting in a play that Friday. Despite his displaying outward frustration and anger, it is clear Holden wants Phoebe to be happy and safe, and he didn't think she would be if she left with him. He tries to cheer her up by taking her to the Central Park Zoo, and as he watches her ride the zoo's carousel, he is filled with happiness and joy at the sight of Phoebe enjoying. 

Read the rest.

It is another of those books which was banned for quite some time.

A brilliant book


Namaste



Prabir