Catcher in the Rye
This book has been steeped in controversy since it was banned in America after it's first publication. John Lennon's assassin, Mark Chapman, asked the former Beatle to sign a copy of the book earlier in the morning of the day that he murdered Lennon. Police found the book in his possession upon apprehending the psychologically disturbed Chapman. However, the book itself contains nothing that could be attributed with leading Chapman to act as he did - it could have been any book that he was reading the day he decided to kill John Lennon - and as a result of the fact that it was The Catcher in the Rye, a book describing a nervous breakdown, media speculated widely about the possible connection. This gave the book even more notoriety. So what is The Catcher in the Rye actually about?
Superficially the story of a young man's expulsion from yet another school, The Catcher in the Rye is in fact a perceptive study of one individual's understanding of his human condition. Holden Caulfield, a teenager growing up in 1950s New York, has been expelled school for poor achievement once again. In an attempt to deal with this he leaves school a few days prior to the end of term, and goes to New York to take a vacation before returning to his parents' inevitable wrath. As his story unfolds, we learn that he had a beloved younger brother who died of leukemia and Holden has been extremely troubled since then. In one of the more memorable images in literature, Holden explains that he sees himself as "The Catcher in the Rye" (he has misremembered a Robert Burns lyric as "if a body catch a body coming through the rye"). He imagines a flock of little kids running through a field of rye along a cliff precipice and he is poised at the edge trying to catch them before they fall. But Holden isn't just troubled by the Mortality of others, as one character tells him, he is spiritually troubled by the morality of others. He rages against all of the phonies, and mean people he meets. What could make a young man feel more ineffectual and helpless than taking responsibility for the mortality & morality of the whole human race?
Told as a monologue, the book describes Holden's thoughts and activities over these few days, during which he describes a developing nervous breakdown, symphonized by his bouts of unexplained depression, impulsive spending and generally odd, erratic behaviour, prior to his eventual nervous collapse.
However, during his psychological battle, life continues on around Holden as it always had, with the majority of people ignoring the 'madman stuff' that is happening to him - until it begins to encroach on their well-defined social codes. Progressively through the novel we are challenged to think about society's attitude to the human condition - does society have an ostrich in the sand mentality, a deliberate ignorance of the emptiness that can characterize human existence? And if so, when Caulfield begins to probe and investigate his own sense of emptiness and isolation, before finally declaring that he world is full of phonies with each one out for their own phony gain, is Holden actually the one who is going insane, or is it society which has lost it's mind for failing to see the hopelessness of their own lives?
The book is effectively a monologue, as Caulfield, having been expelled from school for the third time, decides to spend several days wandering New York, rather than risk the inevitable wrath of his parents. It is within this backdrop that we see Caulfield battling with the growing symptoms of depression, and we watch as he attempts to reconcile himself to a world as fragile and turbulent as his own thoughts and feelings.
Salinger's work retains its controversial reputation to this day. Partly it is because of its seemingly depressing nature. Certainly its subject matter and short, broken sentences make for some pretty heavy moments. But this is not in itself a bad thing. After all, as one it, the best novels are those that wound us deeply, which cause us to think afresh about ourselves and the lives that we lead. Catcher in the Rye is such a book.
The novel is as thoughtful as it is sincere. Centered around the fragile adolescent character of Holden Caulfield, the author succeeds in drawing the reader into an acute perception of an adult world oftentimes too comfortable with phoniness, too intolerant of differences and the very real need of the individual for the freedom of self expression, in its many and myriad forms
When we are honest we can see within ourselves suppressed elements of the forces operating within Holden Caulfield, and because of that I would recommend this thought provoking novel as a fascinating and enlightening description of our human condition. However for that very reason it is not comfortable reading.
Dr. Bikram Lamba, an international management consultant is Chairman & Managing Director of Tormacon Ltd,, a multi-disciplinary management consultancy organisation. He can be contacted at
[email protected]; web www.torconsult.com.
