Empty Mirror

a literary magazine

  • About
    • About Empty Mirror
    • Get in Touch
    • Support EM
    • Colophon
  • Submit
  • Contributors
  • Essays
  • On Literature
  • Poetry
  • Reviews
  • Art
  • Interviews
  • Beat
    • Beat Generation
    • Ted Joans Lives!
  • +
    • Fiction
    • Music & Film
    • News
    • On Writing
    • Book Collecting

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Eric D. Lehman

Catcher in the Rye
Catcher in the Rye
Often, reading books at different times in one’s life produces different results and different interpretations. But perhaps no book makes a clearer demarcation between adolescence and adulthood than J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. This cult classic is a litmus test for growing up.

When I read this masterpiece as a teen, I thought Holden Caulfield was the coolest kid ever – a common reaction. A friend of mine even wore a deerstalker hat to high school, as the narrator does throughout much of his journey from prep school to New York. Holden’s rants about societal hypocrisies echo our own adolescent realizations that much of what we have been taught to believe as children is lies. “If you want to know the truth,” he says, “I can’t even stand ministers. The ones they’ve had at every school I’ve gone to, they all have these Holy Joe voices when they start giving their sermons. God, I hate that. I don’t see why they can’t talk in their natural voice. They sound so phony when they talk.” And so, Holden became one of my teen heroes, as he had for so many others.

Then I taught this book in a class consisting mostly of adult-aged women. Our reaction? “That poor boy!” Little Holden is so insecure, so scared, and so torn-up by the death of his brother that he acts out in all sorts of rebellious ways. His dangerous attitude is all a nervous front, a fact that becomes clearer with every tough-talking word. “I’ve had quite a few opportunities to lose my virginity and all, but I’ve never got around to it yet.” Sure you have, Holden. Sure you have. When he tells us, “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life,” we see through his front, and into the damage that makes him lie.

Does this mean Catcher in the Rye isn’t as good as I thought? Not at all! It is much better – a careful study of adolescent psychology and a perfect crystallization of our teenage truths. This book is a mirror that grows with us and reveals the things we have lost as well as who we have become.

Share on TwitterShare on Facebook

Eric D. Lehman

Eric D. Lehman teaches creative writing at the University of Bridgeport and his work have been published in dozens of journals and magazines. He is the author of twelve books, including Shadows of Paris, Homegrown Terror, and Becoming Tom Thumb. Follow him @afootinconnect, and visit his website at www.ericdlehman.org.

Author: Eric D. Lehman Tags: book reviews Category: Book Reviews January 10, 2017

You might also like:

photo pf Grand Marais
Book Review — Grand Marais by t. kilgore splake
Time Adjusters and Other Stories by Bill Ectric
Book Review – Time Adjusters & Other Stories by Bill Ectric
Kerouac Vanity of Duluoz
Book Review — Vanity of Duluoz by Jack Kerouac
Kara Vernor - Because I Wanted to Write You a Pop Song
Book review: Kara Vernor’s Because I Wanted to Write You a Pop Song

Comments

  1. Kyle says

    March 1, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    Great review, Eric. CITR was my favorite book in high school and I’ve often considered reading it again for the same reasons you’ve expressed. Now I think I will.
    Kyle

    Reply
  2. Jeff says

    February 15, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    I think the truth lies somewhere in between the two views presented here. I actually sometimes think back to Holden and try to remember his views of “fakes.” I do this whenever I am becoming to be too fake. In doing this, of course, I’m contacting my own inner teen. Holden’s emotional reaction to all the fakekness of the world around him is overblown because he’s a kid, but that doesn’t mean what he’s seeing isn’t at least partially correct. To blow that off as just some teenage angst is a bit of an oversimplification, I think, and I don’t think it helps the many, many kids who still feel ths way and struggle with it.

    The reason it’s so hard to reason with those kids is because in some ways they are right, but most adults have been living pretend lives for so long they can’t even see anymore how full of shit they are. and yes, I was one of those kids and yes, they sent me to guidance counselors, and yes, I thought those counselors were fake, narrow minded fools…and looking back, I STILL think that, but for much different reasons.

    Holden is a mixed up kid but he’s no fool. Well, at least he’s not entirely a fool, only partially, but so too are those middle aged women reading the book and seeing him as nothing more than a lost kid who needs to get more involved in intramural sports and popularity clubs.

    And for the record, I’ve learned to maneuver in this world with a decent amount of success socially and financially, but I still remember the way I thought as a kid, and I respect that kid, just like I respect Holden, because in many ways they were/are right.

    “Growing up” to some degree, and I think a rather large degree, is really about shedding our individuality in order to absorb socially acceptable appearances. it is largely a big show. While it’s probably a necessary part of being human, it’s also something worthy examining personally in ourselves.

    The world created by these middle ages women is largely just one designed to buffer their own insecurities, fears, and “fakeness.” I don’t think Holden’s perspective should be written off in such a way.

    but, even if it should be ultimately written off completely by and for adults, the kids who feel that way have a lot more going on in their minds than “I need a hug.” That kind of harping nannyism will destroy kids who are trying to construct meaning in their lives and who will not take the easy answers that everybody else enjoys.

    Anyway, interesting little article, I’m just adding my thoughts on the matter.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept the Privacy Policy

 

DONATE TO BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER

The EM newsletter

Receive fresh poetry, reviews, essays, art, and literary news every Wednesday!


Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

Subscribe Submissions Support

Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

Books

Biblio
© 2000–2023 D. Enck / Empty Mirror.
Copyright of all content remains with its authors.
Privacy Policy · Privacy Tools · FTC disclosures