6 Reader Responses

1. JK Says:
   January 29th, 2008 at 4:38 am

   As a kid in high school, I loved the book. It was really the only non-fantasy book I ever understood in those days. But I have to hear ya, when you elliptically admit you don’t really get what was so good about it. It’s been a long time since I read it. K read it, several months back. Didn’t get it apparently. But that’s the point bro! Ask John Lennon!

   Seriously however, the CITR has that ineffable type ring to it. I mean “a catcher in the rye” is obvious as far as the book goes. But the “fuck yous” at the end seriously disturbed me. All I can say is, at least the rye reference is the easy part.

   Good book, but bleak. If you’re not into bleakness, loneliness, looserhood and celebrating it, the book will never be better than the fuck yous you hear when a contemporary kid hears as he plays GTA San Andreas.

2. Tim Boucher Says:
   January 29th, 2008 at 11:43 am

   Why would the fuck yous at the end disturb you? I’m not sure if bleak is the word I would use to describe it all so much. To me, it more said, that wherever and whenever you are, there are always those who are unsatisfied, who don’t fit and on whom ordinary illusions do not function as they ought…

3. Tim Boucher Says:
   January 29th, 2008 at 11:54 am

   I’m sure when that book came out, in the context of the time, mid 1940’s or whatever, that it must have been many times more explosive!

4. JK Says:
   January 30th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

   Yes. It was hella explosive. Hence, it’s hugeness still unto this day.

   Nowadays, this here being this internet, we’re used to seeing FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK all the time. But back when I read it, it was when I was in high school. There was no real internet that I knew of back then — save the AT&T “You Will” commercials. So then, at that moment in history, all the fuck yous were confined to punk rock and “gangsta rap” etc. Now fuck you doesn’t hurt people’s feelings anymore. It doesn’t make people lose hope in humanity/society like it once did. I know I was shocked to see those words on/in a book I was reading for school. I guess it made the bleakness, seem more edgy and free. Thus, here we are: the cynical 21st century.

   I haven’t read it in ages, so like my recounting of say, The Neverending Story, I can only supply my emotions I felt when reading it. My feelings were, was that it was a bleak book about a distant loser who had no scene to run off to and engage himself with. It seems like there were probably only a few “scenes” back then — and none of them appealed to Holden. It was probably a pretty “meta-primative” time to be alive.

   But again, it’s been a long time since I read it last. . .

5. JK Says:
   January 30th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

   Oh, but I do remember identifying with it. If I had myspace back then I’d just have holla’d out to my scros instead of being affected by it. Shit, I think it’s banned out of public schools now anyhow. . .

6. Tim Boucher Says:
   January 31st, 2008 at 1:12 am

   Mein Kampf, incidentally, is also out of print - I am told.

   I can only supply my emotions I felt when reading it.

   I think that’s sort of the trick with everything… but we mostly don’t recognize it.

   My feelings were, was that it was a bleak book about a distant loser who had no scene to run off to and engage himself with. It seems like there were probably only a few “scenes” back then — and none of them appealed to Holden.

   I guess I saw it more as he was actually engaging himself in everything in life, but he just didn’t know it so much. He was keeping himself at bay from it