----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Jackson" <cqmv at pdx.edu>
You know, the older I get, the more tiresome I think Holden's schtick is. (Perhaps that's Salinger's point.)
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I reread the book recently and liked it more than I thought I would. It's hard to like Holden, but on the other hand, he is having a nervous breakdown. And this is happening because he has recently witnessed two deaths, that of his beloved younger sister and that of a colleague who was thrown out of a window....and both deaths were met with complete silence. Part of the phonyness he complains about is this grownup silence that wants to gloss over anything that is actually important and chooses comfort and self interest over everything.
After I reread the book, I was talking to my teenage daughter about it and I asked her why she thought teenagers were especially sensitive to fakery and hypocrisy and pretense. She said "Because we know so little, it seems especially unfair that people would lie to us."
That made a lot of sense and I think captured some of the peculiar angst of Catcher.
Joanna