The Catcher in the Rye

⚖The case for it

Holden wants the museum to stay frozen, every exhibit exactly where it was, and in that wish the performance cracks open: "this book is about struggling with grief and loss," as one reader puts it plainly, a kid with a dead brother trying to stop time by complaint. The voice is the achievement, a teenager actually thinking rather than a novelist doing an impression; "it is like the author was reading my thoughts" remains the signature reaction seventy years on. The carousel scene with Phoebe finally shows the protectiveness as love instead of pose. Adults braced for cringe on the reread keep filing the same surprised report: "turns out this is still a damn good book."

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

"Holden is the worst character in the English language." "His train of thought is annoying and repetitive," adds another: everyone a phony except the boy running the audit, strangers sized up by their luggage. The insight underneath gets weighed and returned: "that's the kind of insight a sixteen year old considers deep." The crises look small against the money cushioning them, "the well-fed despondence of the white man" in one reader's phrase, and the classroom canonization grates hardest: teachers keep presenting "twaddle," in one reader's word, as subversive and meaningful. Nothing happens, the ending changes nothing, and adults who loved it at sixteen keep reporting the same curdling on reread, which suggests the book needs the reader at a particular age more than the reader ever needed the book.

— the honest librarian

5h

honest hours

7

sittings