The Question of the Catcher

HerrScheisse

I must admit I am divided on this one.

Do we judge it as a novel or must we consider the person that wrote it, a well heeled introvert, a D-Day veteran that held the first pages of this novel in his combat jacket as he landed on the beaches of Normandy, but also a person that could not form proper relationships, and had risqué contacts with young girls.
And not to mention the publicity over the Mark Chapman affair, that he had this book about his body when he shot John Lennon.

Could Salinger have written it as it is without his wartime experience? Did the alienation of the character with normal society come from there?

Or if we exclude that background detail, is it just a simple tale of a spoiled brat looking to expand his sexual boundaries?

To distill, should a book be judged without the author, I fear the persona of JD plays a great part in the mystery of this book, and if it were read without the details of his life, it is less interesting, still well written, but in my mind without much context.

What do you think? It is a book that comes up frequently here.

Mardy Bum

The question you pose can be put to any piece of literature and it is a well worn argument at this stage; should literature be analysed from a biographical lense or a postmodern lense.

The answer is it's up to the analyst.

An interesting question to pose about The Catcher in the Rye centres on the reliability of Holden as a narrator. He tells us throughout the book that he lies and then tells us that he is in a mental institution at the end. Can anything he says in the book be taken at face value? Does Holden create Stradlater and Ackley in order to create his own identity? His allusion to them at the end of the book is telling.

Personally I think the book is a wonderful and thought provoking read for all ages and the usual shoddy criticism thrown out about Holden as a character petty and short sighted.

Harry Angstrom

HerrScheisse wrote: »

To distill, should a book be judged without the author, I fear the persona of JD plays a great part in the mystery of this book, and if it were read without the details of his life, it is less interesting, still well written, but in my mind without much context.

It depends. If you read Lolita and have it in the back of your mind that Nabokov was nothing more than a pervert, then that will colour your view of the book and of the writer. If you take a detached view and read Lolita without that baggage, then it can be recognised as the great novel that it is, and Nabokov as the great writer that he was. The same probably depends on your view of Salinger vis-a-vis Holden Caulfield.

humbert

I read it without those interesting details about the author and was moved by it. It captures particular feelings a lot of people have growing up with depth and subtlety. Books should certainly stand or fall on their own merit but I wonder if perhaps you gave too much consideration to the factors which influenced the author when reading the book and consequentially didn't give the book that independent appraisal?

To suggest that Nabokov was nothing more than a pervert is like purporting that Newton was nothing more than an amateur alchemist.

Harry Angstrom

humbert wrote: »

To suggest that Nabokov was nothing more than a pervert is like purporting that Newton was nothing more than an amateur alchemist.

I didn't suggest it at all. Although I do know one or two people who find it difficult to separate the character of Humbert Humbert from Nabokov himself, which therefore colours their view of the novel and the writer, which is pretty much the point of this thread.

humbert

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

I didn't suggest it at all. Although I do know one or two people who find it difficult to separate the character of Humbert Humbert from Nabokov himself, which therefore colours their view of the novel and the writer, which is pretty much the point of this thread.

I should have included exclamation marks to make it clear that was light-hearted outrage.

vitani

HerrScheisse wrote: »

Or if we exclude that background detail, is it just a simple tale of a spoiled brat looking to expand his sexual boundaries?

I've never understood that characterisation of Holden. In my mind, he's a depressed kid, disconnected from the world around him and desperately looking for something authentic to hang on to. Every authority figure in his life has let him down in some way. I feel nothing but pity for him and have done since I first read the book, which is before I even knew anything about Salinger himself.

poundapunnet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author

I really didn't like Catcher when I read it first and it put me off reading more Salinger for a long time, which was a terrible shame. I took the character as he's presented, and didn't understand why this moany little 1950s Cobain was such a big deal, didn't occur to me that he was deliberately written like that. Once I started looking at it like that though I quite liked the book.