I don’t have time for a real Fathers Day post, so this will have to do for now.
I saw this interesting article this morning about the Catcher in the Rye. The gist of the article is that kids these days don’t admire the main character Holden Caulfield. They see him as a lazy slacker, and in the words quoted by the article, ““weird,” “whiny” and “immature.”” One teacher sums it up well:
Julie Johnson, who taught Mr. Salinger’s novel over three decades at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill., cited similar reactions. “Holden’s passivity is especially galling and perplexing to many present-day students,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “In general, they do not have much sympathy for alienated antiheroes; they are more focused on distinguishing themselves in society as it is presently constituted than in trying to change it.”
It’s funny that this article came out this weekend. As you all know, I’ve been busy with the bottlefeeding, and I sometimes check out the internet while feeding. I recently discovered CBS’s awesome backlist, and I’ve been spending ample amounts of time watching the Twilight Zone. Many of these early Twilight Zone episodes came out around the same time as Catcher in the Rye, and the exact same themes about escaping the rat race and escaping conformity were in vogue. Check out the episode A Stop at Willoughby or Walking Distance:
While these episodes still appeal to me, I agree that the themes are dated. These days, people don’t want to leave the rat race; they want to get in. Our jobs are truly our greatest assets, especially in these post-W years of economic hardship. Plus, I think the 21st century has been one in which people are seeking meaningful work, rather than an escape from work.
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I also wanted more rice than what could fit inside the wrap....
“Willoughby” features one of my favorite Twilight Zone lines: “A push push push business. Push and drive! It’s push push push, all the way, all the time!”
Amusing article about The Catcher in the Rye.
When I read Catcher in high school, this 15-year-old militant Filipino kid couldn’t relate to Holden either. I wasn’t feelin’ the teachers’ love for this dated book. I was more enthralled by The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which of course, wasn’t being assigned in my high school. A whiny privileged white preppie kid? Yawn city.
I felt the same way. I was like, “What’s the big hoo?” I admired Salinger’s style, but the character never had the appeal. It was like, “Woo hoo, you don’t have to struggle, and so you’re looking for a way to struggle.”
I think in this day and age, I imagine the white kids are getting tired of this too. Maybe it’s a good sign.
Haha…this is interesting. Holden Caulfield was and still is the ultimate anti-hero. It’s been a while since I read the book, but as I remembered it, the book was beautifu and subtle. I guess it’s how you interpret the book. But the book for me was more a commentary on how phony, fake, and evil the world was. It was about growing up finding yourself and losing your innocence against the difficult expectations set by a cold, inconsisitent society full of bullshit. And I think Holden Caulfield suffered from depression. And that worked great as it made the book more poignant.
Anyway, I have to reread the book sometime to give a better interpretation and explain why it should still be relevant today…and why “privileged white preppie kid” wasn’t and isn’t the point.
We had to read that book for high school english too…..gawdd i hated that book, especially holden caulfield. I mean, he doesnt read like an anti hero hes more of a loser. Cant succeed in school, cant get a job , no real friends, ffed up family situation, and all he does is complain!! Total loser.
whats more i just couldnt understand why we had to even STUDY this book and its character as if it was important? wtf? i dont get it, or maybe i do but i still dont get why!!! totally irrelevant.
Autobiography of malcolm X on the other hand, jesus, i had tears rolling down my cheek reading that book, especially when he talks about his father and poor mother. And the chapters about his teachers expectations “oh if you work really hard you might EVEN BE ABLE TO BECOME A CARPENTER!!” lol i can just imagine Malcolms face then. Also the chapter about how he wore those zoot suits and straightening his hair and the damage he would do to his body to conform to a particular …..ahem…..*beauty standard* cough….cough really opened my eyes to how the system works sometimes, theres many similiarities between Asians and what he talked about. That was a great book.
Even though we didnt study it in school I liked; seize the time by bobby seale too ,much better than crappy shakespeare “oh thus blah blah thou blah blah” WHATEVER!!! lol hurry up and get to the violence!!lol
Ok, you folks can flame me till I’m crispy toast, but i’ll take a shot at defending the book. I’m older than most of you—hell, probably ALL of you and I think it’s a real generational thing as to why you don’t like the book. and generational differences are very much at the root of misunderstandings. the book resonated among a lot of us who were disaffected by the strict conformity of our surroundings, feeling marginalized and alienated.
you also have to remember when that book came out and what time period it was in. In the late 40′s and 1950′s, it was probably the most conformist period in the modern American era. What were you supposed to do if your interests didn’t lie with the conventions of the time? Or how does it feel to have your entire life planned out for you with the expectations that you were supposed to do these things? The post war American Dream was to have a housewife and kids in the suburbs and if you were the man of the house, you worked your ass off climbing the corporate ladder. If you were a woman, you were EXPECTED to raise the family and have dinner and cocktails ready by the time your husband got home. The book was a reaction to all of that and it was a precursor of things to come: rising feminism, the beatnik generation, the 60′s.
I think the book contains some universal feelings of teenager angst. Every generation has those moments and it’s produced interesting moments in American pop culture. It’s the underground artists and the ones who forge their own way against convention. Perfect case in point for me growing up was the emergence of the punk and post punk movements. Life in the Reagan era was depressing. We were in a deep recession, with a lot of uncertainty about the future—very similar to nowadays. No prospects after graduating from college. Everybody wanted to be a business major and make lots of money: capitalism with zero conscience. You won’t understand unless you’ve been thru a time like that. One of my fave post punk bands is The Replacements which had great lyrics like, “you get a minimum effort for a minimum wage.” It’s art being a reflection of the times.
But Salinger’s novel doesn’t ring true to you folks because it’s not of your era. Just like I can’t understand what the big deal is with other “classic” novels—The Scarlett Letter, or Wuthering Heights.
And so, I wonder what the next thing is to emerge from our times now. What’s the reaction to this economic mess and massive unemployment we have now?
Ok, commence flaming….!
I liked Salinger’s style, so for all intents and purposes, I’m glad that people are still reading it. Although maybe there comes a point where we can prioritize. Think about this–with more and more books being written, there’s only a limited number of books that schools can teach. I, for example, made it through high school without ever reading Naipaul, Fitzgerald, Hurston, Morrison, or Flannery O’Connor. Not because they weren’t being taught, but because the classes I took had to make room for Austen, Plath, Shakespeare, Plato, Sartre, Camus, Elliot, and Bronte, and there simply wasn’t enough time. (Everyone read Salinger as a frosh.) I read Frank Chin and Malcolm X outside of class. With the exception of this book in the seventh grade, I don’t think I read any non-white authors as part of my school curriculum until college.
I’m also addicted to the aforementioned Twilight Zone. Even though I think the themes are dated, I don’t get tired of them. They still shock and amuse me. I can say that they’re dated and still appreciate them. I PRAISE CBS for putting them online.
By the way, Mojo…graduating college during the Reagan Era? We have at least three people here in their early 40′s, so it may be a toss up–unless it was the early Reagan Era, in which case you probably win. You definitely beat me though!
Haha. Mojorider, I, too, came defend Holden Caulfield. As you said, back in our days, it was quite brave to be an anti-hero, to go against the grain. Also, Holden is obviously one of those intellectual kids who found the school system and its authority redundant. And the one person for whom he felt no distdain is his young sister whose innocence embodies wisdom beyond bounds of society.
Back then, Holden was considered pretty hawt. Liking The Outsiders (book and movie) pretty much pegged us as brooding, cool, and intellectual rebels.
Although, I would like to think that literature is literature and one is able to interpret in context of the era in which the work was written… (of course, you have to take that sentiment with a grain of salt since it’s coming from a lit major…)
Byron, really? In our school (although not in the U.S., still an American school), we were taught Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, etc., etc. And yes, Maxine Hong Kingston. I did TA for a great lit professor during my grad school years – he used to teach Frank Chin and Kingston back to back! Along with the whole background story.
jaehwan – well, that’s good to know, but I think I might have a few more years on people who endured the Reagan era. At the end of this summer, I’ll officially be in my, uh, mid 40′s and the downward side, kicking and screaming into 50 *gulp*
but you’re right; there are only so many hours you can devote to the “classics” and I’m pretty sure we never read anything by Toni Morrison or anyone else of color. It was really an ethnocentric curriculum devoted towards white westerners. Like you, I read books outside of the classroom out of intellectual curiousity.
@mama nabi – whew, glad someone else came to defend Holden! I can understand young folks today not getting Holden’s anti-hero status and seeing him as a whiner. But Holden was a young teen defined by his times, but what he felt as a teenager should be universal. Who hasn’t felt lonely or depressed as a teenager? Who hasn’t felt like they were an outsider and not accepted by cliques and all the popular kids at school? Who hasn’t felt like they were searching for something to make them whole but they just didn’t know what it was?
And yeah, Holden is a character that, while maybe precocious, has an intellectual thirst that goes beyond the vapid and superficial fads around him. I took from it that he was looking for some sort of meaning in his life that was chock full of superficial crap.
Hey now, I believe I was the first to come defend Catcher in the Rye. I agree with the good points related to the book. But I want to take this opportunity to also say, there was no ‘back in the day’ for me. I am not that old, around Byron’s age unless you consider Byron an old fart full of wisdom. I was just able to appreciate the book for what it is and think it is a timeless book with universal themes.
@mT—oops, sorry for the slight! Indeed, you did come to Holden’s defense at first. In my old age, I must have glossed over that fact, ha ha. I agree, it has timeless universal themes and you apparently had no problem with viewing it in its context.
MN:
None! I read A POEM by Maya Angelou when I was in the second grade, but outside of that, Gordon Parks was the only one. I think your school may have been more sensitive to other voices since you grew up in a nonwhite country. I think my school was very good, but the focus just wasn’t on us. There were other classes that focused on women, but believe it or not, I don’t think there were many classes that covered the minority experience. Weird, now that I think about it. I don’t think Kingston, Hughes, or Baldwin were taught in any classes. I know Chin wasn’t.
I think things have since changed. Last time I looked at their curriculum guide, I saw a class called “World Literature.” I would guess that that probably extends beyond Europe.
OH! Sorry, there was one more. I read a translation of the Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima when I was a frosh. Great book.
Mojo:
I haven’t run a poll, but my gut is telling me that you’re the winner. The second oldest regular, if MY old graying memory serves me correctly, is 42. I have a reader who is in her fifties, but I think she only left one comment, and that was wayy back in September or October. I have another reader in his fifties who has never left a comment. So unless I can convince them to drop more comments, you’re in the lead!
Speaking of which, maybe I should get their feedback on Holden…
geez…the elderly and their old fashioned books…..
@jaehwan – ha, a dubious distinction, no doubt! yeah, i’m geezing, but at least I still FEEL youthful mentally. or is that just my immaturity and juvenalia showing thru? at this point, i guess i’m still young enough to sort of know what’s going on, but old enough to know better!
@anna – hahahahahaha!!!! well, you’ll find yourself in my position one day. i never thought that i’d behave like my parents at times (and it’s an eye opener when you catch yourself) but it happens. All of a sudden, you find yourself really being the chip off the old block and that every step or turn in life you take, you start realizing that your mom and dad already went thru that—be it marriage, having kids, getting downsized, etc… Having grown up on ’70′s pop, classic rock and post punk stuff, it still cracks me up when i catch myself telling
my nephews and nieces to turn that rap or alternative music stuff down. They just roll their eyes at me just like I rolled my eyes at my parents who yelled at me to turn my music down!
Mojo,
It’s most definitely good to have a combination of youthful vigor and older experience. I just learned a bit about experience this past Fathers Day, which is what I was originally planning to blog about. In any case, we need both, and it’s great to have both!
Speaking of The Twilight Zone, there’s one particular episode of the ’80s CBS revival of The Twilight Zone that’s not on CBS.com but you should seek it out on DVD or the Chiller cable channel: “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium,” an adaptation of a story by William F. Wu (http://www.williamfwu.com/tz.html). It guest-starred Brian Tochi of Police Academy fame as an Asian American who never got over Vincent Chin’s murder (which isn’t referred to directly but he’s clearly talking about Chin or a Chin-like hate crime), and his search for the episode’s title emporium helps him deal with his anger.
When I first caught “Wong’s” on DVD, I was stunned to find an actual show from the ’80s with non-stereotypical Asian American characters. I was also stunned to learn that the episode was a backdoor pilot for a “Wong’s” TV series, which didn’t get picked up, of course, because those were the days when networks would only greenlight shows with Asian leads if they involved martial arts or starred Pat Morita.
I’m only 20 years old, but I remember reading this book over three years ago and being enthralled by it. It wasn’t even required reading because we were running out of time at the end of the school year, but I couldn’t put the book down. As long as there are teens still trying to make sense of this world, the book will have lasting universal appeal.