Let's Keep The Catcher in the Rye

I’m having trouble getting used to my new aide. She’s at an age I remember quite well, even though I would seem to be well beyond it.

You know. The age when all the older people around you seem to know each other and communicate in a kind of meaningless jargon that they can’t see only diminishes them in the eyes of any real person.

Directions. Interest rates. Home values. Kids and their inconsequential activities. Pictures of grandkids and other wastes of time.

They just can’t understand that these things are just meaningless bullshit.

Yet, when you mistakenly attempt to communicate with them about the really important things they look at you with blank, uncomprehending stares. And these quickly morph into condescending smirks, accompanied by, “Wait until you become a little older. You’ll understand.”

And at that point you do understand. They have surrendered.

They have become THEM.

And you can’t talk to Them. You can only turn your back and have as little to do with Them as possible. Because they’ll try to get you. They’ll try to turn you into one of Them. With their vacuous stares and fervent belief in inconsequential nonsense.

And They can afford to be smug about this. Because time is on Their side. Just go to sleep. Just get a little older. Soon you’ll become one of Us. Soon you, too, will be gushing over pictures of the kids and trips to Disneyland. Soon you’ll be arguing fervently over directions to the local 7-11.

NO! NO! You fight! You flee! You’ll never become one of Them!

You know that you belong with your friends and acquaintances. Some of them may be jerks and assholes. But at least they’re real people. You argue with them about real, meaningful things.

The rest of the world, They, don’t understand. How could They? They’re phony. Empty shells. One night they went to sleep, and the next morning They got up the same way. Asleep. Empty. Now They live sleeping, empty lives.

Still, you eye your friends and acquaintances warily, carefully aware of the first signs of change.

Then it begins. So-and-so has become engaged. Another is buying a house. Still another is pregnant and excited about doing up the baby’s room with her finds at Ikea. At a party you overhear an acquaintance becoming a little to involved with the directions to a local party store. They’re becoming Them.

You find your friends dropping away. Slowly. One by one.

Eventually you find yourself holding onto one, maybe two people to whom you can talk freely. Your closest friends, who don’t register mild shock at what you say. Who don’t look uncomfortable when you’re in a confessional mood. Who can still look you in the eye when you say something that might make others retreat.

Because they’re dealing with their own issues. They’re still living with their own shadows. They understand you.

And then, even they are gone. And you’re all alone. No one out there understands.

You don’t fit. There’s no place for you among Them, among the living, among the rest of the world.

Everything’s not fine. You don’t have kids doing great in school. You don’t love your job. You just don’t care about the pictures They took on vacation.

All Their lives seem filled with what is false, phony, bullshit.

And this is why I think The Catcher in the Rye remains a classic.

Someone on NPR characterized it as out-of-date and should no longer be included on high-school reading lists. What young person can identify with a young person kicked out of a private prep school in 1951?

Okay, maybe not many. But I think that the way it presents an individual’s profound sense of alienation from the world around him is spot-on.

Besides, I sort of like Holden Caulfield. Sure, he seems a narcissistic, immature jerk at the beginning. But you have to admit that a guy who has such tender concern for his younger sister despite his inner torments can’t be all bad.