Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger: We Loved You

Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger: A True Story, No Kidding, I Mean Really.


It took me roughly ten years to pull myself together and return to this book and actually read it. It was assigned when I was a High School student and I never completed the damn thing for what ever reason. I’m not sure if I was too immature, too scared, or just plain lazy not to read it but I didn’t. As it turned out, I was more like Holden then I could have ever even imagined.

A week before my 26th birthday I decided to buy another copy of the famed book Catcher in the Rye. I picked up the edition at my favorite book shop in NYC with the original cover design loosely drawn depicting the books last scene, not the rainbow student edition. I think it was that bland cover that made me never want to pick it up; the minimal design never caught me when I was young and it still doesn’t. I wanted to finally come to terms with that one novel that kept resting in the back of my mind all those years and meet Holden Caulfield once and for all.

I was hooked from the first page. When I came to the book I had finally lived a little and been through the likes of Kerouac, Hemingway and even Steinbeck. Salinger’s character Holden and I became good friends in my mind, honestly. No kidding. I mean I really wanted to give old Jane a buzz. I did. The book was released in 1951 and here I am reading this in 2010 and I dig it like none other. I understand it. I get underneath it and Holden has got a hold on me like we see the world through the same eyes. When people say please, it depresses me too. It actually does.

The last scene of the book when Holden finally realizes his decision and enjoys the moment we both share in the revelation that is coming home. On my way back to Brooklyn after my long day at work and the gym I finished the book with that feeling you get when you are not too sad to let go but also excited for what will happen next even though you are only left in your own isolation.

I finished this wonderful story and I felt like I knew something intimate about its author. As I finished this story in silence J.D. Salinger was also slipping into his own. He would die that same day Wednesday January 27th of natural causes. He was 91.

I sit here now Thursday afternoon. My fiancé Katya sent me the news. I remain stunned that after a decade of keeping myself away from this powerful story, I finish the day he died. Full closure.

Immortality in art, it’s why we make it right?

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 26

TV? Fuggedaboudit!

6-6-09

Today the Times reports that according to the latest research polls, approximately 10% of the American population is unprepared for the nation wide switch from analog broadcasting to digital on the 12^th of June. The government has spent 2 Billion on aiding Americans with the transition and has employed AmeriCorps, firefighters, and other public services to aid people in converter box installations. They have delayed the switch over four months to aid in the transition but declare there will be no more delay. Pictured in the Times as the cover image for this story they present three Baltimore women hugging inside their home after one of them, a worker, has installed the device as if it saved their lives.

 TV comes up in casual conversation with people the same way books once did in our culture. When I tell people I don’t own a TV many often are shocked with such a notion as to not be able to imagine life without it. An old friend used to refer to it as “the mother box”. This poignantly tells the truth because as an object and lifestyle, it has been deeply imbedded into our collective consciousness raising us for over 60 years.

 Now while TV in its various forms has existed since 1927, it wasn’t until 1947 that Americans could begin purchasing ‘affordable’ sets. It was the postwar boom in manufacturing and disposable income and increase in leisure time that allowed this to happen. In 1962 as much as 90% of American households had a TV set.

You see where this is going. Am I in the loony bin? Are TV’s this important? Can we stop and really examine our lives a minute? I suppose I am one of ‘those’ people who had given up on TV a long time ago for things like life or the occasional public radio show. Sure I’ve enjoyed the occasional endless channel surfing at my girlfriend’s mother’s home but it is a passing interest. The economics of the television are too powerful to contend with unless you flip the switch or toss it out the window.

In fact, I invite my fellow Americans to take their precious TVs and toss the things out their windows on June 12^th and go ride bikes this summer. Maybe even talk to your loved ones or walk your dog. Walk a neighbor’s dog, garden, cook, start a social club, brew beer, read, knit, make art, make love, make pancakes. Do anything but sit on your duff and take in the endless stream of commerce. Paddle your way down a river and take in that stream. Just remember your sunscreen.