It’s also not surprising that he hates them, because they lived and Allie didn’t. Holden compares everyone else to this idealised picture of Allie, and it’s not surprising that he finds them all to be phony or dishonest. Allie died of leukemia at a young age and so is always preserved in Holden’s mind as a perfect, innocent child who went for walks with him in the park and wrote poetry on his baseball glove. Losing a brother is a horrible thing for any child to experience, and it seems to be the root of Holden’s hatred for the world. It’s easy to see why people would think that, but for me the story of Allie and his relationship with his little sister Phoebe give a much more interesting perspective on his character. Holden is presented in some reviews as just an annoying, privileged kid who hates the world for no reason and should grow up and get over it. Yet Salinger lets us understand more, partly by filling in back-story like the death of his little brother Allie, and partly by having adults speak to and about Holden, suggesting possible reasons for his position. He’s a teenager, and he’s grappling with feelings of alienation and revulsion, but doesn’t really understand why. The other great achievement was to communicate a lot of ideas through the mind of a narrator who doesn’t have access to a lot of wisdom or perspective. It was just Holden Caulfield’s voice, and it felt authentic from the very first paragraph. What I found most amazing was that, although it was narrated by a self-pitying teenager with a lot of repeated verbal ticks, it never irritated me. There really is a lot of good stuff in here. It’s sad that it took me so long to come back to the book, and that it took the death of its author to prompt me.
WHY WAS THE CATCHER IN THE RYE BANNED UPDATE
Well, now I’ve re-read Catcher in the Rye, so I guess I’ll have to update my examples. So my idea with this blog was to write things down. Not one event, character, idea, sentence. But I can’t remember a single thing about it. I see it on my bookshelf sometimes, and the spine has creases.
I forget things so easily: I know I’ve read “Catcher in the Rye”, for instance. The original idea of this blog was to provide somewhere for me to record the books and articles I read. Here I am in September 2008, for example: When I talked about why I blogged, I used to use this book as my stock example.