The Catcher in the Rye or: How I Will Always be a Little in Love with Holden Caulfield.

“If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the “Fuck you” signs in the world.  It’s impossible.”

I first read the Catcher in the Rye when I was thirteen.  I think it was the first non-Judy Blume or E.B. White type book I had ever read.  So when I opened the book and read about all the “goddamn David Copperfield kind of crap,” I think I had some sort of epiphany.  

I remember being totally in love with Holden Caulfield then.  And every time I picked up the book throughout high school, I loved him even more.

Then college happened and I started to grow up a bit.  Reading Catcher was different.  Instead of having a huge crush on this character I started to read his plight and sympathize with him.  By age twenty two, I found myself wanting to tell him that everything was going to be okay.

So now I find The Catcher in the Rye to be a kind of litmus test for me.  I can read the story again and again and see how I’ve changed by how I react to Holden.  It’s still strange to me that I grow up and he stays the same.  It shouldn’t be, I know, with him being a fictional character and all.

~ by atypicalsnowman on July 23, 2008.