CATCHER IN THE RYE: (Catch Her Anywhere You Can, Holden Caulfield!)

If there is a book to rival HUCKELBERRY FINN as the "Great American Novel," it is surely J.D. Salinger's "Catcher In The Rye".

This book has been lauded to the high heavens and banned to the brimstone of hell, but it keeps on selling and enthralling readers, mainly young readers, year after year. It is hard to believe that the book turns 50 this year. Holden will still be around long after Harry Potter has turned in his union card at the Home For Retired Wizards.

Slamming into the American consciousness with all the subtlety of a herd of bulls in a china shop, CATCHER took the reading public by storm with its publication on July 16, 1951. It hasn't stopped since. Why?

Essentially, it is because Holden Caulfield, the voice in the book, touches a nerve time after time in the book and that nerve alternately is connected to the humorously hilarious and the absurdly sad parts of the reader. I must admit, it helps to have a sense of humor and a sense of irony, but if you have that you are already a long way into the book.

What is the story about? It is an improbable story, to say the least. I think this is one part of its astounding power: the fact that it seems so vapid and powerless until you get into it, and then the hurricane-force power of it hits you and won't let go.

The book begins with Holden Caulfield, the 17-year-old narrator and protagonist, addressing the reader from a sanitarium or mental hospital in Southern California. He is about to tell us about a remarkable 48 hours that happened in the last December. Then we go into a long, long flashback in Holden's mind.

Holden starts his story at Pencey Prep School, on the Saturday afternoon of the old-school-rivalry football game with arch-adversary Saxon Hall. Holden is the manager of the school's fencing team, and he loses the team's equipment on the subway, and the story goes complicatedly into a freakish but funny nightmare from there, with Holden giving us a wry (RYE?) commentary all the way to the end. The end, as we said at the beginning, takes place at a mental hospital. After reading the book you will fully understand why.

One of the main themes of the book is the struggle between that which is authentic and that which is artificial. Holden wants to cut through artificiality to truth, but it evades him time after time.

The book also wrestles with the problem of innocence. Holden likes innocence. He sees a world of corruption and he sees very few innocents in it; most are darkly guilty as if touched by a contagion. But he cannot decide where innocense really resides.

Then there is the theme of death, a consistent harbinger throughout the book. Even though Holden is only 17, we can almost hear his own biological clock ticking.

Confusion and/or ambivalence about sexuality is a major part of the book as well. Holden is deeply heterosexual, but he is open to gay people; indeed people of all kinds when it comes to sexual chemistry. This was a bold move for Salinger, but
It moved a lot of people in the end; in post WWII America it was a tack to take straight into a whirlpool, but CATCHER caught something and stayed afloat.

A whole generation---actually perhaps two or three-- were influenced by this great book. If you've never read it, you owe it to yourself to immerse yourself in it. You will find yourself laughing and nodding. If anyone asks you what you are doing, just say, "Oh, I found this perfectly BORING book written 50 years ago. It's about this young kid and, well, you know." If they don't know the book they will probably shake their heads to humor you and go on, muttering ,"What's so interesting about an old book written 50 years ago?"

If you haven't read the book, nothing could make you understand. If you are reading it for the first time, chances are nothing will be able to make you put it down.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HOLDEN CAULFIELD!

Five stars: *****