First Catcher memories?

Bethany M. Edstrom (Bethany.M.Edstrom@Dartmouth.EDU)
Sun, 23 Nov 1997 17:28:56 -0500 (EST)

Hi,
I've been on this list for a week or so and haven't had anything to say until
now, but I've enjoyed all the discussions and think I've come upon a group of
kindred spirits as far as books are concerned, especially since this also seems
to be the unofficial Don Delillo mailing list, and I'm a big fan of his. I
haven't read any Pynchon, but after reading everyone's postings about him I
plan to...

I have a question I'd like to throw out to everyone out there. It has a story
attached to it, really. This summer my employer, who grew up in France and
didn't read much american literature, was asking me about Catcher, and I gave a
very enthusiastic response, told her all about how it had changed the way I
looked at the world, and actually went out and bought her a copy. Then I
started thinking: when it changed my life, I was twelve. It was the first book
I had everf stayed up all night reading, and it was the first time I had ever
felt that a book divided the world between those who had read it and those who
hadn't (something I have felt many times since). When I read it then I missed
so many of the sad elements: the way Holden watches children, what the children
playing by the cliff really mean, etc. When I reread it now I see all those
things, but I've never lost the rebellious joy I saw in it the first time I
read it. But I'm afraid that if someone were to read it for the first time as
an adult, without being able to look up to Holden as a hero, which I definitely
did at twelve, they would see only the sad parts and miss such a huge part of
the book.  Not only that, but it also had a lot of shock value for me at
twelve, with some of the the subject matter and language, and I read it with a
sneaky feeling that I was engaged in something really subversive. I can't
imagine reading it with the deromanticized notion that it was just some
ordinary book, and not some piece of countercultural contaband...

This anecdote got a little too long, but what I'm asking is, first, what all of
you remember about your "first time" with Catcher, what your circumstances
were, and then any philosophical musings you might have about how those
circumstances affected your reading of it. And if anyone read it for the first
time in adulthood, what was that like? I can't imagine it...

Thanks for your patience with this rambling posting. I'll be interested to hear
what everyone says...

Bethany