Re: First Catcher memories?
JOEL de Courcy Browne (jdecou01@zaphod.riv.csu.edu.au)
Wed, 26 Nov 1997 00:16:09 +0000
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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...
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Bethany,
Firstly, thanks for posing such an interesting
question. It's the first posting on this list in a long time that
really got me thinking.
I was 16 and in my first term of English at college (year 11) when I
was told we'd be reading the Catcher in the Rye. My Mother (who is an
English teacher) had an old copy of Catcher which she had bought in
the 60's. It's the one with the orange and white cover and it has a
picture of Salinger on the inside sleeve. On the back cover it says:
"This edition is not for sale in Canada or the United States". I
remember that I was the only one who didn't have a brand new copy of
the book- all of the pages were falling out but I still felt really
pleased to have it because I knew that lots of other people had read
it before me. To this day it is the only copy of the book that I own.
It might sound strange- but I take this copy with me every where I
go; it's one of the few constant things in my busy life. I couldn't
imagine reading any other copy.
To begin with, I thought that reading the book would be a chore-
simply because it was for an English class and we were all being
"made" to read it. After about 5 pages though, I was completely
hooked. I scrutinised every word and re-read bits over and over. I was
the only person in the class who got 100% on the comprehension test-
and I did it without studying because I knew it inside out.
Having lived in the relatively small Australian town of Canberra for
just about my whole life, I found the places which Holden Caulfield
discribed to be far away and almost magical. I realised straight away
that the particular English teacher that I had was as phonie as could
be and I thought that it was particularly ironic that she of all
people was trying to " teach" this to us.
I had to do a monologue to the class where I was pretending to be
Holden and I spent days preparing it. When it came time to read it
out I went to pieces because I realised that I didn't know anyone in
the class and they all new each other because they'd all just come
from the same high school. I hid behind my page for the whole thing so
I couldn't see them laughing at me. The teacher took off 10 marks
for bad presentation.
Later the same year, we had a photography assignment where we had to
take a photo for a book cover. I wanted to do one for Catcher but
this girl in our class also wanted to so I couldn't. In the end,
neither of us ended up doing it. I'm kind of pleased that it worked
out that way because I like the simple blank cover. No picture could
ever hope to do the story that's inside justice. Also, to use
an over used comparison, people tend to judge books by their cover's
which with Catcher would be a very sad thing indeed. The only way to
"judge" Catcher is to read the whole thing cover to cover without
putting it down.
Any way, that's basically how it came to be my all-time favourite book.
I still often think what I would have taken a picture of for the
cover but the truth is that now I don't think I could. The only person
who could take a picture and actually capture the true essence of
the story would be Holden himself.
Joel dCB