The Holden Caulfield Effect: Perspective’s a Hell of a Thing

Vulture - By Margaret Lyons

The first time I read The Catcher in the Rye, I was in seventh grade. My copy had the stark red cover, not the scrawly carousel horse from the first edition — and when I say "my copy," I mean the copy my sister had from her ninth grade English class. It felt like my copy, though, because like zillions of other people, I read the book and thought, Man, that guy really gets it. Not J.D. Salinger, although I guess he did, too, but Holden Caulfield. Now, there was a guy with some good ideas: He just leaves school and farts around! Everyone is pretty terrible except him! (And Phoebe.) Other people are total phonies, mostly, you know? This was my kind of urbane melancholy.

I read The Catcher in the Rye again two years later when it was my turn to take Miss McGinn's ninth grade English class, and I've read it every five or six years since. Holden seems radically different to me now — of course. When I first read the book, I was younger than the character, and he seemed mature and kind of glamorous, what with all the walking around Manhattan alone, the casual drinking of alcohol, and the making of plans. I'm more than twice his age now, and glamorous and mature are probably the last words I'd use to describe him.
More