Keeping my Kings in the Back Row

Not sure why, but like so many others, J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye seemed to capture the  essence of my adolescence.  I remember sitting in a booth at Village Inn for hours reading the novel -- submerged in the world of Holden Caulfield with the background smells of smoke, maple syrup and coffee.  Something about the book spoke so strongly to me.  Somehow in those pages someone understood me, someone got me.  For those who know me, I am not one to read books or see movies multiple times.  I want/need it fresh.  The Catcher in the Rye was the exception to that rule.  I couldn't get enough of it.

The novel even caused some family drama.  One year my brother asked for a recommendation of a good book to read, so I loaned him my copy of The Catcher in the Rye.  I thought it was an important book and I wanted to share something of worth -- I was not about to give him a copy of Dickens or Judy Blume -- I wanted him to feel what I had felt.  Well, one day I entered the kitchen to face the furious gaze of my mother.  She had seen the book and leafed through a few pages (if you must know, there is a substantial amount of cursing in the book).  She was furious that I had brought that into the home -- let alone lent it to my young, impressionable brother.  Mom threw the book in the garbage and I received a large helping of "I'm So Disappointed In You."  I think Mike read the book anyway. . . he always was the rebel. 

Well, for unknown reasons, I picked the book up again the other day.  When I moved to Montreal I left most of my books in New York.  Space was limited and so if it wasn't related to drama therapy, it stayed in the Big City.  However, there were a handful of exceptions to that rule -- most notably, The Catcher in the Rye.  So last week, in the middle of completing my PhD applications and grading a million papers, it was time to revisit Holden.

I initially tossed it in my bag, planning to read it on the subway.  It stayed there for a couple of days, until one day, as I was leaving work, I saw it in my bag.  With a hint of curiosity and nostalgia, I pulled it out and began reading it on my ride home.  At this point in my account, one might think that I would have re-fallen in love with the novel and devoured it, not putting it down until I completed every page.  Well, it didn't quite play out that way.  It was an incredibly painful read.  Each page reconnected me with the angst and turmoil of my adolescent years.  As Holden confronted his depression and tried to stay afloat I felt his pain and nausea.  I found myself putting it down after a few pages -- and then picking it up when the wave of feeling passed.  With the perspective of age, I have a whole new appreciation for Salinger and what he captured in that novel.  It was hard to get through.  The book still resonates with me today.  Does that mean I am a depressed adolescent at heart . . . perhaps.  But perhaps it also means that I am human -- and the truth captured in Holden's journey resonates with my humanity. 

A few random quotes that spoke to me on this reading:

One quote that reminded me of leaving New York . . .and Utah:

What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse.

And another quote that captures the essence of truth in acting -- with applications to drama therapy:

I hate actors.  They never act like people.  They just think they do.  Some of the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that's fun to watch.  And if any actor's really good, you can always tell he knows he's good, and that spoils it.

And finally --Holden's description of the occupation that would make him happy:

Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- nobody big, I mean -- except me.  And I"m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I'd do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.  I know it's crazy.

Re-reading the novel has reminded me of the power of art to capture truth -- to amplify it and to play it back for us, making it easier to digest.  Very uncharacteristically, upon finishing the novel today, I immediately had the impulse to read it again . . . and who knows, I just might.  Right after I do a Google search to find out where the ducks go when the Central Park pond freezes over . . .