New
York Times July 16 (Mon.), 1951
By
Nash K. Burger
It is just before Christmas and
16-year-old Holden Caulfield has been kicked out of exclusive Pencey Prep, a
boys'
school in Pennsylvania. Considering everything, this reflects more credit on
Holden than on Pencey. Life at Pencey is dreary, regimented, artificial and, of
course, expensive. This happens, however, to be only the latest of a series of
schools from which Holden has been expelled. Understandably he is in no hurry to
encounter his parents, but he is also reluctant to linger a moment longer than
necessary at Pencey. He therefore takes what money he has and departs for New
York, where he passes several days in a weird jumble of adventures and
experiences, is involved with a variety of persons including taxi driers, two
nuns, an elevator man, three girls from Seattle, a prostitute, and a former
teacher from whom Holden thinks it best to flee in the middle of the night and
most of all from himself.
Holden's
story is told in Holden's
own strange, wonderful language by J.D. Salinger in an unusually brilliantly
first novel, "The
Catcher in the Rye." The Book-of-the-Month Club has chosen it as its current
selection.
Holden is bewildered, lonely,
ludicrous and pitiful. His troubles, his failings are not of his own making but
of a world that is out of joint. There is nothing wrong with him that a little
understanding and affection, preferably from his parents, couldn't
have set right. Though confused and unsure of himself, like most 16-year-olds,
he is observant and perceptive and willed with a certain wisdom. His minor
delinquencies seem minor indeed when contrasted with the adult delinquencies
with which he is confronted.
Mr. Salinger, whose work has
appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere, tells a story well, in this case under
the special difficulties of casting it in the form of Holden's
first-person narrative. This was a perilous undertaking, but one that has been
successfully achieved. Mr. Salinger's rendering of teen-age speech is wonderful: the
unconscious humor, the repetitions, the slang and profanity, the emphasis, all
are just right. Holden's mercurial changes of mood, his stubborn refusal to admit
his own sensitiveness and emotions, his cheerful disregard of what is sometimes
known as reality are typically and heart breakingly adolescent.
The author evidently takes a dim
view of prep school life, and few writers have presented it with more effortless
devastation. Holden's reminiscences and observations are short and to the
point. "Pencey,"
he tells us, "was
full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these very wealthy families, but it
was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it
has. I'm
not kidding."
Holden is sometimes, but not for long, a little bitter, and it may be he has a
tendency to generalize from too little evidence (in this case his camel's-hair
coat, had been stolen out of his room), but he has seen and done a lot for a
16-year-old, and a lot has been done to him. Mr. Salinger, gives us a peek at
Pencey's
headmaster, who knows just which parents to talk with, which to ignore, gives a
glimpse, too, of alumni and assorted students. Then there is a fine chapter in
which Holden calls to say good-bye to an ancient teacher, an unlovable Mr. Chips
without wisdom or imagination.
In New York Holden's
nightmarish efforts to escape from himself by liquor, sex, nightclubs, movies,
sociability - anything and everything - are fruitless. Misadventure piles on
misadventure, but he bears it all with a grim cheerfulness and stubborn courage.
He is finally saved as a result of his meeting with his little sister Phoebe,
like Holden a wonderful creation. She is the single person who supplies - and
just in time - the affection that Holden needs.
Certainly you'll
look a long time before you'll meet another youngster like Holden Caulfield, as likable
and, in spite of his failings, as sound. And though he's
still not out of the woods entirely, there at the end, still we think he is
going to turn out all right. We couldn't even be surprised if he grew up to write a few books (he
talks about books quite a lot), books like "Of Human Bondage,"
"Look
Homeward, Angel,"
or "The
Catcher in the Rye"
- nothing so childish and innocent as "Seventeen,"
though.
A pretty good small volume of
Holden's observations could be put together right now out of Mr. Salinger's
book: call it "The
Maxims and Moral Reflections of Holden Caulfield," say. Thus, On the Movies: "I
can understand somebody going to the movies because there is nothing else to do,
but when somebody really wants to go,
then it depresses hell out of me." On Life is a Game: "If
you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's
a game, all right. But if you get on the other
side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No
game."
On Teachers: "You
don't
have to think too hard when you talk to a teacher." On War: "I
don't
think I could stand it if they'd just take you out and shoot you, but you have to stay in
the Army so *** long."