Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
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I FIRST READ THE CATCHER IN THE RYE in February of 1997. I read it for a legendary class at the University of Iowa called "The Quest for Human Destiny". The class was taught by Dr. Jay Goldstein, a (very, very) foulmouthed Jewish rabbi on the faculty in the religion department. Goldstein was arrogant as hell but man could he teach, and "Quest" was his baby. "Quest" was about answering, or rather, asking, a very simple question: How do you make your life count? The not so subtle subtext: You are going to die. Maybe tomorrow. Now. How do you make your life count?
Every Tuesday and Thursday for fifteen weeks, 800 college kids would pack McBride Auditorium to listen to Goldstein expound on Genesis and Catcher and The Old Man and the Sea and "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and The Death of Ivan Ilych and "Strawberry Wine" and Childhood's End and Bladerunner and A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I took a notebook and a half worth of notes and I still have them. It was the only class I ever took that if you got there late, you had to stand or sit in the aisle; McBride Auditorium sat over 700 people.
We had two weeks to read Catcher, but I read it in two days. Although Salinger was writing in the 1940's (the book was published in 1951), I felt that he had channeled something within me into those 214 pages of adolescent wandering. Holden Caulfield said everything I thought and, just as crucially, he said it the way I would have said it, had I had the courage to do so. Holden is 16 and wandering the streets of New York City, but the words fit seamlessly into my 19-year-old-self wandering Hillcrest Residence Hall, away from home for the first time. This book was unlike anything Terry Arends had had us read in American Literature at Sheldon High School; indeed, it was different from anything I had read, ever. It was a big fat middle finger to the literary establishment, and more importantly for me, a big fat middle finger to everything and everyone around me.
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When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down the goddam corridor. I was sort of crying. I don't know why....then I yelled at the top of my voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" I'll bet I woke up every bastard on the whole floor. Then I got the hell out. Some stupid guy had thrown peanut shells all over the stairs, and I damn near broke my crazy neck.
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ON JANUARY 21, 1994, WE WERE INFORMED over the high school intercom that two brothers had died in a car accident on the way to school. The younger one was one of my best friends. Another classmate died that summer in another car accident. The thing I most remember about those funerals is the mothers crying uncontrollably. Two years later, on January 20, 1996, my own mother died suddenly. Exactly one year later, January 20, 1997, another student from Sheldon died in a hunting accident. It was my first day of "The Quest for Human Destiny".
Just over a month later, in the early morning hours of March 1, 1997, I woke up and felt like I was going to die. I knew I wasn't going to, but it felt like it. My breathing was rushed and my heart was pounding and my mind kept saying "You are going to die. How do you make your life count?". It was the most terrifying thing that I have ever experienced. I went to a psychologist at Student Health and she told me it was a panic attack. She said to stay away from caffeine and alcohol and to distract myself if the panic came back.
I tried to follow her instructions but the attacks kept coming. I was just always worried I was doing something wrong, that I was fucking something up, something bad. You. are. going. to. die. How. do. you. make. your. life. count? Finally, in July, I told my dad what was going on. He made me go to the doctor and the doctor put me on Prozac. The Prozac made me shit but three days later, I was using the forklift at work to set some shingles down and I was all worried about it and then suddenly I realized that even if I fucked up with the shingles, nobody was going to die or anything. Besides, everyone fucks up every now and then.
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WORD ON THE STREET IS THE CATCHER in the Rye is losing its cachet among young people. I was in the College of Education last spring and they had different lists of books on the wall. Under "Most Overrated", Catcher showed up several times. Last Sunday, there was an article in the New York Times wondering if JD Salinger, and Catcher in particular, are losing their relevance. Is Holden Caulfield too well-to-do, too white, too male, for the 21st century?
Maybe. But let me get a little crazy and turn that around. If Holden Caulfield, white well-to-do male, can suffer as he does the travails of life, it means we all can. More than that. It means we all do. You are going to die. How do you make your life count?
Late in Catcher, Holden sneaks back into his parents' upscale apartment so he can talk to his younger sister, Phoebe. It is during this conversation that that Holden mentions the song "if a body catch a body comin' through the rye." But Phoebe interrupts him: "It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye. It's a poem. By Robert Frost."
Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye. He wants to save people. But the whole time he has it wrong. He just has to meet them, however they might be in that moment.
And now I'm gonna get really crazy. What if, in addition to carrying that attitude for other people, we carried it for ourselves? What if we just meet ourselves wherever we're at, and leave all this saving business to someone, or something, else?
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A few summers ago, I went out and bought all the books we read in "The Quest for Human Destiny". My goal was to reread them all, see how they might have changed for me as a man in his late thirties versus a boy in his late teens.
I read a couple of them but then I gave up. Well, I didn't really give up. I just...wasn't interested. At the time I thought I was just being lazy, but now I realize it wasn't that, at least not exactly that. I think that on some subconscious level I realized that those books, and "Quest", and the winter of 1997, and Hillcrest Residence Hall, they didn't belong in my life anymore.
That was then. This is now.
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"I don't want to scare you," [Mr. Antolini] said, "but I can see you dying nobly, one way or another, for some highly unworthy cause." He gave me a funny look. "If I write something down for you, will you read it carefully? And keep it?"
"Yes. Sure," I said. I did, too. I still have the paper he gave me.
"Oddly enough, this wasn't written by a practicing poet. It was written by a psychoanalyst named Wilhelm Stekel. Here's what he--Are you still with me?"
"Yes, sure I am."
"Here's what he said: The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."
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42 years old today. 42 crazy, bewildering, wonderful years, and I hope I have quite a few more. Is 42 more too greedy?
A few years ago, an old friend from those high school and college days asked me, sort of out of the blue, if I was happy.
I did not answer right away, and she thought I was dodging the question, but I wasn't. It's just, I try not to think in those terms anymore, about happiness versus sadness, saved versus unsaved, worthy versus unworthy, my life counting versus not counting. I try to think, Am I living humbly for causes I believe in? Am I meeting people where they're at? Am I leaving the saving to someone, or something, else?
I sure am trying. And if you read this far, know that I am grateful you've been a part of those 42 years, and I hope to meet you in the rye soon, wherever we're both at.
Love, Mark
