I include this video because I recently reread Catcher in the Rye. My God what aging can do to an understanding of art. The better the art the more personal the response to it. With this being book being perhaps the greatest piece of art in modern prose.
When I was 16 and required to read this book, I did actually read it. I came out of it with a simple understanding. Fencing manager? What a loser. Losing all the equipment? What a fkup. Flunking out of high school? What a bozo. And ending up in the funny farm? That’s where he belongs. Holden Caufield is an idiot.
On my second time around I had completely different results. A boy coming of age and looking for big answers, expressing his love for children, his respect for women, his disappointment in the world’s subjugation to advertising and money, and his search for someone to talk about such things. Finding that the only one who listens is an old teacher of his who only listens to get into his pants. And rather than anger or gay bashing, Holden just quietly moves on to loving his little sister.
But it wasn’t until the closing page when Holden writes from the asylum that I saw the book as an allegory of Christ. THEY sent him to the nuthouse rather than the cross. He was thrown away for his inability to fit in, for how illogically good he was and how unreasonable his lack of respect for money and class. Reaching out to the ugly (Achley) respecting a prostitute (Mary Magdalene), whipping those disrespectful to women, while looking for the important answers to life. This is what art is, it can cause emotional change, which is why Republican hate it so much.