Read on Twitter
Five months later, I& #39;m down to the last few pages here. My opinion of this book has changed _a lot_. https://twitter.com/brandon_mn/status/1221479776260706304">https://twitter.com/brandon_m...
At age 14, Caulfield read like an annoying, whiny peer. At 24, it hits different. It& #39;s clearly about a person who has never sat down with his feelings and worked through the pain he was feeling (e.g., of losing his brother, Allie)
That central theme (of not working through your feelings, and taking that out on others by being whiny) is something I skipped over ten years ago (probably because a lot changes from 14-24!). It& #39;s pretty powerful to read it now.
The thing that& #39;s odd, is, I can& #39;t tell if this is the same theme other people take away from the book. I remember hearing "oh, it& #39;s a book that a lot of people [often dudes] _relate to_." But I& #39;m not finding much about why that is (lots of essay farms though)
I also remember hearing that the book was famously enjoyed by some, uh, bad people (murderers and all). I wonder if that& #39;s because it does such a good job of capturing that unresolved pain.
One of the few pieces I did find that wasn& #39;t a cliffsnotes cheat sheet for high school language arts was this: https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-real-message-of-The-Catcher-in-the-Rye-3201939.php">https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/o...
The article claims Caulfield wasn& #39;t the "Catcher," it was Phoebe that was _his_ "Catcher", because she had the patience to help him work through his pain. Which seems like a pretty awful burden to put on a younger sibling.
But for those of us that _do_ have the patience and brainspace to find and recognize and help others work through their pain, I think there& #39;s something there.
Especially along gendered lines, I think it& #39;s reasonable to read Catcher in the Rye as a book about how we (dudes) fail our peers, and our families and friends in the process.
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