The Parable of the Catcher in the Rye

Today I finished ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by JD Salinger. It is a allegory whose message is summed up in a line by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel quoted in the book: ‘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’. The book is a parable warning disaffected young men of the dangers of shutting oneself off from the world out of hatred and bitterness, and of the futility of martyrdom. The message exposes the extreme childishness of suicide bombing, and shows the Islamic imams and ayatollahs who condone such acts for what they are: twisted, angry fools who despite their advanced age are stuck permanently in a state of adolescent anger and confusion.

What I find extraordinary is that this book is historically most popular among students, especially as its allegorical message translated would sound like a stern lecture from a father or teacher to most of us. I suspect it’s because some of us feel we can identify with Holden Caulfield, yet the book sets him out as a warning and does not uphold his points of view. Apparently one of the Columbine killers had a copy, which strikes me as odd considering that the books message directly opposes their way of thinking. It seems that as with religious texts, the unhinged construe whatever meaning they like, even if it is in direct contradiction of the overall message of the text they prostrate themselves to.

The book has reinforced something I have for a long time suspected: there is little wisdom can be gained from isolation, only a warping of the mind. These people who live as hermits, proclaiming the spiritual benefits of isolation, are wrong to think their self-enforced ignorance of other people can possibly be of any benefit to them; quite the reverse, it rots their grip on reality.