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Original poster

DS despises Catcher In The Rye. So proud of him.

256 replies

ReanimatedSGB · 14/02/2019 23:48

I'm also rather surprised that this tedious wank is still being pushed on schoolkids as Great Literature. I hated it when I read it in my teens and am very glad to find that DS is as unimpressesd as I was - it's just one long white-boy whine, isn't it?

OP posts:
DarkDarkNight · 15/02/2019 09:44

I haven’t read it since I was around 16, we didn’t do it as a School text though. I think dismissing it as a ‘White Boy whine’ is unfair. I think it’s about grief, his brother died and he was kept away from the funeral. He didn’t have a chance to say goodbye and grieve. There is a much more open culture around teen mental health these days, I think it’s a great text to discuss in those terms.

I can remember a scene where he smashed the window in the garage - I’m sorry if that’s not right, my memory is shocking. It may have been described in flashback.

I loved his relationship with Phoebe the love and protectiveness. The actual desire to be ‘the catcher in the rye’ and keep children safe.

Lots of teens go through that phase of thinking they are authentic and everybody else is phoney. If you look at a Film like Rebel Without a Cause now it seems out of date, or a book like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning but some of those themes are universal.

MariaNovella · 15/02/2019 09:45

You are missing the point, hackmum. As an adult, you might feel sympathy for the very unlikeable character of HC because you no longer have to worry about being his victim. No 13 year old girl should find him anything other than abhorrent and a warning.

FancyPantsMcGhee · 15/02/2019 09:49

I've reached the grand old age of 34 without having read it, or even knowing anything about it really. Can't decide whether I should read it or not now. I am white and do like a good whine so it may be the book for me Grin

It can be a bit of a relief when you find a few kindred souls in relation to a book. I really hated We Need To Talk About Kevin but didn't know anyone in real life who shared that view. Everyone banged on about how marvelous it was. I thought that either I was really stupid or completely missing something obvious until I found the 1 star reviews on Amazon. They made me feel like less of an outsider Blush

timeisnotaline · 15/02/2019 09:52

Ironically, ‘I hate x’ is classic teenage whine isn’t it? Tell him to have another go and see if he can’t identify 😬. Seriously I’d be very disappointed if that were my son’s opinion. I hated x y and z about the book as literary criticism which he’s thought about - that I might be proud about. As it is all we know is he has an opinion, along with every other person on the planet , and I sympathise heartily with those university professors etc who have in recent years written articles etc titled You are not entitled to an opinion or similar.

multivac · 15/02/2019 09:53

This thread made me think about We Need To Talk About Kevin, actually, FancyPantsMcGhee - another unreliable, deeply unlikeable narrator. And I've read so many reviews hating WNTTAK for just that reason. I thought it was fantastic.

DarkDarkNight · 15/02/2019 09:54

When my daughter complained about set texts, I'd normally try to discuss the book in a way that might help her to see if she was missing something.

So a book with an apparently unlikeable central character and some dated attitudes might make skilful use of a first person narrator and/or be ironic in a way that wasn't immediately apparent.

Yes to this above. You’re not meant to like every Protagonist. Not all narrators are reliable. The author has made deliberate choices which are worth thinking about.

viques · 15/02/2019 09:56

OP! Your son should count himself lucky. Make him , nay force him , to sit in an overheated glass box with no working blinds in the middle of a heatwave and read The Five Towns so he appreciates that the grass is not always greener.

JennieLee · 15/02/2019 09:56

As far as I can remember there's a kind of noir comedy in a scene where Holden Caulfield ends up in a hotel room with a prostitute and is just physically and emotionally out of his depth. I think the point is that he's basically a bereaved young person - someone who's been failed by the institution which was supposed to take care of him, and failed by his family. He's frightened by sex - both gay and straight - and he's not ready for it. He's a needy kid and ironically the one person who can help him is even younger than he is. His sister Phoebe.

MariaNovella · 15/02/2019 09:59

I spent a large part of my childhood having explained to me why I should feel empathy/compassion towards unlikeable upper middle class men. Indeed, I was taught that it was my role as a woman to show kindness, tolerance and generosity of spirit to these nasty men who had had sad/unfortunate upbringings. If they leered at me (or did other nasty things), I should feel sorry for them not knowing any better.

My daughter is not going to be given those messages.

JennieLee · 15/02/2019 10:05

Very sadly, unless we lock our daughters up and deprive them of internet access and keep them out of libraries and away from TV - and home educate them and control their friendships and monitor their phones, they are going to be given a great variety of messages.

Perhaps the important thing is that we talk to our daughters about films and books and social attitudes and discuss feminist ideas with them.

Understanding that some young men - our sons even? - are vulnerable human beings is not the same as saying that our daughters should let themselves be sexually eploited by any manipulative chancer who comes along.

JD Salinger, writing in the mid 20th century US, can't be held responsible/accountable for 21st century sexism in the UK.

Fazackerley · 15/02/2019 10:16

I think your dd reading the Catcher In the rye is going to be the least of your problems then maria

MariaNovella · 15/02/2019 10:16

JD Salinger, writing in the mid 20th century US, can't be held responsible/accountable for 21st century sexism in the UK.

He will be if 13 year old girls are expected to believe that CITR is some masterpiece of insight into the male condition.

longwayoff · 15/02/2019 10:21

Thanks piggy, I suspected as much. What a total pillock that man is. Can't wait for when he slimes his way up to being PM. Shudder.

LilaJude · 15/02/2019 10:23

He will be if 13 year old girls are expected to believe that CITR is some masterpiece of insight into the male condition.

Quite.

dontgobaconmyheart · 15/02/2019 10:23

I don't enjoy the book but being so reductionist about it so it suits an argument isn't exactly much of an argument. Contextually for the time and for teens, it has literary merit and emotive context and people very obviously like different things. Curriculum book choices aren't chosen in the hopes children will love them rather than that they demonstrate the necessary narratives, social context, or literary devices. I'd be more proud of my ds if he were confidently able to articulate opinions on it or explain what he did or didn't like. I hope you didn't teach him to call it a 'white-boy whine' - the term is unnecessary and sounds like a failed attempt at sounding 'woke.

Nevertheless coming home bored about a school book is hardly new or demonstrative of any specific good taste or genius; why are you so pleased OP? Confused. What do you think it says about him, or do you just like that you and he agree?

PineapplePower · 15/02/2019 10:40

But this is a literal fact, so I will say it

Tale of the Genji is one of the greatest achievements in Japanese literature and, by extension, in global literature.

But it is equally true that Lady Murasaki’s achievements have little to do with the development of Western literature. Just like Shakespeare has nothing to do with the development of Chinese poetry (the best poetry in the world, imo).

OP’s dismissal of CITR because it’s a white male whine? Like I said, might as well throw out Jane Austen for her portrayal of upper-class white woman tears. Or Mark Twain and his problematic portrayal of white supremacy.

JennieLee · 15/02/2019 10:42

Well perhaps our daughters shouldn't study Macbeth in case they become serial killers....

I'd argue it was extremely important that our daughters study books which portray flawed young men (the ones who become ill and suffer as a result of various mistaken choices they make. As Mr Rochester does in Jane Eyre).

A diet of Disney's Cinderella in which all men are versions of Prince Charming does not prepare young women for the real world....

Upsy1981 · 15/02/2019 10:58

Did Catcher in the Rye at A level. Really struggled with it then. Couldn't get my head around the essay question we were assigned for it and assumed that's why I have always disliked it. But perhaps it just wasn't that good?! Our English lit teacher raved about it so I thought I was missing something. Perhaps not.

Raspberry88 · 15/02/2019 11:03

A diet of Disney's Cinderella in which all men are versions of Prince Charming does not prepare young women for the real world....

Exactly. I can't understand what is wrong with trying to understand the motivations of misogynistic men anyway...they exist and if we don't discuss that and examine it how on earth do we challenge it?
I'm really surprised by some of the posts here...surely the point of literature is to have an insight into the lives and minds of others, even those we dislike and cannot understand.
Anyway OP, YABVVU for saying 'white boy whine'...I thought winsinbin said it really well...
I’d say a good 60-70% of the troubled youth I work with (regardless of gender or ethnicity)have their mental burden increased by feelings of guilt that as a relatively healthy person living in the first world with an education, enough food and a roof over their heads they somehow have no ‘right’ to be unhappy.
It's a horrible, damaging attitude.

PineapplePower · 15/02/2019 11:04

He will be if 13 year old girls are expected to believe that CITR is some masterpiece of insight into the male condition

I read the book as a teen and it spoke to
me as a relatively privileged, but angsty, teen girl. Maybe your daughter will think the same, if you give her the chance? Or maybe she’ll hate it, as she’s entitled to do.

I hated On the Road because of the treatment of women (interchangeable and disposable) in the book, but I understand that it was a seminal piece of American literature at the same time and can’t be merely dismissed as a literary exercise in white male privilege.

MariaNovella · 15/02/2019 11:09

It is a false dichotomy to suggest that Disney’s Cinderella is the alternative to CITR.

I have just gone into my DD’s room to remind myself of what she is currently studying at school. West Side Story. Germinale. Of Mice and Men.

JennieLee · 15/02/2019 11:11

I'm Jewish and there are vast swathes of 19th century and 20th century literature - not to mention Shakespeare/Marlowe etc - in which Jews are presented in negative and stereotypical ways.

Usually in such books black characters are also portrayed in a similar light.

But I don't think any of us benefit from ignoring the complex history of inequality, racism and sexism - which is one that is very much continuing to unfold in our own society and culture.

Patroclus · 15/02/2019 11:11

YES! its terrible. What the hell is the worship all about? all I can remember about that shite is 'phoneyphoneyphoneyphoney'.

TortoiseLettuce · 15/02/2019 11:14

Ffs disliking a book isn’t having a superior, snobby attitude. And I think that exhibiting an ability to think critically and form an independent opinion IS something that has value.
But OP didn’t say she was proud of her child for thinking critically. She said she was proud that he validated her opinion that the book was a white boy whinging. Imo not something to be proud of, especially when expressed in such a racist fashion.

And for someone who apparently sets so much store by kindness, you’ve been needlessly unkind on this thread.
I never said I was kind. Or that I give a shit about kindness. I pointed out that it would be a reasonable thing to take pride in.

drivingmisspotty · 15/02/2019 11:14

@PineapplePower I was about to mention On the Road as well. I couldn’t stand that either but yes can also detach that it is a seminal work of literature.

But who gets to define what makes a ‘seminal work of literature’? Bridget Jones (which I read about the same time) spoke a lot more to me than On The Road, probably because I identified more closely with her.

(Tbh I wouldn’t call Bridget Jones ‘seminal’ either as I don’t feel like it is clever enough with language but I do think it represents a cultural/social moment in the same way as On The Road).