Kazuo Uekura

Introduction

The Catcher in the Rye was published on July 16, 1951 from Little, Brown Company and it has been fascinating quite a many reader since then. Especially in the 1960s and early '70s, it rapidly gained the status as a sort of a Bible for the younger generations. The 60s and 70s were the heated seasons of political movements; Anti-Vietnam War Movement and Civil Rights Movement, for instance. It was also in this hot period of time that the generation gap between young people and their parents was considered as a serious social problem. The Catcher in the Rye was read widely among people who attempted their rebellion against, so-called, the Establishment, the conservative authority, represented by stale social customs and laws. This book was an eloquent supporter for the young people who were suffering from the emotional struggle and frustration in such a period of time. However, we should remember that The Catcher in the Rye is not written as a political and social propaganda, agitating anger among young people, but that it is nothing but a exquisitely-designed and delicate work of art. Alfred Kazin analyzes Salinger's readers just as follows;

Salinger's vast public, I am convinced, is based merely on the number of young people who recognize their emotional problems in his fiction and their frustrated rebellions in the sophisticated language he manipulates so skillfully. It is based perhaps even more on all those who have been released by our society to think of themselves as endlessly "sensitive," spiritually alone, gifted... 1

No doubt the main character Holden as well as other Holdens in his other works shared sensitive loneliness and talented delicacy with lots of his readers. That is the main reason this book has been so widely read beyond the various changes of social and political situations. More than forty years have passed since its publication. It might not be an overstatement to say that The Catcher in the Rye has acquired the public recognition as classical work in the twentieth century. This book will be read beyond ages so long as there exists any lonely soul pondering over his or her inner sufferings. If we need to quote some evaluation of the writer, Ihab Hassan once said that "Salinger, of course, has written some of the best fiction of our time." 2

In this research paper, I'd like to examine how this novel was accepted and commented in the early days of its publication. It is a kind of trial to remove every additional element given to this book in the 60s and the 70s. Now let's go back to 1951 and see the original responses this book and the author received from the public.
As a very interesting episode full of suggestions about the nervous characteristics of the writer, before the publication of the book, J. D. Salinger had already left the States for the trip to England. Ian Hamilton comments on his trip of his escape abroad like this;

By the time The Catcher in the Rye was published, Salinger had left for Britain, to avoid any further involvement in the marketing of his imaginated friend: The prospect of seeing Holden anatomized in the public prints must have been daunting indeed for the parent-author who had nurtured the boy's delicate sensitivity for a decade; it was a kind of separation. In Britain, Salinger did all the usual touristy things: Shakespeare country, Wordsworth country, Bronte country, and so on. He visited Dublin and the Hebrides. The whole adventure lasted two months - long enough, he believed, for him to make sure of missing the worst of whatever was in store for him, and Holden Caulfield. 3

It might be quite unusual that any writer should be so excessively afraid of the comments given to his book. If he is disturbed so much by the publication of his book, he shouldn't publish any of his work at all. Once published, it is quite natural that people should say various things about the work. His sensitivity is almost a sort of morbid withdrawal into his own world, and this tendency of seclusion foretells what will happen in his course of life as a writer and a person. Totally digressive as it might be, his latest picture was taken very shrewdly or nastily "by a pair of intrepid photographers", and published in Time on May 2, 1988. The article, with a photo of old and sensitive-looking Salinger (actually he was 69 years old then), wheeling a grocery cart in front of a supermarket in Cornish, New Hampshire, reports that "Salinger made no secret of his displeasure, chastising the lensmen as he headed for Toyota pickup truck." Sorry to say, it is inevitable that his reclusive nature like a hermit causes more curiosities among people who want to know about his "increasingly insular" life which is completely "eluding interviewers and photographers."
In 1997 after a long silence, J.D. Salinger published or, it might be better to say, "republished" Hapworth 16, 1924 in the form of a book. This work had been originally brought out in The New Yorker more than 30 years ago. (The New Yorker XLI, June 19, 1965, pp.32-113.)　Michiko Kakutani in New York Times reviews his new but old book rather bluntly just as follows;

In fact, with ''Hapworth,'' Mr. Salinger seems to be giving critics a send-up of what he contends they want. Accused of writing only youthful characters, he has given us a 7-year-old narrator who talks like a peevish old man. Accused of never addressing the question of sexual love, he has given us a young boy who speaks like a lewd adult. Accused of loving his characters too much, he has given us a hero who's deeply distasteful. And accused of being too superficially charming, he has given us a nearly impenetrable narrative, filled with digressions, narcissistic asides and ridiculous shaggy-dog circumlocutions.
In doing so, however, Mr. Salinger has not only ratified his critics' accusations of solipsism, but also fulfilled his own fear that one day he might ''disappear entirely, in my own methods, locutions, and mannerisms.'' This falling off in his work, perhaps, is a palpable consequence of Mr. Salinger's own Glass-like withdrawal from the public world: withdrawal feeding self-absorption and self-absorption feeding tetchy disdain. 4

As she points out above, Salinger's solipsism has long been the critics' target of blame, and what is still more lethal in the life of this writer is the fact that his reclusive life, "Mr. Salinger's own Glass-like withdrawal from the public world," according to Michiko Kakutani, resulted in the falloff or the decline in his creativity as a writer. Now self-absorbed J.D. Salinger is an old man with a look of "tetchy disdain" toward the public. Probably it is up to us readers to decide whether we call his seclusion the matter of his privacy which is desperately indispensable for J.D. Salinger to keep his mental balance as a person or just the escapism and the abandonment of social relationship and responsibility as a writer which only intensifies his solipsistic and self-absorbed attitude. Anyway, one thing, at least, might be clear. J.D. Salinger can create his work only confining himself in his singularly lonely life insulated from the world. Otherwise, he couldn't have continued to write any book that affords to colorfully and delicately characterize J.D. Salinger's world.

Time, Newsweek, New York Times, and Saturday Review of Literature

Now let's go back to the main story of the subject. In spite of his anticipation of harsh opinions, his first novel was rather warmly welcomed by the public with applause. We can find three articles on The Catcher in the Rye dated July 16, 1951. Two of them are from magazines, Time and Newsweek, and the other one is from New York Times. Besides these three, I also would like to examine the article in Saturday Review of Literature dated July 14, 1951.

Time's article under the title of "With Love & 20-20 Vision" praises this book, saying that The Catcher in the Rye is "his tough-tender first novel" written "with love, brilliance and 20-20 vision." No doubt, 20-20 vision here means J. D. Salinger's clear-cut description of the complex feelings of Holden Caulfield, who is wandering back and forth on the boundary between the adolescent and the adult world.
This article also points out that this book "deals out some of the most acidly humorous deadpan satire since the late great Ring Lardner." Salinger's or Holden's deep insight into the "phonies" of the world might turn into the acute satire against the world, but his "deadpan satire" includes some humorous aspects, too. It is probably because of two reasons.
One reason is that "a lanky, crew-cut 16, well-born Holden" is too seriously attacking the phony world almost to the extent that he looks completely paranoiac about his own spiritual purity. The more eagerly he tries to protect himself from the rotten and, therefore in a sense, mature world, the more comical and funny he looks to the eye of the adult readers. What are you so worried about any way, Holden? Unsympathetic readers hardly understand the emotional struggle Holden is suffering in this story. Even the readers, who share Holden's sensitivity, sometimes feel that he is a Don Quixote making a dash at the enemy "several times too large for him."
It is Ihab Hassan who first indicated the similarity between Don Quixote and the outsiders Salinger created. Ihab Hassan explains just as follows;

The response of these outsiders and victims to the dull or angry world about them is not simply one of withdrawal: it often takes the form of a strange, quixotic gesture. The gesture, one feels sure, is the bright metaphor of Salinger's sensibility, the center from which meaning drives, and ultimately the reach of his commitment to past innocence and current guilt. (Italics mine) 5

We are apt to look over the aggressive element Holden displays in the book, but he is not always withdrawing into his own world; for instance, we should remember the scene where he tries to attack snobbish Stradlater who neglects and disgraces "past innocence" symbolized in his dead younger brother, Allie, and Jane Gallagher who leaves all her kings in the back row when playing checkers. (Chapter 4)
The other reason of the comical nature of this story comes from the fact that "he talks a lingo as forthright and gamy in its way, as a soldier's." His depiction of the people around him is really sharp and exactly to the point. He sometimes ridicules them too forthrightly. Also we should remember that his "lingo" brought about the problem of inspection and freedom of expression in some states of the U.S.
The writer of this article concludes that "Novelist Salinger himself" may well be "the prize catch" for U.S. readers because he deeply "understands an adolescent mind without displaying one." This last conclusion might be dubious today, for we know his almost morbid seclusion from the outside world as I pointed out before.

Newsweek's article, under the title of "Problem Boy", introduces the main plot of the book, and it describes as "Epic Loneliness" what Ihab Hassan called the quixotic gesture. This article doesn't contain any sharp literary insight into the book, but it touches Pency Prep in Agerstown, Pa which Holden was attending and now he is leaving. Of course, Pency Prep is an imaginary preparatory school and no school under that name exists in the U.S. But Pency Prep is generally thought to be based on the military school, Valley Forge Military Academy near Wayne, Pennsylvania, which J.D.Salinger enrolled in September, 1934. (This academy's panoramic view of campus can been seen now on the Web: http://www.vfmac.edu/)
The motto of Pencey Prep. was "Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men." And that of Valley Forge is "The mission is to educate young men to be fully prepared to meet their responsibilities, alert in mind, sound in body, and considerate of others, and to have a high sense of duty, honor, loyalty, and courage. Valley Forge fosters these goals and gives them structure through the values found in military discipline." Instead of 1888, Valley Forge Military Academy was established in 1928. Ian Hamilton, comparing two mottoes quoted above, remarks 'Pencey, it will be recalled, boasted of "molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young man."' Do you feel any similarity?
As Ian Hamilton comments on this enrollment, it is rather difficult to imagine why J.D. Salinger's parents "would send him to a military boarding school knowing his traits and sensitive personality." But it is rather easy to imagine his parents' discipline eventually ends up leaving a sort of trauma on young Salinger's mind. After being expelled from Pency Prep, Holden returns to New York and sneaks into his family's apartment at midnight. He wakes up his sister Phoebe and she notices that Holden has got kicked out of school again and reproaches him as follows;

'Daddy'll kill you.'
Boy, she really gets something on her mind when she gets something on her mind.
'No, he won't. The worst he'll do, he'll give me hell again, and then he'll send me to that goddam military school…' (Italics mine) 8

There is no clear statement in the book that Holden used to be in the military school. This part might be a curious mixture of reality and fiction in Salinger's world and it betrays what a distasteful experience it might have been for this young writer to board and study at Valley Forge.

New York Times is very sympathetic with the main character of Holden Caulfield, saying that "Holden is bewildered, lonely, ludicrous and pitiful. His troubles are not of his own making but of a world that is out of joint. There is nothing wrong with him that a little understanding and affection, preferably from his parents, couldn't have set right. ... His minor delinquencies seem minor indeed when contrasted with the adult delinquencies with which he is confronted." This article also refers to the speech used in the book and praises that "Mr. Salinger's rendering of teen-age speech is wonderful: the conscious humor, the repetitions, the slang and profanity, the emphasis, all are just right." As the final judgement, the article concludes that "Certainly you'll look a long time before you'll meet another youngster like Holden Caulfield, as likable and, in spite of his failings, as sound." If we try to find out some negative comments in this very favorable, almost to the extent of 'indulgent', review of the book, the writer of the article suggests that "it may be he has a tendency to generalize from too little evidence." If we probe into this point more deeply, we will probably come to the problem of 'maturity' or 'immaturity' of Holden and Salinger himself. I think, however, this article has no such kind of deep insight, or it avoids, at least, such a complicated argument.

Two days before the bringing out of the book, we also can find one of the earliest and most profound reviews published in Saturday Review of Literature (July 14, 1951 pp.12-13) by Harrison Smith. He praises the book rather comically as "a remarkable and absorbing novel" "which may serve to calm the apprehensions of fathers and mothers about their own responsibilities" of bringing up children, for these days their devotion is often resulted in "the restlessness and bewilderment of our young men and boys" toward their elders and the adult world in general. Besides his high appraisal, Harrison Smith never forgets to point out the crucial feature or the lack, if you want to call it so, of this book that "does not attempt to explain why all boys who dismay their elders have failed to pass successfully the barrier between childhood and young manhood." Probably we readers are left alone to guess why after reading this "profoundly moving" and "disturbing book." He also says that "it is pathetic rather than tragic, and it is not hopeless." We must think why and how it is not hopeless, too.
No doubt Holden is suffering from "his moral revulsion", exactly as Harrison Smith points out, "against anything that was ugly, evil, cruel, or what he called 'phoney'." He is hesitating to step into the adult world full of phonies, and tries to find out some salvation in "the innocence of the very young, in whom, he saw reflected his own lost childhood." His childhood is already becoming 'lost'; his age, 16 years old actually, won't allow him to remain in the innocent world of children. However, his attempt to see his own innocent childhood reflected in the children in general leads him to "a special kind of fall, a horrible kind," as one of his former teachers tells him. Probably he should notice that his general idea of "innocence of children" is meaningless and that his emotional revulsion against the phoney adult world in general is also what his too immature personality leads him to. His salvation comes from a different way, that is, his younger sister Phoebe "who in the end undoubtedly saved him from suicide." Harrison Smith describes the enchanting character of Phoebe, saying that "there are few little girls in modern fiction as charming and lovable as his sister, Phoebe."
Harrison Smith's final suggestion to readers is that The Catcher in the Rye is "a book to be read thoughtfully and more than once." However, his comment on Holden is very cool and filled with a sense of detachment which refuses any doting sympathy for him when concluding that "It is about an unusually sensitive and intelligent boy; but, then, are not all boys unusual and worthy of understanding?" This is a very well-balanced critique of the book in the early days, isn't it?

Some Negative Comments in The Christian Science Monitor

Most of the early reviews welcomed J. D. Salinger's first novel, The Catcher in the Rye, but there are, of course, a few nasty comments on it, too. One of these examples is the review in The Christian Science Monitor (July 19, 1951). It judges that the book should be kept out of reach of children, saying that "A sixteen-year-old schoolboy, Holden Caulfield tells the story - with the paradoxical result that it is not fit for children to read." It also attacks the writer Salinger himself, commenting that "It is hard to believe that a true lover of children could father this tale." It also laughs at Holden cynically, calling him "the clown, villain and even, moderately, the hero of this tale." This review doesn't show any deep insight or sympathy toward the emotional struggle Holden is confronting, and gives us only a malignant remark that "He is as unbalanced as a rooster on a tightrope." It also refers to the narrative in the book, saying "Holden's dead-pan narrative is quick-moving, absurd, and wholly repellent in its mingled vulgarity, naivete, and sly perversion." Anyway we can't find anything constructive and imaginative in this stereotyped mockery of the work.

Conclusion

As a conclusion of this research paper, I'd like to talk about the author himself and Holden again, referring to the article published in Saturday Review of Literature under the title of "The Author" (July 14, 1951 by Kathleen Sproul). This article emphasizes the particular point that J. D. Salinger was always nothing but a writer himself, saying that "though J(erome) D(avid) Salinger has done a variety of things and traveled to a variety of places the most significant pattern is that he is a writer - constantly, concentratedly"; in his military school days "at night, hooding flashlight under the bedcovers, he wrote stories." He kept on writing stories and neither "rejection slips" from magazines nor "successful sales" of his early short stories "did not deflect his intention" to continue his work. Even the war and his life in the Army failed to discourage his creative disposition of writing; "he did his job in it (the war), yet managed to keep on building that own country of the mind, by the typewriter if one were near, by hand if not." Probably the most gifted of artists have their "own country of the mind" where they can let their imagination bloom and play freely without any hindrance from their "progressively platitudinous and lonely" lives. It is the bliss promised only for talented people.
Holden Caulfield, Kathleen Sproul suggests, "had been around for a long time, as imagined personality, as trial short-story subject." She doubts that "Holden is (or was) J. D. Factually," but in his inner world of imagination as a writer, no doubt, "Holden must be a nearly interchangeable brother in search for integrity and his own approach to writing." Her interpretation of the protagonist of the book suggests to us readers the possibility to find various elements common both to Holden and to the writer himself. Therefore, Holden's success or failure to search for "integrity" is thought to have very much to do with the writer's own quest for integrity or, in my words, maturity as a writer and a person.
What does Sproul mean when she says "integrity?" She hints to us that "the book, pages 49-54" will explain the meaning of her passage above clearly. If I am correct, what is written in the referred pages of The Catcher in the Rye, originally published by Little Brown & Co. and fortunately still in print, is about Holden's dead younger brother Allie. What she called "a nearly interchangeable brother" is literally Allie himself. Holden talks about Allie just as follows;

He got leukemia and died when we were up in Maine, on july 18, 1946. You'd have liked him. He was two years younger than I was, but he was about fifty times as intelligent. He was terrifically intelligent. His teachers were always writing letters to my mother, telling her what a pleasure it was having a boy like Allie in their class. And they weren't just shooting the crap. They really meant it. But it wasn't just that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest, in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody. People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie never did, and he had very red hair. 9

Intelligent, warm, and placid personality of dead Allie is "integrity" itself that Holden is searching for. We remember that Holden bought a red cap in New York and he was always wearing the cap. Holden's red cap is a charm associated with Allie's red hair. No doubt, in this sense, they are "nearly interchangeable" as Sproul pointed out. But a great question might be left behind. Allie is already dead. Holden is trying desperately to interchange with, or reincarnate, his dead brother. This unachievable attempt of interchange with the lost, inevitably, tears Holden away from the present living world and leads him to the past dead world. His tendency of committing suicide or his latent wish for death might be produced and understood in this way. His search for integrity or maturity doesn't seem to be within his reach in the present world unless he changes his way of quest. We can understand Holden's and J. D. Salinger's sensitivity and their revulsion of the corrupted world very well, but "crying for the moon" might not be a good solution for their problems.

Notes

1. Kazin, Alfred. "J.D. Salinger: 'Everybody's Favorite,'" Alfred Kazin Contemporaries. (Little Brown and Company,1962), pp.239-240

2. Hassan, Ihab. "J. D. Salinger: Rare Quixotic Gesture," Radical Innocence. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 259.

3. Hamilton, Ian. In Search of J. D. Salinger. (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 116.

4. Kakutani, Michiko "From Salinger, A New Dash Of Mystery" (New York Times, February 20, 1997, Late Edition - Final)

5. Hassan, Ihab. "J. D. Salinger: Rare Quixotic Gesture," Radical Innocence. (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 262-263.

6. Hamilton, Ian. In Search of J.D. Salinger. p.19

7. Ibid.

8. Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company 1951), p.216

9. Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company 1951), pp. 49-50

Bibliograpy

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951.

Kakutani, Michiko. "From Salinger, A New Dash Of Mystery." New York Times, February 20, 1997

Smith, Harrison. "Manhattan Ulyses, Junior." Saturday Review of Literature. July 14, 1951.

Sproul, Kathleen. "The Author." Saturday Review of Literature. July 14, 1951.

"With Love & 20-20 Vision." Time. July 16, 1951.

"Problem Boy." Newsweek. July 16, 1951.

Longstreth, Morris T. "New Novels in the News: The Catcher in the Rye." July 19, 1951.

Kazin, Alfred. "J. D. Salinger: 'Everybody's Favorite.'" Alfred Kazin Contemporaries. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1962.

Hassan, Ihab. "J. D. Salinger: Rare Quixotic Gesture," Radical Innocence. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973.

Hamilton, Ian. In Search of J. D. Salinger. New York: Random House, 1988.
"People." Time. May 2, 1988.