The Catcher in the Rye

When I was probably fourteen I read this book for the first time at night before bed.  I knew nothing about the actual plot of the book; only really knew that it had this reputation of being so controversial. So much so that I was even surprised that my parents allowed me to buy the book.  So each night I read about 10-20 pages, waiting to reach the point of the book that made it so infamous.  My teenage imagination was convinced it was either going to get very violent or pornagraphic.  I read and read and of course neither occurred.  And once I had finished the book I shrugged.  I liked the book but what was all the fuss about?

The Catcher in the Rye is easily and justly grouped into those objects considered timeless, however the general public's ability to appreciate those types of things is always grounded in the here and now.  Taken out of the contextual history, can Citizen Kane really be considered the greatest movie ever made?  Are the original Star Wars movies really an epic experience in science fiction?

The Catcher in the Rye is a call to arms for teenagers in angst.  And when the book was published back in 1951 teen rebellion wasn't much more then a boy's refusal to tuck in his shirt.  The most popular song of 1951 was Les Paul and Mary Ford's How High the Moon, so far in 2010 it's Ke$ha's TiK ToK.  Needless to say, today teenage angst is very much a part of the social mainstream.  Holden Caufield is no longer the champion of alienation and rebellion.  He's a parody of every teenager in America.

Sadly, Catcher in the Rye is no longer a book, it's just another pop culture item like The Dark Side of the Moon or The Rocky Horror Picture Show that young people and hipsters like because they think they're supposed to in order to be considered unique individuals.  Maybe it was the the fight to have the book banned, Salinger's self-imposed exile from the public spotlight, or it's overblown role in John Lennon's death, but Salinger's masterpiece became more about the hype that surrounds it. Is the book popular because people like it or do people like the book because it's popular? 

There will no doubt be numerous articles and commentaries in the next few days and weeks about The Catcher in the Rye's impact.  Many will say share the same story of how the book "spoke to them" during their youth.  While I have no way of proving this, I'm willing to bet that for the many who claim to hold The Catcher in the Rye so close to their hearts there are few who truely understand it in their heads. But what to I know.  I'm probably just a phony.

American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese is a graphic novel about a boy's journey in learning to deal with his cultural background.  It's one of the few graphic novels that's as much a novel as it is graphic.  A "graphic novel" is really just a more grown-up way a saying 'long comic book'.  As a boy, I never really got into comic books, but I was into comic book superheroes.  I watched the after-school cartoons, played with the action figures, and even had them on my Underoos.

It's easy to see why these costume crusaders are so well loved by kids.  Their superpowers, costumes, and alter egos are just the beginning.  They're always there when they're needed, they always make things right, and they always win in the end.  They show us what we could be if we could be anything we wanted.

There's this website called Growing Up Heroes, it's a collection of pictures of our childhood love of superheroes (1, 2, 3), back when we believed that anything was possible and telling the difference between the good guys and the bad guys was an easy thing to do.  Superheroes are fictionalized versions of the real heroes in our then young lives, the firefighters, teachers, and parents, all the people we wanted to grow up and become.  But once we do grow up those heroes many times fade away, or rather we don't view them in the same way.

It's hard to have heroes as adults.  We may feel we no longer need them.  Maybe they've disappointed us, or we've discovered all their unheroic flaws, but it is when we are grown-ups that we need to have heroes the most.  Having heroes is acknowledging that you are still a work in progress.  They are examples of who we'd like to be.  Heroes give us a goal to reach for.  And it's when we're adults that, in some capacity, someone in our lives is looking for us to be their hero.  We may not be able to teach that someone how to fly but hopefully we can show what to do when we fall.