Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Sigaromanzia t1_ixqoy9f wrote

Reply to comment by mustyHead in I love The Catcher in the Rye by zak_zman

I read it in high school and he just came off as extremely immature who had an inflated sense of worth/superiority that eventually implodes at the end, even for a 10th grader at the time.

I didn't read it with the context of how well loved the book was or how famous it was, so I didn't feel the need to tear the book down. It just wasn't very interesting at a time when teenage angst was in every movie since the mid 80's.

What I do take from it, with context, is that it was one of the first, if not the first, to put teen angst to words. So from that perspective I can see where it was totally different.

I've seen the same with John Hughes movies with younger kids. They don't get it when they've seen a hundred cookie cutter Netflix teen movies or books, but it was really Hughes who hit the teenage experience on film before it became a popular genre to make teens human VS caricatures.

4

kiravonconcrete t1_ixqzu2m wrote

Hahaha, first line. Yeah, that’s the point.

2

Sigaromanzia t1_ixr8rzq wrote

I get that's the point, lol, he's an angsty teen without the emotional tools or support system.

His only redeeming quality (shown to us in the book} is he understands the innocence of kids. Otherwise it's just a pretty boring story with a character I don't really care for, and am not given a reason to care for until his breakdown at the very end.

Riffing here: seeing his struggle after his breakdown would likely have been the interesting story. In reality most kids like him never reach the point of a breakdown and just remain annoying.

2