Grow Up, Young Man!

Maybe we should read the classics more often.

Book group last night. Six women. Five questions of "Why is this a Classic?" and "Why do we have teens read this?" (One woman arrived late. But she wasn't asking those questions anyway.)

Most said they didn't really understand the book until they realized how depressed Holden was. Another woman brought up bipolar as I considered, but really, I don't think we can say bipolar to be exact, but Holden is seriously depressed and having a manic episode. Very depressed, very out of control. So the ending is bleak because, given the time and culture, there isn't much hope of him getting proper treatment. Someone mentioned the self-medication with all that alcohol. Without proper treatment -- that's going to come right back.

So why do we have high school kids read this? One woman -- the one who brought up the bipolar and self-medicating -- said that she had read it as a young teen and thought then it was an adventure story. Hmmm. Just like Huck Finn is an adventure story. There's a thought. When the American Character group discussed Huck Finn recently, many were struck by how challenging it would be for teens. That the themes of race and the characterization of Jim were so brutal and needed perspective. Many were also struck by how awful Tom behaved. Tom in popular culture is not such an awful bully and brute; he's a fun kid who likes adventure! I don't believe in censoring books to kids, but I have often gotten uncomfortable when kids are reading books as adventure stories but missing --- on the surface --- the book's darker themes. Are they absorbing themes without consciously evaluating them? Think Jane Eyre as a romance, even though if today our BFF were involved with a Rochester, we ought to be very worried for her.

We had a lively discussion. One woman had researched themes on the internet and another woman bought the Spark Notes. Wow, often we discuss a book for all of ten minutes! These women were serious last night, they wanted to understand, to think! So a theme that resonated the most was that Holden really does not want to grow up. His ambivalence about sex, his issues with "applying himself" and on and on. Sure, this would resonate with teens, this does make for legitimate reason for teens to read it. Teens are ambivalent about growing up. Independence comes at a cost. Holden seems to have had a decently affluent childhood, but then his younger brother died and he gets sent away --- as all the boys of his culture are --- to boarding school, a brutal existence with no adult protectors. When he was young, no one protected him. Now all he can think of is to protect children. (Hmm, Ender's Game)

Is it all about sex? Sparknotes would have us believe that. In a way, probably. Everything is about sex. Holden is immature in some ways, but actually seems pretty mature in other ways, in conflicting feelings about wanting sex, but with whom? Sex with someone you like --- but do girls want it? How do you know when a girl says no because they mean it or because they want it but want to be able to deny that later? Or sex with someone you don't like? That's easier, but harder. He sees his peers following this route without compunction --- just one more way in which everyone is a phoney.

I get that he wants to save kids. I get that he wants to keep them from falling off the cliff. The most vivid scene I remembered from my reading as a teen (the only scene I remembered) was him trying to erase the "Fuck You" grafiti from his sister's school. I took it on the surface, just protecting kids. But big themes go further, he wants to protect kids' sexual innocence. Is it just about sex? (ah, the joys of high school. the one woman who said they read it for high school said they never mentioned sex.)

Well, he does take those two young boys to the mummy exhibit, even though he knows it will scare them. And maybe this explains the carousel pony on the cover of my copy. When Phoebe is on the carousel he comments about how kids will attempt to get the brass ring. How it is dangerous for them to attempt this but how we just have to let them do it anyway. Then he goes home and gets help.


I am struck by how yesterday I was stuck in the depression angle. Then discussing the book, we started with depression but were able to move on and appreciate many different aspects of the book and Holden. While acknowledging the depression, we were able to view Holden's journey apart from it. Unlike the protagonist of many children's and YA novels, Holden has two parents. Two relatively normal parents. So for his journey to make sense, it comes with a different cost. I just wish I didn't get the feeling that the book says that growing up requires mental illness. Or maybe I just wish that idea didn't resonate with me so much.

America is still a pretty young nation. Are we still wrestling with growing up? With sexual maturity? Does a bear shit in the woods? This book then seems awfully prescient, given how the 50s and 60s played out.

Go West, Young Man.

Another question about Catcher in the Rye, is why did the book group facilitator (an emeritus professor of literature) choose this book as part of a series on American Character?

On one level, the answer is trivial. Holden Caufield is considered a quintessential American Character. A teen, 50's, boarding school, all popular topics. Many people know of Holden even if they haven't read the book. But is that the reason enough to include it in the list?

I suspect there's a bit more than that. I don't think it's an accident that Holden ends up in a psych ward in California. Just like Huck Finn & Jim, just like Jack Burden in All the King's Men, he doesn't fit in civilization and looks West for salvation and a place to call home. We never know if Huck and Jim make it. Jack lies around Long Beach, creates his own god -- The Great Twitch -- and goes back East where he belongs. Holden? What has California to offer him? What he needs is family, connections, support --- as well as professional psychological help. All he wants to do is save kids, but who will save him? California does have his brother, but only for an occasional visit. It doesn't have his sister Phoebe who probably needs Holden by now as much as he needs her. California implies that Holden is the problem and he can get fixed in isolation. California for therapy, chosen by his parents. How is it different from Holden's plan to run away to California, get a job pumping gas and pretend to be a deaf-mute?

Did Salinger mean to allude to Twain? Or is it just burned into the American psyche to look West to follow your dreams. Are we all a bunch of misfits out here?

Why is this a classic?

I just finished reading Catcher in the Rye, for perhaps the third time. I'm in two different book groups that are discussing it this month. Convenient for me. In one book group, we read children's and YA literature. We read a lot of newer work, but occasionally go back to a classic or two. The other book group is more erudite --- It has a theme. This year's theme is The American Character. In neither case did I have any say in choosing this book.

I really disliked the book the last times I read it, but couldn't have told you why. I found the ending so depressing, so hopeless. This time, I enjoyed reading the book. I liked the voice. I was surprised. But then, at the end, I realized why I disliked the book in the past, why I thought the ending was so depressing when other people seemed to think it was hopeful.

Here's the thing. The book is not what most people seem to think -- a teenage rite of passage, a teen facing the normal angst of growing up. The book is a first person account of a psychotic break. Manic break, I would say, but I am no expert. The signs point to mania though. Many hours without sleeping or getting tired, staying awake even after consuming a lot of alcohol. Grandiose thoughts, poor judgment with money. The hallucinations near the end when he is afraid of falling every time he steps off a curb.

Because the person having the psychotic break is a teen, because that teen is intelligent and aware and empathetic and all that, it looks like a teen event, and because he is so articulate, it looks like something readers can identify with. But it is not a teen event. It is a psychotic break from reality. You don't treat them the same way. And it's not really his first break. When his brother died, he slept in the garage and used his fist to break all the windows. And he tried to break the windshield of the car, but by then his hand was broken. So, he got hospitalized to fix the hand, but no one seems to have considered that the fractured bones were not the problem.

That's the reason I find the ending depressing. He's not being treated as someone mentally ill, he is being treated as someone who needs to grow up, to "Apply himself." That's different. He's not going to get better that way. I don't know the state of medical diagnosis and treatment for bipolar disorder or even serious depression in the late 40's early 50's when the book was written. Electroshock? Worse? We don't even have an avuncular Judd Hirsh to give us a Hollywood moment and make it all better. Holden, hater of Hollywood that he is, would have declared that phony anyway. He'd been right.

Plans

A friend just asked in email what I plan to do next week, since the teen is off school. Last year at this time we went skiing in Utah, but this year nothing nearly so exciting. As I was thinking about my list of things and what to reply, I figured this was a great opportunity to say Hi to the blog. Hi, blog!

My plans:

• Nag the teen. He must
  

1. Finish Application for next year's school dream
   
2. Do homework
3. Figure out his LA Honor's project and get cracking
4. Work on two Merit Badge requirements
5. Practice the horn. Solo & Ensemble recital is just around the corner
6. Make dinner one night and do other various chores
7. Complete paperwork on service learning hours he's accomplished so far. He needs 60 to graduate, has turned in Zero, but has actually done maybe 15. Can't get credit if he doesn't fill out the forms.
   

• Prepare the budget for a volunteer board position I've held way too long. (My term is up in December 2009!) This should have been done already. It should have been done this week, but instead the computer has been busy running thorough scans and removing viruses, thanks to the teen.
• Watch eBay. That's my first edition/first printing signed copy of Twilight. Stephenie Meyer came to All For Kids on her very first tour; we were her very first audience. There were maybe a dozen girls and women present. Our buyer really liked the book, thought it would sell, but it was hardback and brand new. We had to scramble to get the dozen people to come so the room wouldn't be deserted for this novice author. My how things have changed! Last time she came to Seattle, she talked at Benaroya and tickets sold out in about a half hour. Erika is a dear and listed it for me, as I have never figured out how to sell things on eBay.
• Nag the teen. Make him show me his application essays.
• Knit! I'd kinda lost the knitting mojo, but a knit-blogger I follow started talking about her group challenging themselves to knit a dozen sweaters in 2009. Vests and short-sleeve tops count as well, as long as they are sized for adult. It was just the challenge I needed. I had some sweater quantities of yarn in stash, plus I had my eye on some new yarn. As much as I wanted to help stimulate the economy, I could not justify yarn shopping if I wasn't knitting. I have three completed (photos below) and two more in process. Details on my ravelry projects page.
  
• Nag the teen. Remind him that merit badges are earned, not gifted.
• Take the teen to his ortho appointment.
• Provide ibuprofen and soft foods for a couple days.
• Nag the teen to practice the horn even if his mouth hurts. The recital won't wait.
• Knit some more. Maybe some lace, something different than sweaters.
• Read! I have looming deadlines for two book groups. All the King's Men and Catcher in the Rye both need to be finished in two weeks and I haven't started either. (If only I had a kindle, would make knitting and reading simultaneously much easier.)
• Consider signing up to purchase a Kindle if the eBay auction is a success.
• Try to avoid reading the news. This never works though, I can't help it and end up reading all about how bad the economy is and why and what's not being done to fix it. As someone who'd been following Krugman and CalculatedRisk and other smart, logical, rational folks, I knew this all was going to happen, but it doesn't stop me from being pissed off at everyone who let it happen.
• Maybe I should also start working on the taxes. Won't that be fun!
• Get caught up in Lost. We haven't watched any of the new episodes.

We didn't discuss the book

To be fair, I knew we weren't going to discuss the book. I don't know why I whined about it. I knew last night would be different.

Instead, we talked about Jo. Not a famous literary Jo, the book group Jo who would have turned 69 last week. She died of cancer two weeks ago. Most of us didn't know Jo that well. I liked Jo; she had a good sense of humor. She could always cajole us into enjoying a look at even more pictures of her grandkids. She helped found the book group 7 or 8 years ago and talked two of her close friends into joining. But she was a generation apart and lived across the lake; our paths didn't cross much.

For her long-time friend K --- a different story. K was with Jo last Spring when she confronted the doctor with the tough question "How much time to I have?" And heard the answer, "Six months." K saw Jo almost every day after that. So K came last night and cryed and shared and laughed and we talked about Jo and about life and death.

Book-related moment: Of the seven members attending, only two of us had read the whole book recently enough to remember it. As K talked I was struck by how much this month's book selection was appropriate. I encouraged K and the rest to read the book and suggested we discuss it next month. Hitty: Her First Hundred Years is a children's book, the Newbery Award winner for 1930. It's the first-person memoir of a doll who is, unsurprisingly, over a century old. She speaks of her adventures, her various owners, the passage of time, of fate, of loss, of acceptance, of simply being. I think it would honor Jo to read it with her memory in mind.


When I mentioned this, the other woman who'd read the book asked "What book did you read? I just read a story about a doll!" (sigh)

JRTFB

A year ago I was in two book discussion groups. Then I dropped both. One inadvertently (kept forgetting to go) and the other one after careful consideration. There's a painful story involved, but it's not my story, so not my pain to share.

In both cases, I have run into members around town and have been pleaded with to rejoin. Why? Because I'm the only one who regularly read the book and had anything of depth to say about it. They exaggerated, but not by much.

I've missed them. I'm probably forgetting how much the lack of discussion would irk me.

Tonight I will try again. Tonight I will attend the meeting of the inadvertently dropped group. We read Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field. Fascinating. Discussable (is that a word?).

The other group? No, I can't go back.