I spoke with several New York City public school English teachers, who all confirmed my suspicion that itвЂ™s not just HoldenвЂ™s identity that keeps him from resonating with younger readers вЂ“ though thatвЂ™s part of it. And once adults tell you somethingвЂ™s good, arenвЂ™t you supposed to hate it?Д«ut itвЂ™s not just girls and kids of colour who are turned off by Holden I have found that my white, male students didnвЂ™t like him either. Reading it once felt subversive now itвЂ™s a reliable presence on most curriculums. Catcher was an incendiary novel when it was first published and was banned from many school districts. Maybe hating on Holden has turned into its own form of adolescent rebellion. In my limited network of young people, Catcher is not only no longer beloved, it has become something even more tragic: uncool.Д«ut is it as simple as Electric Literature posits вЂ“ that if youвЂ™re not white, privileged and male, itвЂ™s hard to see yourself in Holden? After all, this is partly why I wrote my coming-of-age novel The Falconer, told from the perspective of a young woman in early 1990s New York. IвЂ™ve had conversations about Catcher with undergraduate students in creative writing classes IвЂ™ve taught, and every one has complained about disliking Holden. WhereвЂ™s The Catcher in the Rye for the majority of readers who are too non-young, non-white, and non-male to be able to stand listening to Holden Caulfield feel sorry for himself?вЂќ Electric Literature gave this explanation of The Catcher in the RyeвЂ™s datedness: вЂњIf youвЂ™re a white, relatively affluent, permanently grouchy young man with no real problems at all, itвЂ™s extraordinarily relatable.

This might explain why Holden Caulfield, once the universal everyteen, does not speak to this generation in the way heвЂ™s spoken to young people in the past. Angst is universal, but the content of it is particular. Teen angst, once regarded as stubbornly generic, is actually a product of each personвЂ™s unique circumstances: gender, race, class, era.

The catcher in the rye holden caulfield