Why, Mr Caulfield

All right then. I read Baka-Raptor’s post about Catcher in the Rye earlier today, and as I’m taking a break from the Zelda Marathon — which you folks should be watching, and possibly donating to — I thought I would give you my take on the whole thing. It’s going to be weird, though, and might not qualify under the strictest terms of the concept.

Why? I’ve never read Catcher in the Rye. And, if I have my way, I never will.

Yes, I’m sure you’re puzzled. Give me a few more moments of your time before you decide I’m even crazier than you’d thought.

I didn’t read Catcher in high school, which is where a lot of people get exposed to it. I didn’t do a lot of reading out of a sense of rebellion — which is where a lot of angry people get exposed to it (that’s a joke, there… mostly). I first heard more about it than the title in college, but still never had to read it for a class. At this point, by the way, I’ve completed two English programs, and I’m halfway through a third, so I’ve done a lot of reading for classes.

There’s a whole chain of affairs here. First, Salinger’s books aren’t in line with my specific interests — and this is, mind you, coming from someone who reads Austen and Shakespeare for fun, so I do enjoy “the classics,” sometimes. I just never heard anything about Salinger that made his work sound entertaining to me, and as we went over a few days ago, that’s basically how I think reading works.

Then I read a little about Salinger at some point. It turns out that, after Salinger stopped publishing his work, he told his publisher that he had put a completed novel into a safety deposit box. If the publisher ever revealed anything about him, Salinger, he would publish the book with another company.

This is his right, of course, and I don’t mean to say he shouldn’t have his privacy. I’ve never been fully capable of explaining why this bothers me so much. I think it has to do with how he’s trading on the idea that the company would be so desperate, so hungry, for more of his work that they’d willingly let him blackmail them — because, as I said, he stopped publishing, so if the company does as asked, they still won’t get to publish that book. I don’t like the idea of any author thinking he or she can do that sort of thing. It horrifies me that anyone would have had the idea, let alone gone through with it.

Never mind several months ago, when I read At Home in the World by Joyce Maynard. Maynard is a non-fiction writer who is famous, among other things, for having an affair with Salinger when she was eighteen and he was fifty-something. At Home in the World is Maynard’s memoir, so a decent portion of the book is devoted to their relationship. Salinger is, it turns out, pretty much a dick. Now, usually the author’s personality doesn’t affect me too much when it comes to reading their work. I like Orson Scott Card’s writing, and some of his recent political stances worry me very much. But no matter, he’s a great writer. I have liked writers more after meeting them; this was the case with Salvatore, Maynard, and a few others, it’s late, I can’t remember names.

If you’ve been kind enough to bear with me this long, I’ll try to make sense of all this. What am I meaning to talk about, you’re probably wondering, if not Catcher in the Rye? Well, I can still talk about the book — as an entity — without having read it.

This book creates ripples in society as it moves. It’s not that old, really. Wikipedia says it was first published in 1951. Conspiracy theories have risen up around it, like how it’s supposedly used to trigger hypnotic episodes in sleeper assassins. There was a movie several years ago that featured this plot in it — imagine my worry when part of the supposed hypnosis is that the subject buys a copy of Catcher in the Rye whenever they see it. Why was I worried? I have a friend who buys copies of Catcher in the Rye all the time. Wacky.

So maybe you can see where I’m going. What anime would you assign the same sort of value as Catcher in the Rye? There are a few. But let’s consider that the book is relatively recent, hyped for its deep meaning — and, as I said, I haven’t read it, but I know what it’s about, and come on, alienation? The stofy of the Buddha is a story of alienation, in certain contexts. Alienation isn’t a particularly juicy, rare tidbit of literary work, but the way in which Catcher in the Rye approaches it has captured the hearts of many. It’s also questionable, according to some — I believe Catcher in the Rye tops many attempted-banning lists.

Okay. So, what anime, you hopefully wonder at this point, am I driving at?

Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I’m sure none of you are surprised.

What helps link these two, for me personally, is that I resisted watching Eva for a few years. Not for any reason as deep-seated as those I’ve outlined here already, but because I felt it would probably depress me a good deal. I was not wrong, by the way.

Eva has the kind of cultural clout I’ve been talking about. It tackles philosophical subjects, but in a simplified, easy-to-digest way. It helps that it features the same kind of angry youth alienated theme as CitR, which sells it to the emo kids. I’ve seriously had people tell me it handles Christian myth in a unique way. These statements are usually made in the tone of voice that tries to put meaning behind the choice to couple the words “Christian” and “myth” in close proximity. That is, these people are usually pretty upset with their upbringing.

I’m not dissing the show, by the way. I like Black Sabbath, and they were really popular with kids who wanted to latch onto something that went against their upbringings. That’s fine, no problem.

What I’m trying to get at here — and I’m pretty tired, by the way, so I’m not sure how well I’m succeeding — is that Eva and CitR wield a kind of cultural force that is felt by people who aren’t fans, who haven’t even read/watched the stuff. I finally watched Eva, and I’m glad I did. I liked it. I didn’t fall in love with it, but it was good. I was excited by the news of the movie project, and the first one was quite good — I think I blogged it on here several months ago. But I didn’t watch it for a while after becoming aware of it; several friends said I should watch it. So I was aware of it in the same aggressive way that I am aware of CitR now, even though I still haven’t read the book.

This isn’t marketing, by the way. Salinger famously hates selling out, though, according to Maynard’s memoir, he defines selling out as, you know, selling work. I guess he can get away with it because he sold work, but no longer does so? Well, whatever. Both works in question have, through a confluence of authorial skill, appeal to certain core interests, luck, timing, and exposure, become living forces of their own. It’s much like Pink Floyd — each new generation “discovers” Eva, “discovers” CitR; they’re not handed down in the same ways other works are. And that makes them fascinating subjects.

And like Pink Floyd, they might be so popular because so many people were high in their basements when they first tried them out (I’m joking again, there, see?).