This morning, I woke up early, stumbling zombie-like out of my bedroom and towards the kitchen with my eyes still half closed. My father reached out, touched my shoulder, and stopped me with a sentence, "William Forrester's dead."
This sentence had little impact on me at first, as I haven't yet seen Finding Forrester. When I finally worked out it was a reference to this film, I thought that maybe my dad was trying to tell me that Sean Connery had died. I don't really know whether I actually didn't know what my parents were trying to tell me, or if on some level I was trying to avoid the news that I somehow intuitively knew was coming. In any case, when it finally came out that JD Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye and inspiration to angsty, disaffected teens everywhere had passed away at 91, I know that I retreated to the bathroom and didn't come out for a long time.
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like the teenager at large has lost an advocate today. I don't know whether every - or any - other teenager felt the way I did when I read Catcher in the Rye. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he didn't connect with people as much as I give him credit for. I don't know, though - Catcher was first published in book form in 1951, and, according to this article, there are still more than 200,000 copies sold every year. Books claiming to be 'the Catcher in the Rye of our generation' seem to litter the shop bookshelves. So maybe I'm right. Maybe he truly was the one and only author who could really capture the loneliness and anger which, today more than ever, is a part of adolescence.
In the beginning of 2009, I started to feel strange. Low. I remember spending weeks at a time shut away in my bedroom, just staring at the ceiling. I couldn't write, despite the horrible swirl of emotions inside of me, just waiting to find some form of release. I couldn't even read - my bookshelves are still full of books that I haven't read, or haven't finished, which I bought during that summer. I was about to start year 12, and I couldn't face the thought. Not of graduating and leaving good ol' school behind - oh no, what I couldn't quite believe was the fact that I wasn't quite done with it yet. I felt disconnected from everybody my own age - even my closest friends. The thought of the giggling, bitchy, self-obsessed, ridiculous girls that are present at every high-school made me feel physically sick with derision. I remember trying desperately to explain it to my shrink - I wanted to find somebody who I could talk with on my own level. I was tired of having to dumb down my conversation for most people my age. I wanted to find somebody who was interested in the same things I was, and wasn't over the age of 20 (I should mention - I had friends who were interested in the same things I was. But for some reason, I couldn't even feel connected with them. I can't remember why. But I thought I'd better mention it anyway - they deserve to be properly represented in this trip down memory lane.)
My shrink told me that a lot of teenagers go through a period where they feel disillusioned - where they realise that the things that teenage society is based on are superficial and, for the most part, not worth bothering with. She said that for a lot of people, this can result in depression and anxiety. She gave this phase a name - for the life of me I can't remember what she called it, and I can't ask her, because we parted ways in a rather unfriendly manner soon after this. But my point is, I remember understanding what she was saying, but not exactly being comforted - I still felt entirely alone in the teenage world. That is, until I reread The Catcher in the Rye.
I didn't 'get' Catcher at all when I first read it, at around the age of 14. I think I knew then that I'd missed something, because the book that I'd heard everybody raving about seemed to me to be nothing more than a shallow tale about a guy trying to get laid. This time around, however, the magic I'd been hearing about happened. Holden Caulfield was a apathetic, anxious, and severely depressed guy from a private school, disenchanted with the 'phony' students and teachers around him. I felt like I was reading my own life. And somehow reading it like that made me realise that I really wasn't alone - that millions of teenagers throughout the decades had felt exactly the same feelings I was going through. It was comforting beyond belief.
Like I said, maybe I'm overreacting. But all I know is that I was more affected by today's events than I was by any of the celebrity deaths that occurred in 2009. I mean, sure, he wasn't exactly in the public eye - it's been decades since he was last interviewed, and even longer since he last published a story - but somehow I'd gotten used to the idea of him being out there somewhere, typing away in a concrete bunker, hidden away from the world. And the world feels different now that he's not in it.
I wanted to share with you something that one of my friends said in response to the news of his death. I don't know whether she knew how poignant it sounded, but it struck a chord with me. So here:
"I still wonder where the ducks go."
See you around, Salinger. Nobody did angst-ridden, disaffected youths quite like you.
what glorious books. x
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