| Why we all need to be rebels |
| Friday, 05 February 2010 22:30 |
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At school my favourite book was J. D, Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. Holden Caulfield’s voice seemed to me, back then, to puncture the pomposity and artificial sense of superiority affected by adults and act like a trumpet call for keeping it real. J. D. Salinger passed away this year and it’s apt that we look at his most memorable creation.
Written, originally, for adults it has since found a home in the heart of teenage rebellion, probably because its message that pretence, pomposity and artificiality are there to be punctured, sits uncomfortably with many adults as does its message that money, education and a well-to-do background do not make for a trouble-free existence. Caulfield is a rebel in the novel but for me the fascination has always been why. Why would a kid with a privileged background, a successful, stable family, a high-flyer brother and a sister who loves him feel so broken, so ready to disappear? The book gives us answers in the link and pain Caulfield has with and for his dead brother. Without turning this message into a literature appreciation class it’s good to focus on two points. First that being real is really hard to do. It means that we get rid of pretence and understand that our affectations are only veneers hiding, many times, the fact that we do not really want to do things from the heart and want, instead, to be left alone, to have an easy life. And second that what makes each of us unique is not who we are in terms of education, experiences or background, millions of others share these things with us, but our own personal sense of pain. How we deal with these two things is what makes each of us a person worth knowing. It’s what defines us as a person contributing something deep to the world. It’s what marks us as truly unique. In Salinger’s novel what made the most impression on me was that when Caulfield was planning to run away and he shared that with his peers they only told him to think of the consequences. It was only his sister who simply packed up and went with him. Helping somebody, truly helping, means that we are willing to take their hand, not give them a pamphlet. Salinger’s dead, having lived a rebel in many ways, shunning the publishing industry which made him and the society which idolised him. This weekend, wherever you are and whatever you are doing think that there is true value in offering your hand to someone and there is no substitute for keeping it real. Be safe. Have fun. 
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