For those of you that don't know, JD Salinger, the author best known for Catcher in the Rye, died recently. What does that have to do with you or me? I hear you ask. Well, I didn't pay much attention to it either until I read the comments about a blog expressing fondness for the book. Some agreed with the writer but others were more scathing about the central character. Holden Caulfield, calling him a whinging, spoiled, angsty white middle-class brat.
Now, it wasn't the accusation of him being spoilt that annoyed me; it was this assumption that white, middle-class kids (and those in their 20s, like me) have nothing legitimate to complain about. Which is bullshit. Even if home life is a relative paradise, there's still school to contend with and god help you if you're different in any way or shy. Now, I'll admit, it's been over ten years since I left school, but only now am I learning to leave behind the paranoia and insecurity fostered in me at that age. It took moving 12,000 miles away.
My brother applied the logic 'yeah you had it hard in school but that was years ago so you should just toughen up'. To me, this sounds suspiciously like the stiff upper lip approach so entrenched in the British stereotype.
I was discussing this with a friend of mine the other day, who comes from a similar background to me, and we came to the conclusion that part of it is because we're deep thinkers. But that's not even the whole of it: an old boyfriend of mine, a rational, scientific kind of guy, reasoned that I had everything I wanted so what did I have to complain about. However, you see, insecurities are tenacious things – they hold on like squid.
From both mine and my friend's experience, school was generally not a great experience. We were different, not particularly confident to begin with and just never fit in most of the time. We weren't into the right things or didn't have the right social graces that allow you to fit in. You'll know what I mean. Some of us have just learnt to put a mask on or push it down, but it colours everything from relationships to working life. For me, for the longest time, there was just this feeling that I was weird and that wasn't a positive thing.
To return to Holden Caulfield, as a parting shot, what I want to know is, why shouldn't he be disillusioned and have the right to complain about it just because he's a teenager. After all, adults do it all the time.
