"Free Holden Caulfield" - Learning To Question Authority

In his New Yorker blog, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote last week of his high school encounter with J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye."  Hertzberg remembers the "cool" English teacher, Mr. Perkins, who assigned the book to his Suffern, NY, eleventh-grade class. A few days later, school authorities confiscated the books and the next year Mr. Perkins was gone. But the spark was lit.

As for me and my friends, we were shocked. We were hurt. But we were also wildly excited—energized to the point of exhilaration. By the end of the day the whole school knew what had happened. For weeks afterwards no one talked of anything else. It was never clear exactly why the book had been banned. The word was that there had been pressure from the school board. Too many dirty words was one reason, that was certain—all those hells and goddams that Holden sprinkles throughout his story, plus (if I’m recalling this right) one solitary “fuck.” It’s not Holden’s word. He sees it scrawled on a bathroom wall (if I’m remembering this right), and he doesn’t like it any better than our school board did. I suppose that the dirty words were sufficient to stampede the school board, but we were sure that Holden’s real offense was what the school board presumably saw as his disrespect for authority and we saw as his insistence on deciding for himself which authorities were worthy of respect and which were not.

Anyhow, our clique made as much of a fuss as we could. Pooling our pocket money, we bought a whole bunch of copies of the Signet paperback (fifty cents each). Then we set up a table just outside the school grounds and hawked them. They went quickly. Instead of just one class reading “Catcher in the Rye,” half the school read it—not as a sullenly accepted duty but as an act of curiosity and rebellion, a rite of passage, an unexpected gift. For more than a few, it was the first time in their lives they had ever read a book on their own initiative. How could they resist, once their natural enemies had deemed it unfit for their eyes (and deemed them unfit to read it)?

Calling the 1959 experience " excellent preparation for what was about to arrive: the nineteen-sixties," Hertzberg was able to pinpoint a moment when his young development took an important turn, a "question authority" event.

Mine wasn't a book (although I read "Catcher" in my teens and thought it was pretty cool), or a school board's overreaction (although the Bayonne, NJ, school board was reactionary and anti-intellectual),  or even November 22, 1963 (although I cannot ever forget that day and weekend). It was a steady diet of listening to Jean Shepherd on the radio late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. Known now mostly as the voice and writer of "A Christmas Story," Shep was the guy who corrupted the minds of hundreds of thousands of pimply know-it-all kids, and entertained many late night workers from firehouses to restaurant kitchens throughout the east coast via powerhouse New York radio station WOR. We've written about Shep before here on Waxing America. There's a great book dedicated to the genius who never quite found the success he sought. But Shep's rants did provide excellent preparation for the nineteen-sixties.

- Barry Orton

Comments

[Brian (neaguy)]

Compare the amount of space devoted to Salinger's death in the Wisconsin State Journal to that devoted to America's greatest left historian, Howard Zinn.
The Zinn obit was like one inch.

Salinger obit was two articles each about 12 column inches, one with a photo.

And then the Journal complains when students' standardized history test scores are low.

They promote ignorance of the important in their paper.

[Soon to be ex-alderman Steve]

I was likewise appalled that NPR's obituary of Zinn included a nasty audio clip from the loathsome David Horowitz (aka "D-Ho"). This was in marked contrast to the reverential treatment accorded to William F. Buckely when he died, where there was nary a mention of some of the seedier positions he espoused over the years.

Howard Zinn was a thoughtful man who promoted the simple notion that all of us (and not just the designated "Great Men of History") contributed to making America what it is today, for better or worse. I don't think he would be surprised or disappointed at the number of column inches devoted to his obituary.

[Ty O'Mara]

God bless, Howard Zinn for being courageous and truthful during his life. I suspect that he will gain popularity now that he has left us, but that may be wishful thinking. God bless Mr. Shepherd for his wit and easy style. His reputation is certainly growing as "A Christmas Story," is certain to supplant Frank Capra's classic in five to ten years--with the passing of the first wave of boomers. J.D. Salinger, however, is who I relate to best. I guess that is not something to brag about.

I learned that for fiction to be great it must be truthful. He certainly went for it in that respect. I wish I could have met him--he was courageous, also.

A question remains, who replaces these men. Since this is America, will they automatically be replaced? D

[George Hesselberg]

Jean Shepherd's radio-delivered stories - and the books that expanded on them - were inspirational to anyone who loved a good narrative and everyone who wanted to learn how to deliver one. He spoke at the Memorial Union in 1969 or 1970 and turned out to be exactly the sort of guy he sounded like on the radio.
Many of us were miffed that Zinn did not get a full obit in Madison - where his appearances always filled the halls - but it would be folly and inaccurate to judge importance by measuring column inches. I don't recall any of Zinn's comments, on WORT or in books or elsewhere, descending into snide. Gave him credibility beyond his scholarship.