two journeys

In high school, sometime in the second-to-last year, we had to read The Catcher in the Rye in English class. Our teacher was new to the school and novel, his approach hip and creative. He did everything differently, brought his guitar and his harmonica, and played the song of the day. We reacted with delight initially but grew tired fast, for reasons no one can now recall. It wasn't all that it was cracked up to be was probably what it was, and if you put one-and-a-half dozen jaded teenagers that want nothing more than the day to finish and school to stay behind when they shoot off into the dreams of their youth, coolness in a drab classroom can only be uncool.

By the time The Catcher was whipped out, most had long yelled a mental 'no, thanks' to the teaching methods employed in English class, and then it got worse. With the book a long list of questions and assignments was thrown at us. Characterize Holden. Define his language. Collect typical expressions. Di-da-do, this and that. It was enough to suck the last little bit of desire to follow the class (or maybe even read the book) from us students.

Even though I liked school overall and didn't have anything against the new teacher or his methods, I didn't finish reading the book. I didn't find anything in it that I could connect to. The language was strange to me and the hero's behavior bewildering. For me, school was important, and though I preferred playing football in the afternoon or drinking beer at night, I went with a clear goal of achievement and success.

Three years ago, after this scholastic success had first taken me to college, then to grad school in Utah, and finally spat me out in a forlorn town in the French Alps, I rediscovered the book. The municipal library of Grenoble had a small but respectable selection of international original-language books, among them J.D. Salinger's magnum opus, which I took home with me not expecting much.

Reading it was a mad experience. With every page the book sucked me in deeper until it read me as I had intended to read it. Every page swallowed me completely, words staccatos dashing in front of my eyes faster than I could possible follow. I listened to the sounds of my feelings, felt the juvenile despair of the main character, absorbed his immature hate for the world. Each night until I finished the book, I went to sleep in New York City, dozing off to the sound of the crazy characters and the unbelievable language.

The book is slim, just shy of 300 pages, and yet it is immense. Holden Caulfield runs through a few frantic days in New York in search of life and purpose. There's no stopping and no sleep. When the book ends, no conclusion is reached, but everything is said. A minuscule fragment of one inconsequential person's journey through life is the message, and every reader the interpreter of untold mysteries.

A while ago, I purchased a book that has a similarly hallowed standing in the literary canon of America. On the Road had been high on my list for a long time, and when I finally plucked a tattered copy from the narrow shelves of the local Oxfam store, I was stoked and dived right in. I started with enthusiasm, but my great expectations were quickly shattered, and it took me several months to finally turn the last page. There was even a moment of shock tonight when I read the last line and liked it and thought this was a good way of ending it. On the next page, Part Five started, an epilogue that no one asked for nor needed.

The book is not bad, and I certainly appreciate the maniacal writing that crescendoes towards the end with wild intensity, but it just goes on forever. As The Catcher, it stands at just under 300 pages and there's nothing substantial in it – it's all metaphors and imagination and possibilities. But while The Catcher exhausts itself with one explosive journey of a few days and packs episodes of deep meaning for those who can decipher them, On the Road goes on and on. It starts, returns, then starts again, and repeats the whole thing all over again.

I've learned from The Catcher in the Rye, more than from any other book, that the age and personal situation of the reader matter as much as the book. They must match for the experience to be momentous. With The Catcher, I got it wrong once and perfectly right the second time around. Will I read On the Road again, or have I missed my chance already?