What was J.D. Salinger's attitude toward The Catcher in the Rye?

Answer 1

Well no one will really know, since only he, the writer, knew and he is no longer with us. That being said, it is open to your own interpretation. Many people identify themselves with Holden Caulfield, but at the end it is revealed that he is insane. Why? He has reasonable thought processes; everything he says and does seems justified; he always has good intentions. The point is that all of us are a little insane, all of us are a little flawed. The ones of us who cannot accept that, and see everyone else as "phonies" and never see what we ourselves are, become truly insane. Each person's view seems completely right to himself, but that is never the case. Holden wants to save the kids from "falling off the cliff" or losing their innocence. But remember that Holden's view is neither possible nor realistic; he finds that life was easier back as a child with child-like innocence and thinks that all children need to enjoy it as he did. His insistence that he is not a "phony" and that society is what corrupts these children and steals their innocence doesn't make him crazy. But his inability to accept another point of view or to accept that other people accept another point of view does make him insane. That at least is just a little bit of what Salinger wanted people to see in the book. He didn't want it to be a staple story of teen angst, but he wanted it to be a lesson. To keep insisting that you and you alone are right, to never take anyone else's point of view, to wish that everyone saw it your way, and to think negatively, even violently, of those who don't see your way are all human things to do, but they are also the traits of an insane man. Salinger was trying to say that all humans are a little insane. What to do about it is up to the reader. I'm no scholar but I see the stereotypical view of this, a book trying to make fun of stereotypes, and I see why Salinger never talked much about his book. People took his cleverest statement and made it into a typical teen angst story. It seems at a passing glance to be just that, but thinking about the end of the novel makes you realize the real truth in it, we are all insane. But since we all are, who really is?