Breaking The Code To The Catcher In The Rye discussion

I have been looking at the beginning of the book again because the overwhelming consensus is that this book is about a mentally depressed individual. I don't hold that view but rather see the book as an allegory about and around the themes of WW2. Two things that Holden says that I have been thinking about. One is that he hates the movies. The other is that he is a terrific liar. Since Salinger loved going to the theater and movies I think there is truth in both these statements. One he had a love hate relationship with the movies because the movies were promoting the war...propaganda pieces. And he loved them for their entertainment value in real life. His favorite movie was The Thirty-Nine Steps by Alfred Hitchcock.

Ok so I reread this on page one, "I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around Christmas."

(view spoiler)[
I was thinking about what happened around Christmas that has to do with WW2? I thought about when the US entered the war on December 7. Hitler declare war on us December 11,1941.

So what about the "madman stuff"? I looked it up on a search engine several ways and my best bet is that it relates to this movie:
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article...

If you are lucky you might find a copy on the internet.

Here is a trailer with the poem by Edna St Vincent Millay:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=h...

The poem was a play so you only get a piece of it here at the beginning of the movie and again at the end.

Here is an article that has a review of the poem and some more stanzas of the poem:

http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-19...

I especially like the last stanza because it repeats the word "catch" and reminds me of the title The Catcher In The Rye. They didn't grow wheat there, they grew rye.

Careless America, crooning a tune!—
Catch him! Catch him and stop him soon!
Never let him come here!
Think a moment: are we immune ?
Oh, my country, so foolish and dear,
Scornful America, crooning a tune,
Think. Think: are we immune?—
Catch him, catch him and stop him soon!
Never let him come here!
Ask yourself, ask yourself:
What have we done?—
Who, after all, are we?—
That we should sit at ease in the sun,
The only country, the only one,
Unmolested and free?
Catch him! Catch him!
Do not wait!
Or will you wait, and share the fate Of the village of Lidice?
Or will you wait, and let him destroy The Village of Lidice, Illinois?
Oh, catch him!
Catch him, and stop him soon!
Never let him come here! (hide spoiler)]

I have been looking at WW2 movies. I have never been interested in them before. But this one interest me-http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033873/
called Man Hunt
If you click on the author of the novel (because Holden hates the movies) you will see that Geoffrey Household was "encouraged by "Atlantic Monthly" he started to write professionally."

In chapter 2 Old Spencer kept dropping the Atlantic Monthly. Was this to represent dropping hints?

One of the reviewers of his book Rogue Male said this:
"The ultimate 'chase' novel. Gripping, absorbing and incredibly realistic. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to be chased and hunted down like a wounded animal then this is the book you should read. In my opinion it is considerably better than John Buchan's thriller The 39 Steps."

This is my next read. I am going to watch the movie also. Does anyone else have some favorite WW2 movies that were produced before 1951 and that you think may have influenced or be alluded to in the Catcher?

You know, what stood out for me in Millay's poem were the lines that immediately precede the ones you quoted:

The whole world holds in its arms today
the murdered village of Lidice;
like the murdered body of a little child
happy and innocent, caught at play,
the murdered body, stained and defiled
tortured and mangled, of a helpless child....

Very interesting. The word "catch/caught" is used throughout the poem, it looks like.

Could the book's title maybe reference this stanza, in some way?

I think you are right. The movie has another verse from the poem....and evidently it is a book. But I will try to transcribe it today.

Hitler's Madman

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitle...

The beginning of this film is a poem by

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_...

During the first world war Millay had been a dedicated and active pacifist; however, from 1940 she supported the Allied Forces, writing in celebration of the war effort and later working with Writers' War Board to create propaganda, including poetry.[25] Her reputation in poetry circles was damaged by her war work. Merle Rubin noted: "She seems to have caught more flak from the literary critics for supporting democracy than Ezra Pound did for championing fascism."[26] In The New York Times, Millay mourned the Czechoslovak city of Lidice, the site of a Nazi massacre:

The whole world holds in its arms today
The murdered village of Lidice,
Like the murdered body of a little child.[4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write...

The Writers' War Board was the main domestic propaganda organization in the United States during World War II. Privately organized and run, it coordinated American writers with government and quasi-government agencies that needed written work to help win the war. It was established in 1942 by author Rex Stout at the request of the United States Department of the Treasury.


It is interesting that she was working for the Treasury Dept.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite...