And yet, not even Mr. Antollini, savvy as he is, could have imagined Holden cashing a social security check, but that is partly what the fiftieth anniversary of The Catcher in the Rye prompts us to think about. No doubt it is wiser, far wiser, to let novels stop where they, in fact, conclude, and not to play parlor games about what might, or might not, happen down a road that the fiction did not go. Easier said than done, however, when a character such as Holden Caulfield seems so life-like, and exercises such a grip on our collective imagination. The Catcher in the Rye has withstood everything that fifty years of censorship and the popular culture could throw at it. Indeed, taken together, these novels chronicle how painful it is to grow up, whether one is floating down the Mississippi or hailing a cab in midtown Manhattan.
Innocence is always under siege by con men and scoundrels, by phonies and hypocrites.
That, alas, is the world, and why we love characters who resist its corrupting force.