Letters from the Closet by Amy Hollingsworth

Author:Amy Hollingsworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books

Fall and Fall and Fall

In the most recent dream I had about John, I enter a bookstore and find a first-edition copy of The Catcher in the Rye. There’s an English teacher in The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s former English teacher, a witty intellectual and one of the few adults Salinger’s anti-hero admires. Holden gets kicked out of prep school and while on the lam he goes to see Mr. Antolini in the middle of the night. Mr. Antolini warns Holden, tells him what he envisions Holden’s life will be like when he’s thirty. He is headed for a fall, a terrible kind of fall. And the fall happens to people, Mr. Antolini explains, who are looking for something their surroundings can’t give them. It’s a terrible fate; Holden will fall and fall and never know when he hits the bottom.

Mr. Antolini doesn’t only stand out in The Catcher in the Rye because he is one of the few adults (maybe the only adult) Holden trusts. He doesn’t only stand out because he gives great advice or warns Holden what his life will look like at thirty. He’s also famous for what happens next. Holden falls asleep on the couch and wakes up with Mr. Antolini sitting on the floor beside him, with his hand on Holden’s head, petting him. He says he is just there, admiring. Holden gets dressed, flees the apartment in the middle of the night. There is still wild debate about Mr. Antolini’s intentions. He was being fatherly, some say. He was simply showing his affection, others argue. In the literary world, the jury is still out.

But I think the answer is in how it made Holden feel. He wonders if he overreacted (maybe Mr. A. was only patting my head) and then says: “The more I thought about it, though, the more depressed and screwed up about it I got.” That’s the point: no matter what John’s intentions, his admiration caused the same reaction in his former student. That’s what I can’t get past.

Like Mr. Antolini, John was a great teacher, cared deeply for his students, gave great advice—and made a terrible mistake. He wasn’t thinking about what was best for his young ward. It was love improperly expressed. He suffered for it. Suffered terribly. But so did others because of him. He went mad with love trying to keep himself sane with love.

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