The book is FILLED with brilliant techniques and masterful writing. The plot is well-done and coherent. And almost all elements are functionally great.

But my criticism with the book is simply the immaturity and shallowness of the story and it’s protagonist. It’s a work dedicated to ghastly self-involvement, with a protagonist dedicated to fighting introspection and fighting personal growth and cutting the humanity out of others.

The story provides many good reasons for Holden’s unwillingness to grow or meaningfully self-criticize, like his sexual abuse, the death of his younger brother, him being bullied, his parents resenting him, etc. But all of that fails to justify Holden’s inability to be introspective and his cruelty toward the perspective and agency of others.

Only his perspective is reasonable, everyone else’s is phony. Only his intentions are pure, the rest are bastardized. Only his actions are just. Etc.

To me it’s similar to Lolita: the narrator lures you in with his justifications and personable language, and he seeks to manipulate you to his ends. But with CitR, most readers just fall for it! They accept that the means justifies the end.

It’s a narrative of unbridled selfishness and of purposeful ignorance. The world is immensely complex and the internal morality of a single person is also obviously immensely complex, let alone the morality and actions of a society, and yet, Holden seeks to simplify the world in an attempt to comfort himself, and in that attempt readers foolishly praise his critiques.

In accepting and identifying with the narrative, we narrow our perspective, instead of expanding it. We lose our own ability to self-evaluate and grow. We don’t become better people, we become worse. It’s not a good book, but not because it’s poorly written, but because it serves the reader a mirror in front of their face and tempts and teases the reader to lose focus on the world outside of what they see.

So while yes, you’ll never find a book as sincere, well-written, and meaningful as CitR, it does the reader a tremendous disservice, especially by poisoning the well against the criticism and perspective of others.

So yes, the older I get, the more I do hate CitR. The more I realize how much Holden and Salinger failed to grasp the whole of the world and of life.