The book club I joined thinks 'The Catcher in the Rye' is about a rebellious teenager and I almost choked on my iced tea

I joined this local group in Portland three months ago. We read 'Catcher' last month and everyone kept saying Holden was just a whiny kid acting out. I sat there for 20 minutes before I pointed out the book is actually about grief and PTSD from his brother Allie's death. The silence was so loud. The moderator looked at me and said 'oh, I never thought of that.' Has anyone else run into a book club that missed the entire point of a classic?

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troy9774d ago

oh I never thought of that" is exactly what my buddy Mike got when his book club read Frankenstein. He showed up thinking they'd talk about the loneliness and the whole creator abandoning his creation thing. Instead they spent an hour arguing about whether the monster was scary enough by modern horror standards. Mike just sat there drinking his beer waiting for someone to mention how the creature just wanted a family. He told me later he almost walked out when someone called it a beach read. I guess deep themes get lost when people just wanna have a surface level chat.