Episode Details

The Catcher in the Rye Ch. 16.2 | Banned Books Comedy Podcast

Holden goes to Central Park looking for Phoebe, helps a little girl tighten her skate, walks all the way to the Museum of Natural History remembering every detail from his childhood field trips, and then does something nobody expected — he won't go inside. This is the chapter where Salinger finally shows you what the whole book is about.

Banned Camp is a comedy podcast where we read banned books chapter by chapter—we don't read ahead, so you're discovering the story with us.

Things To Listen For:

• Holden asking a random kid on a bench if she knows Phoebe — and Jennifer pointing out that's the most kid move in the entire book
• The skate key moment: "you could put a skate key in my hand 50 years from now in pitch dark and I'd still know what it is"
• A detour into whether Trump's animatronic at Disney's Hall of Presidents was actually a repainted Hillary Clinton figure — Robot investigates
• Jennifer's observation that Holden isn't what he was anymore and doesn't know what he's becoming
• Dan connecting the dots: trying so hard not to be phony is its own kind of phony
• The glass case passage — one of the most important paragraphs in the entire novel

Why was The Catcher in the Rye banned? Sixteen chapters in and the hosts still can't find a single thing worth banning. What they did find is a teenager standing outside a museum he used to love, unable to go in, because going in would prove he's not the same kid anymore. The real threat of this book isn't language or behavior — it's a kid admitting that growing up is terrifying, and no adult in his life has noticed.

If this is your first episode, you're fine starting here. Our fact-checking Robot catches you up fast, then we read the next chapter (spoilers).

Banworthy to Bingeworthy:
If you're looking for more great podcasts, check these out:

• Dateline Presents: Trace of Suspicion — A young Marine and the woman who didn't care about convention made a life together. Then one night the Marine died, and the death investigation took a wild, unexpected, and utterly bizarre turn.
• MS NOW Presents: Clock It — Simone Sanders Townsend positions herself at the intersection of culture and politics, breaking down what's happening in the news so you can start to clock it too. New episodes drop Thursdays.

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