I don’t often reread things,but when I have,
it’s proven fruitful.

I read Catcher in the Rye as a requirement in high school
and found Holden odious,
a spoiled brat who was just complaining about everything.

Then I read it the Summer after starting college,
having explored Salinger deeper,
and realized the sensitivity of his emotions,
how everybody feels pain,
and Caufield’s was sublime.

Then I read it near the end of college,
aware of the class struggle,
and assessed how unfair it was that this child of wealth
who had never earned a cent was all miserable
because his equally unworthy heir of a brother had died?
My empathy had disappeared.

All of this had happened over, tops, a five year span.
My understanding, my compassion,
dipped and dove and tumbled and swirled,
over and over,
and I loved and loathed the book,
back and forth,
depending on where I stood.

Were I to read it again,
I’m sure I’d have another opinion
or five.

Is it the quality of the book
or the multiplicity of my mind?

Yes.