That’s been my exact experience! When I read it as a teenager, I thought this world-weary, cynical misanthrope had it all figured out. When I read it again in my twenties, I thought Holden was an old fashioned troll, criticizing and feeling superior to all of this stuff that he was too young to experience or understand. One day as a man in my thirties, I just suddenly remembered the song Holden was trying to remember, and wanting to be a catcher in the rye, and it hit me, he is a child wandering blindly, and he just wants someone to catch him. As a father, I realized all of a sudden, where the hell are this kid’s parents?! Why does this kid need to do this? Why isn’t someone stopping him? He’s been crying out for help all this time. He’s an unreliable narrator, and I needed to know Holden for a while before I learned to see through his bullshit to the child he really is, just like everyone else in the book. I’ve tried harder to know Holden than anyone in there with him in there has. Maybe the reader is ultimately supposed to catch Holden.