The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

I don’t like Holden Caulfield. I don’t hate him either. I’m not sure what I’d say if I met him but I would like to meet him anyway. From reading The Catcher in the Rye, I daresay he’s one of the most interesting characters I have ever come across in books.

Holden is not your normal teenager. In fact, I do not really know how normal a teenager is. But he certainly is different from the rest as he has already been expelled from a few boarding schools since he has not done well in his studies. He decides to leave school a little earlier and so spends a few days hanging out in New York before going home to face his parents who will be upset to know that he has been kicked out of school again.

The novel is basically Holden’s narration of his time spent in New York during the course of a few days along with his thoughts and opinions of the rest of the world. The hilarious part of the story, for me, was how he considered almost everyone and everything as being phony. His school was a phony, his headmaster was a phony, his parents were phonies, his older brother, D.B.’s a phony. Almost everyone is a phony to him except his younger sister Phoebe, his younger brother Allie who died of leukemia, his friend Jane and these two nuns who he met in New York.

Holden believed that once somebody grows up, he or she automatically loses his or her innocence and consequently becomes a phony in pursuit of materialism. Therefore he wants to be some sort of a catcher who prevents children from falling into the world of all things phony. He wants to help the children preserve their innocence.

As I read the novel, I know why it has been banned so many times since it was published. Profanity is abundant throughout the story as Holden likes to use them a lot. It seems that he uses them frequently to sound mature and to show that he knows what he’s talking about. Unfortunately it only shows his immaturity and unreliability. He tends to digress a lot too as he does not like to stick to one topic.

I really like this novel. It’s written in a conversational manner so you feel as if Holden is speaking to you. He is indeed speaking to somebody – his shrink actually. If you thought that some parts or most of the novel was repetitive, it’s because of Holden who’s suffering from a mental breakdown. Perhaps that’s one reason why he tends to ramble a lot.

After finishing the book, I wondered if it has been adapted into a movie. Guess what, J.D. Salinger has not sold the movie rights to any filmmaker ever since the book’s publication in 1951 so there’s no movie on it. Yet, I think. So far there are some amateur adaptations on YouTube. Do check out this one though. It’s good. This too.

Anyway, it would be a contradiction towards the book if a movie is made based on it. Holden hates the movies as he thinks they are phony too.

Other reviews: The Book Chick, 1001 Books

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