The Catcher in the Rye ... is Cool Stuff

.. but I still liked it a lot. I have read this book twice within a gap of two years and I am well past my teenage (so I feel this teenage anger is not carrying me away). Actually I identify with the atmosphere in the book. The kind of self-importance people have in ‘THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, I find it all around ME. It sure is very difficult to live with. Though I have much more success in coping with it. Maybe because I have a strong support system.

If you haven’t read this book and are planing to purchase it I will highly recommend it. It is about a teenage boy named Holden Caufield and his experiences in his various boarding schools. The author is J.D. Salinger and this book is considered a contemporary classic. This boy Holden comes from a comfortably rich family and goes to boarding school or rather I should say schools as he gets kicked out of many.

He is not dumb. When he can ‘apply’ himself he does well. When not then not. He does literature well but does not pay too much attention to History and other stuff. May be it reflects a bit on our school systems worldwide? Such a person can not cope in our present system…

Also he finds very hard to adjust to elitism. When his school Principal ignores a friend’s parent because they wear shiny white shoes his feathers are ruffled. So is when his roommate is looked down because of poor quality leather cases. I identify with all this.

However I don’t identify with the path Holden took in sorting his problems. Here in my campus too I have seen very bright students being unable to cope with system and then ruining their grades. So does Holden. In this story he gets kicked off from another school, doesn’t have the guts to home before information reaches home and just takes time off in a hotel trying to occupy himself. It does not take him anywhere. Only to a shrink in the end. (So if one can’t change the system it is better to try to cope with it, instead of ruining every thing)?

Besides Holden the other characters are mainly his family and his hostel mates and friend. I feel Salinger has done justice to them all. Take Phobie, Holden’s younger sister. She is loveable, smart and well adjusted. So much so that she shares a lot of Holden’s trouble. His parents are not much in the foreground but one can get a very good idea of the relationship they have with this kid. So do the two brothers. The school atmosphere serves well to illustrate well the point the author is trying to make. And to he this Holden looks like a very lonely kid.

But the book ends on optimistic note, or at least I think so. Though the author leaves it tentative as to Holden will succeed or not in this adjustment. Who knows, Holdens of the world succeed with the help of Phobies and other family members to adjust and find a little corner of their own.

In the end I will like to mention that I earlier wrote a review on this book. At that time I was new at epinions and my writing consisted of a few unconnected paragraphs. So I feel I am justified in deleting it and trying to share it anew. However I am still not very sure about every dos and don'ts at epinions, so if it is not correct please let me know. I plan to do so for a few of my earlier reviews too. Thanks for reading.