Yuffie's Book Reviews

The Catcher in the Rye - by J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is undoubtably one of my favorite books of all time. I read it for the first time in high school, and since I was a complete idiot back then (not that I'm denying that I'm an idiot now, just that I was more of an idiot back then), I didn't understand this book. My friends had to explain what the freaking title meant.

BUT NOW, I'm several years older with more life experience, and everything in this book just clicked. The fact that his hunting cap was his security blanket, the reason he kept asking about the ducks--everything just clicked. But enough about me. Let's talk about the book.

This isn't your conventional story. There's barely any plot, the protagonist is psychologically messed up and some of his thought processes are downright despicable, and he remains stoic the entire story--no change or growth from the start of the book to the end.

I should probably despise this book, but here's the thing: Salinger breaks the basic rules of writing, but he does them so damn WELL. I didn't care that Holden had no goal in life and he just aimlessly meandered around, screwing around, drinking, thinking about calling up someone, drinking, changing his mind, drinking, smoking, walking around, more ambling. I didn't care that almost nothing plot-worthy happened in this book. I didn't care that he didn't change.

Because that was the WHOLE POINT of the book! Salinger didn't want to tell us a conventional story. No, he wanted to dig deep into Holden's screwed up mind, give us some insight into our own.

Holden is a phenomenal narrator becuase he's incredibly unreliable. He's saying something, but he either just scrapes the surface of what he means. He's always straight up with what he means, but the point is, you can see there's a lot more going on in his head than he's letting on. He causually goes over some realy heavy topics. He's depressed and incredibly lonely and has lost his faith in most of humanity, but he flits over these topics too easily. If you read between the lines, it's easy to see he's saying he's fine when he's really not. And it's just fascinating to peel back layer after layer.

Anytime I see someone complain about this book and call it boring or call Holden annoying--it's because they legitimately missed the entire point of the book. Holden is not a model human being. He's pathetic, immature, unmotivated, cruel, spiteful, and judgmental. There's very little plot, because most of the time it's just Holden talking about something, telling us stories and going off on complete tangents every few lines. But this was all carefuly crafted, done on purpose. There's a reason he thinks and acts like he does--many reasons in fact--and piecing that together is the fun part of this book.

I'll give an example: he keeps asking taxi drivers what happens to the ducks in the duck pond when it freezes over. The motivation behind this question is never explicitly stated, but you tell me why he's so determined to find out the answer. His life is freezing over--he has no future outlook, he doesn't know what he's going to do with the rest of his life. He's depressed with no friends. He hates everyone and no one really likes him. So his life most definitely is frozen over and dead. So where do the ducks go? Where should HE go?

That's his goal. That's his motivation through every thought, feeling, and action. Where does he go? So  really, when I said he has no goal, I probably should've said, he has no concrete, tangible, physical goal. It's not like he wants to save the world or get revenge or go on a quest. He just wants to know where the ducks go. His goal is to find a goal.

You can psychoanalyze every line in the book if you wanted, and every one adds depth to his characterization. He says something and means something else, or something more, or something less. Why he says something the way he does speaks novels on who he is as a person, and, as I said before, that's why he's such a fascinating character who's been the subject of analysis for decades.

The writing is phenomenal. It's 100% Holden's voice. What's really cool about it is how his grammar sucks. His sentences ramble and don't stick on topic. Sometimes you have to scratch your head at what the heck he's talking about because he's so awful at communicating sometimes. But all that was done on purpose because it just fits him so well.

Like I said, Salinger broke the rules of writing, but he did them on purpose, conscientiously, and he handled it masterfully.

And a personal sidenote, some of Holden's insights hit frighteningly close to home. He put a lot of emotions I felt but didn't fully understand into words. It was awesome. I've heard one reason a lot of teens like this book is for that reason--though he's a nutcase, Holden can be incredibly relatable.

For the first time, I have zero criticism for a piece of writing. :)

5/5 stars.