The Catcher in the Rye

So here you have yet another "The Catcher in the Rye" review. Why? Well I just read it and none of the past reviews satisfied me. So here. I'm not gonna tell you the story though. We all know it and if you don't, you better go read it, it's only 7 bucks worth!

I first heard of "The Catcher in the Rye" from my good pal, who insisted that it was simply amazing. This was about 3 years ago or so, anyway, she always told me I had to read it, but down here nobody knows of it. So I continued to hear about it through this three years, my cousin talked about it, Internet, reviews, etc, most recently from another good friend, that even wrote a song about it, and said I was lots like Mr. Caulfield. So I finally got it in the airport for just 7 bucks plus tax.

I started reading and I must say it was really, really different from what I was expecting, very different really. Now Caulfield? From the first page, he caught my interest, but not 'cause of being amazingly smart, or mature, or deep down complex, no. Simply because he's dead sincere, and I mean it, dead sincere! No metaphorical complexity, no poetical meanings, no great adventure of the world, not lineal thinking, no. It's just it.

It's not even like a diary, it's just like that mental monologue everyone wants to just say, but sees it makes little sense. Well that is Catcher in the Rye. It's all about this character, this guy who absolutely lacks of reason and direction, and he talks about it.

The plus of course is that he is he. Holden who is bitter because he really can't seem to understand people's reason to act and be, who has the most perfect teenage nihilism, who is an amazing liar! Who fancies drama and says to hate it! This is just a boy trying to define the word "real". He does nothing that he ain't in the mood to do, he never really has a reason to go here or there, it's just his mood. Everything kills him, everything seems so phony, corny and simply out of it. He is a madman! And he tells everything to be madman stuff but really there is plenty stuff that can resemble a mad man.

My point here, if there is, would be that The Catcher in The Rye is amazing not because of its complicated language (sarcasm here), and the way to portrait the teenage angst, or the spite of a generation or all that fuzz.

It's got nothing to do with that, you know? Like Holden would say it's all about being in the mood, and that's just he does, he talks and does what he feels like doing. He often doesn't want to go into things, and can you blame him? He is this mad teenager that just says "Well fuc* it, I'm gonna say what I feel like saying". He finds this way of being the most real person by being an ace liar, a madman, a perfect phony, and generally screwed.

I mean take the "drunk bleeding from the gut" deal, he holds his belly 'cause he says it's bleeding. He says they got him, now, this is not a metaphor or anything like that. It is what he says, he is bleeding crazy, and god knows he is over bored. So he plays there to be a drama in the bloody drunkenness! Even I do that, though I usually pretend that I'm lying on the floor with an overdose killing me, and there is blood everywhere, but my point here is: Holden is just being bleeding honest, being so anti-phony, anti-everything, that of he wants to act madman he does it and owes no explanations to no one. It's just, you know, Holden.

If you try and see this book as some sort of record of a generation or that stuff, it just wont work. It's all about Holden you know? Just him through and through.

That's all I'm going to tell you about. I could probably tell you more, but you really gotta be in the mood for this kind off things, and it kinda kills me, so yeah.