Book Review: The Catcher in the Rye by JD. Salinger

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The first time I read it, Holden Caulfield didn’t feel like a character on a page—he felt like a voice in my ear. The way he talks—rambling, cynical, tripping over his own thoughts, it’s messy, it’s raw, and it makes you feel like you’ve stumbled into someone’s unfiltered diary. What hit me hardest is how lonely he is. You can feel it pressing against every sentence, even when he’s making jokes or tearing people down.

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This is the scene that is seared into my memory: when Holden is sneaking into the apartment of his family to visit Phoebe. God, that scene floored me. The light that fills her at the sight of him, the effort put into it to keep himself together, yet he can’t, it is not loud, it is not dramatic, it is intimate in that sense which makes you feel like you are reading a secret. It also brought to mind those times when only somebody in your family seems to have a visible eye on you, or somebody who is just too young to judge you the same way the rest of society does. I do not believe I inhaled at all when I first read it.

There is the carousel scene at the end. Holden as Phoebe goes round and round--so easy, yet as a freight train. That scene in which he understands that he is not able to protect her, not able to protect anyone, not even his world, but still manages to stand in the rain and allow himself to feel happy when she is happy, such a scene remains in your ribs. It is bittersweet as he has reached the point where he has ceased running to simply be. I recall picking up the book and looking at the wall, but being unable to swallow the lump in my throat.

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But Holden isn’t all sadness. I laughed at some of his cynicism, and particularly at his raving over phonies. It is so keen, so hairsplitting at times, yet agonisingly direct. At some stage, I wondered, “Yes, I have experienced that level of irritation but never vocalized it. So it trains me--it has a way of staying with me--it gives expression to emotions that you are not entitled to say that you experienced.

What really lingers is how real it feels. It doesn’t feel polished or neat, it feels like being inside someone’s head at its most fragile, defensive, and searching. Reading it was like walking beside a stranger in the dark and realizing the things they confess are things you’ve quietly carried too.

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The last three images was gotten from web:

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