Scan barcode
A review by michaeljohnhalseartistry
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3.0
This is going to be one tough review. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger's most famous work had been on my "to be read" list for years, but I kept putting it off. After finishing the horrible Captive Prince Trilogy I decided to step away from fantasy and read something classical, so I picked up Catcher in the Rye and at first I wasn't too impressed, in fact I hated it. For about 75% of the book I was struggling just to push my way through to the end, and then, towards the end of the book, something changed...
The Catcher in the Rye tells the story of Holden Caulfield a teenager from New York describing events that happened a year prior following another expulsion from a private school. Throughout the book we learn about his family, his older brother D.B., a writer, their younger sister Phoebe, and their brother Allie who died prior to the events in the novel. Holden himself is something of an odd character, he seems at odds with everyone around him, seeing them as "phoneys", is a compulsive liar, filled with angst, and the subject of alienation, whether by his own doing or not, and severely depressed.
Throughout the first three quarters of the novel I hated Holden, I could NOT stand his character, I hated how the novel was written from his perspective, it was layered with repetition, hypocrisy, and angst that I just didn't connect with. Holden's the type of character who thinks he's the greatest person in the world, capable of everything and better than everyone else, he's a braggart and a liar. He says a lot of stuff like:
"One thing I have, it's a terrific capacity. I can drink all night and not even show it, if I'm in a good mood. Once, at the Whooton School, this other boy, Raymond Goldfarb, and I bought a pint of Scotch and drank it in the chapel one Saturday night, where nobody'd see us. He got stinking, but I hardly didn't even shot it. I just got very cool and nonchalant. I puked before I went to bed, but I didn't really have to–I forced myself."
He just has this high opinion of himself, this arrogance that made me so sick of him. I shared my dislike of the book on Instagram, and a few people messaged me and said that they had read it as a teenager and that Holden had really resonated with them, and that got me thinking. Had I read The Catcher in the Rye as a teenager, full of angst, emotion, thoughts of alienation, I probably would have loved the book. I would've felt like Holden was a mirror of my own ideals and personal alienation.
But then something switched three quarters of the way through... You know how emotional states can change your opinion of a movie or a book? I have a feeling that's what happened here. There was this part in the book when Holden snuck back into his family's condo and woke up his sister Phoebe to talk with her. Phoebe is one of the only people in the book that Holden holds in high regard. They get into a fight about Holden being expelled and Holden tries to explain to her how everyone was just fake and phoney and how he couldn't deal with it, and Phoebe says, "You don't like anything that's happening." And she tries to get Holden to think of something that he actually likes, and he can't really think of anything. Throughout the whole narrative he's always talking about how depressed he is, and how depressed everything makes him, and I think it wasn't until that moment when his depression and his emotional mood really became real for him, and resonated with me. Here is this guy who's charismatic, easy going, pretty intelligent, but he's trapped in this awkward stage in his life and doesn't know where to go, and doesn't really have any friends or anyone around him, and everything he sees depresses him. He's not quite clinically depressed, but he is trapped in this melancholic state that he can't shake... or even really wants to shake, and that really resonated with me. As he's about to leave his family's condo he breaks down and starts crying, for no reason, something he repeats at the very end of the novel after meeting up with Phoebe again and watching her go around and around on the carousel. I like to think that these episodes were brought on by his depression, pushing to the surface and suddenly manifesting themselves in tears. First when he realizes there's something wrong, and second when he mourns his own naivety and youth while watching Phoebe on the carousel.
After leaving his family's place he spends some time at his old English teacher's apartment... which gets a little awkward at the end, but before it goes south, the teacher, Mr. Antolini gives this speech that I absolutely loved:
"This fall I think you're riding for–it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling ins't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started. You follow me?"
Now a lot of people have speculated what this "fall" means, some say it's Holden's academic achievements that have fallen apart, while others interpret it as the fall of Holden's mental health on account of his depression and dismal world view. The latter is how I interpreted it. Suddenly, I saw the whole novel in a different light. I saw Holden, not as an angsty delinquent, but as a morosely depressed individual trying to cling onto something, while also trying to separate himself from a world he wants no part of... and that resonated so strongly with me.
By the end of the novel, I had really changed my opinion of the whole book. Is it one of my favourite novels? Not by the a long shot. But is it terrible? No. In fact, if you can get over Holden's constant cursing, his hedonistic and bratty teenage nature that shines throughout the beginning, it's a really great novel about the slow and debilitating mental spiral that leads to depression and a crippling mental state brought on by teenage angst, alienation, and growth. It's definitely a novel I will read again... though not too soon!
-----
FOR MORE BOOK REVIEWS, MY OWN NOVELS, AND PHOTOGRAPHY CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE:
http://michaeljohnhalse.wixsite.com/michaeljohnhalse
The Catcher in the Rye tells the story of Holden Caulfield a teenager from New York describing events that happened a year prior following another expulsion from a private school. Throughout the book we learn about his family, his older brother D.B., a writer, their younger sister Phoebe, and their brother Allie who died prior to the events in the novel. Holden himself is something of an odd character, he seems at odds with everyone around him, seeing them as "phoneys", is a compulsive liar, filled with angst, and the subject of alienation, whether by his own doing or not, and severely depressed.
Throughout the first three quarters of the novel I hated Holden, I could NOT stand his character, I hated how the novel was written from his perspective, it was layered with repetition, hypocrisy, and angst that I just didn't connect with. Holden's the type of character who thinks he's the greatest person in the world, capable of everything and better than everyone else, he's a braggart and a liar. He says a lot of stuff like:
"One thing I have, it's a terrific capacity. I can drink all night and not even show it, if I'm in a good mood. Once, at the Whooton School, this other boy, Raymond Goldfarb, and I bought a pint of Scotch and drank it in the chapel one Saturday night, where nobody'd see us. He got stinking, but I hardly didn't even shot it. I just got very cool and nonchalant. I puked before I went to bed, but I didn't really have to–I forced myself."
He just has this high opinion of himself, this arrogance that made me so sick of him. I shared my dislike of the book on Instagram, and a few people messaged me and said that they had read it as a teenager and that Holden had really resonated with them, and that got me thinking. Had I read The Catcher in the Rye as a teenager, full of angst, emotion, thoughts of alienation, I probably would have loved the book. I would've felt like Holden was a mirror of my own ideals and personal alienation.
But then something switched three quarters of the way through... You know how emotional states can change your opinion of a movie or a book? I have a feeling that's what happened here. There was this part in the book when Holden snuck back into his family's condo and woke up his sister Phoebe to talk with her. Phoebe is one of the only people in the book that Holden holds in high regard. They get into a fight about Holden being expelled and Holden tries to explain to her how everyone was just fake and phoney and how he couldn't deal with it, and Phoebe says, "You don't like anything that's happening." And she tries to get Holden to think of something that he actually likes, and he can't really think of anything. Throughout the whole narrative he's always talking about how depressed he is, and how depressed everything makes him, and I think it wasn't until that moment when his depression and his emotional mood really became real for him, and resonated with me. Here is this guy who's charismatic, easy going, pretty intelligent, but he's trapped in this awkward stage in his life and doesn't know where to go, and doesn't really have any friends or anyone around him, and everything he sees depresses him. He's not quite clinically depressed, but he is trapped in this melancholic state that he can't shake... or even really wants to shake, and that really resonated with me. As he's about to leave his family's condo he breaks down and starts crying, for no reason, something he repeats at the very end of the novel after meeting up with Phoebe again and watching her go around and around on the carousel. I like to think that these episodes were brought on by his depression, pushing to the surface and suddenly manifesting themselves in tears. First when he realizes there's something wrong, and second when he mourns his own naivety and youth while watching Phoebe on the carousel.
After leaving his family's place he spends some time at his old English teacher's apartment... which gets a little awkward at the end, but before it goes south, the teacher, Mr. Antolini gives this speech that I absolutely loved:
"This fall I think you're riding for–it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling ins't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started. You follow me?"
Now a lot of people have speculated what this "fall" means, some say it's Holden's academic achievements that have fallen apart, while others interpret it as the fall of Holden's mental health on account of his depression and dismal world view. The latter is how I interpreted it. Suddenly, I saw the whole novel in a different light. I saw Holden, not as an angsty delinquent, but as a morosely depressed individual trying to cling onto something, while also trying to separate himself from a world he wants no part of... and that resonated so strongly with me.
By the end of the novel, I had really changed my opinion of the whole book. Is it one of my favourite novels? Not by the a long shot. But is it terrible? No. In fact, if you can get over Holden's constant cursing, his hedonistic and bratty teenage nature that shines throughout the beginning, it's a really great novel about the slow and debilitating mental spiral that leads to depression and a crippling mental state brought on by teenage angst, alienation, and growth. It's definitely a novel I will read again... though not too soon!
-----
FOR MORE BOOK REVIEWS, MY OWN NOVELS, AND PHOTOGRAPHY CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE:
http://michaeljohnhalse.wixsite.com/michaeljohnhalse