“Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”
How on Earth do you write a negative review of a book that everyone tells you is a classic – even the people who haven’t read it?
How on Earth do you write a negative review of a book that everyone tells you is a classic – even the people who haven’t read it?
I turned the first twenty or so
pages of The Catcher in the Rye with eager anticipation. It had been on my ‘To Read’ list for a long, long time. I was bitterly, bitterly disappointed.
Holden Caulfield is a troubled
teenager. A student at a prestigious school called Pencey, his story begins
shortly after he has been thrown out for failing every one of his classes
except for English. Holden only has a few days left before will need to break
the news to his parents. He is so frightened about it that he can barely stand
it.
Holden hates everybody he goes to
school with. He thinks they’re all ‘phonies’. He decides to leave earlier than
he should and travel to New York, where he plans to take some time for himself
before he has to tell his parents that he’s been excluded. The problem is,
Holden is lonely and depressed. He wants to be around people constantly. Even
people he hates.
Over a few days he arranges
meeting after meeting with people from his past, but they only ever make him
feel better for a little while. Mostly he just ends up hating them more than he
did before.
Nothing much more happens in this
book than that.
Before I read The Catcher in the
Rye I felt sure there must be a movie of it out there somewhere, and I was
surprised I had never heard anything about it. There isn’t a movie as far as I
can find. The reason for that is that nothing happens in this book. Not really.
There is no definitive beginning, middle and ending to Holden Caulfield’s
story, and there appears to be no real resolution to any of his problems. It is
merely a depiction of a small period in a troubled young man’s life.
I will say this though, Salinger
is a master at writing a character. I knew Holden Caulfield so well towards the
end of this book that I could predict what he was going to say next.
Impressively, even though he was totally weird, I could identify with him. His
teenage angst was written perfectly. I remember feeling that lost and alone
when I was younger.
Reading The Catcher in the Rye
feels like being stuck inside the head of someone who is borderline bipolar. It
is an exhausting and unsettling experience, and you will most certainly spend
the majority of it anxiously waiting for Holden to go on some sort of killing
spree or end his own life. I understand why there is no movie now – there is no
way that anyone could effectively portray this character without some sort of
corny voiceover revealing what is happening inside his head, because his
actions never correspond with what he thinks. He is one of those characters who
is so complex that only cleverly constructed written words can effectively
portray what is happening in his mind and in his surroundings simultaneously
and in a believable way.
Read this if you like ‘The Perks
of Being a Wallflower’. The tone is very similar. Somber, thought provoking and
frustrating in an enticing way – the type of frustrating that keeps you reading.
3 comments:
All the amazing things about this book have been completely lost on your very small mind. What a shame.
You've correctly identified many of the best things about it: the characterisation, the dialogue, the expression of teen angst. I wonder why you feel disappointed in the recommendations, when those are what most people say are great about it.
I think you've just been let down by hype. You'd have appreciated it a lot more if you'd read it like most people do, as a teenager, without the hype. The angst would have chimed with you much more while you were experiencing it yourself. I read it last year, at the age of 30, and I liked it - probably because I still feel like a teenager, frustrated at a world run by idiot adults - but I think I would have loved it even more if I'd read it aged 15.
I take issue with the idea that there's no beginning, middle or end, or that nothing happens. Beginning: getting kicked out of school. Middle: in New York. End: deciding not to run away after all. There are several major climactic actions. One is the encounter with the pimp, which shows Holden wanting to enter the adult world, but finding himself as yet not fully capable of doing so. The final one is preparing to run away, meeting his little sister and deciding to stay - showing him accepting adult responsibility.
There's a lot of symbolism in everything which happens, but it also works as a narrative of comic events, and as a portrait of isolation, confusion and angst, and also enjoyable just for the virtuoso performance of language.
I'd recommend reading it again in a couple of years, when you have a better idea what to expect.
I'm not responding to whoever said I had a small mind. I have a right to my own opinion, thanks.
Tom - I think you are right. I have been let down on several occasions by people telling me that a book is going to be amazing. Stieg Larsson's 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' for one.
I couldn't put Catcher down, I won't lie. But I was disappointed at the end. I expected something epic to happen and I didn't feel like it did.
I think I am an old fashioned storytelling kind of girl. I need very definitive beginnings, middles and ends, otherwise I feel like I haven't been told a proper tale. I want something strange and unusual and different for my protagonists to face. With this book, I felt like I was reading a short period of whining from an ignorant, unappreciative teenager. If I was his mother I'd give him a slap.
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