【Book Review】The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye

-Spoiler(Maybe) Alert!-

    Holden Caulfield tells a story about himself being sixteen years old. He is expelled from school due to his terrible academic performance. A decision is then made by Holden that he is going to leave his school and travel to New York by train. There are many things that happened during his stay in New York. Through Holden’s journey, he gradually matures and develop himself…

    There is obviously nothing more to talk about the plot of the Catcher in the Rye. It is such a famous and greatly praised book that almost everyone has read it and analyze it. Just like many other people did, I read the Catcher in the Rye because my school teacher assigned it to me. After reading, we obviously have to write an essay about the theme, which I got such an awful grade that I don’t want to mention it for the rest of my life. Partially due to my unbearable essay grade, I am not a huge fan of this book.

    I think there is no need to make a further detailed discussion of the symbols and motifs of the Catcher in the Rye since I have already written a full-length essay about them. Besides, I can’t remember how many times our literature teacher, with great carefulness, has analyzed and talked about each chapter of this book. Basically, the story talks about the isolation that Holden suffers, the maturation process that Holden goes through and the painfulness of losing innocence. In this story, Holden needs to deal with his various relationships which not only includes romantic ones but also includes friendships and connections between relatives. This book is a well-known example of coming-of-age stories which has probably inspired many generations of young teenagers who are just going through puberty.

    Our teacher also asked us to write a medical report of Holden. To be honest, I always feel that some of Holden’s behaviors are quite childish. I believe it’s perfectly normal that I cannot feel related to Holden as a character. The reason perhaps lies in the fact that we have entirely different feelings. In the story, Holden is roughly the same age as me, but our different growing experiences separate us. He suffers from his young brother Allie’s death and prone to be alienated. His past memories make him a sensitive and easily enraged person which is completely not my character. That’s maybe the explanation of why I cannot relate myself to Holden.

    Even though I don’t have a favorite character in this book. I do kind of like the last part of the story which is the place where Holden changes his mind to stay instead to leave his home, then he watches his sister Phoebe happily riding the merry-go-round. In this part, the love that Holden has toward his family members is evident. I am also highly fond of the last sentence of the entire novel. I love that sentence so much that I am just going to put it in my review though I cannot explain exactly why I love it. “Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” Maybe I like it because it proves the fact that Holden finally matures and decides to change himself.

    Initially, after reading the Catcher in the Rye, I wanted to give it 3 stars on GoodReads because for me it’s just an OK book, not an outstanding-everybody-go-read-it-and-love-it one. But after writing my essay and joining a class debate about whether Holden is a reliable narrator or not, I change my rating to 4 stars. At first, I was hugely annoyed by the whole debate thing and would rather do several pages of SAT reading than prepare the material for the debate. But during my preparation, I learned more about the background information of the book. Overall, my time and effort that were spent are worthy, especially when the teacher announced that our team won the debate. It was not a regular 1on1 or 2on2 debate. Our class was divided into three teams according to a previously assigned survey which nobody actually paid attention to. The idea of each team is “Holden is a reliable narrator”, “Holden is an unreliable and dishonest narrator” and “Holden is an unreliable but honest narrator”. My team was the second one and we won. The teacher later explained to us that due to the death of Holden’s young brother Allie, Holden suffers from mental depression and has to stay in a restroom, therefore his narration is unreliable. However, whether Holden is honest or not is still under debate. This extra information somehow makes me love more of this book. Overall, I like some parts of the book while other parts of the book are just bland and elusive. My final rating of this book is four stars. After all these discussions, debates, and essay writings, I ascertain that the Catcher in the Rye is a good book and deserves the long-lasted attention that it gains through time.