Horsing Around With Holden.. Review on Catcher in the Rye, The - Salinger

There are times when we feel that we should not have grown up at all.The childhood innocence was much better than the attitude,behaviour we now have towards friends ,foes and the others.Its all filled up with suspense, lies, backtalk. Phoniness now-a-days is often termed as formality .It is this phoniness of adult life that the central character in ''Catcher in the Rye'' tries to get away with.

Holden Caulfield is a school dropout, not one but three and at the start of the novel,he is on the verge of a dropout for one more time.Before returning home for a christmas vacation,Holden wishes to spend couple of days, living his own way.He is depressed to see the womanising ways of his roomie Stradlater and also hates the pimply Acklie.The talk of Stradlater having a date with Holden's one time friend Jane makes things worse for him.He packs his bag to survive from the phoniness of his 'friends' at his Pency school.What follows is a string of acute observations,rant and ramblings about made-up lives of people who survive by creating a layer of i-am-well-off-than-you feeling.Deep inside,everyone is insecure,however Holden feels that they are not frank and always resort to round-about ways rather than involving in a straight talk.

As Holden himself observes that if one looks at everybody else,there is a need to be phony and even if we are not glad to meet anybody ,we ought to say,'Glad to meet you' to survive.His hatred for adult life is boosted when he sees pervert people in a

hotel engaging in unusual escapades,another incident where in which some guy says 'hold that sonuvabitch' to a falling christmas tree.This is narrated as a 'gorgeous way to talk of a christmas tree' by Holden and 'it is funny in an awkward way'.There are only two people whom Holden likes and they are his little sister Phoebe and his brother Allie who is dead.He likes them because they are innocent,frank and quite fascinating.It is because of this that Holden wants to become ''Catcher in the Rye'' safeguarding people who are playing in a rye field called life from crossing the cliff called adoloscense and entering into adult life.

In a literary sense, this is the worst book one may ever read,there is overswearing, overuse of words such as phony,godamm and incomplete sentences ending with 'and all'.

What makes this book an interesting read is the funny things that happen with Holden, the emotional attachment he has with his dead brother Allie and the conversations with Phoebe,even the reader cant help but get sentimental when Holden is with Phoebe.The reasons for feeling depressed are many and the explanations given by Holden for the nervous breakdown is funny,funny in a serious way.There are quite a

few symbolic things like the ''Hunting hat'' which he uses,signifying the he is on the hunt for a world that is devoid of phoniness.And then there is a recurring question in Holden's mind as to where do all the ducks go when a lagoon freezes, indicating his urge to getaway for a while from this world and come back when all is good.

Nevertheless,this is not a feel-good book and the reader is literally left where he started to read.We can easily associate ourselves with Holden to a some extent if not completely.Holden is like you and me.We may say that we are courageous,we have chosen our destiny and all,but truth remains that we too were/are cowards and we too do not have the guts to do some things which we feel are right.In a way all are phony and Holden is no exception.

TO CONCLUDE :

If you are ready to read a book which is full of slangs,half sentences and 'offending words' but which is very emotional,very much funny in many ways,then this is the book one must not miss.This is a good book,it really is!!