8 of 9 members found this review helpful.
“A lot of people can say a lot things over “Catcher in the Rye” such as the way of expressions that the books have or the sybolism in it(...the name “Holden” represents why he is isolated from this phony world...bla bla..., almost every name in a book means something) or the way how Salinger may looked at it or the way how Salinger give the same feeling as an 15 year old boy. I am not a very intellectual person and I will not examine book according to those perceptions but I might say it is the best book I have ever read.
The first time I have read this book I loved it very much and I did not want to finish it early. Therefore, I started to read it very slowly towards the end. I started to read one or two paragraphs in a day. When I finished it, my mind really freed and I felt an emptyness in my stomach. At first, I did not understand why I felt this way but afterwards when I thought over it I understand that when I read the book I feel like somebody really listens to me and understands me. I really experienced Holden Caulfield friendship. I think he is my best friend in a lot ways. Holden hates artificial behaviours, the poses of people and stupidity of the people. Altough he critisizes everyone he accepts that he is the biggest looser in the world. I do not believe he has an avarage intelligence. His establishing and analysis skills are way above many people has. His pesimistic reaction to everything comes from his young age and less experience about life, on the other hand this gives him the pure beauty. Holden loves to live more than anyone in the world but I am not quite sure that he wants to live in this world or not. He creates his universe in his head and lives in it.
Almost Salinger's all creations and characters are similar and intelligent. I mean the best one I have met is Holden but Franny, Zooey, Seymour and other characters from Glass family and the characters from 9 stories are brilliant. All of the characters, wants to experience life in their own ways, I mean they do not want to live as the other people told them how to live, like as the life told us how to live. They do not want something to be right because people say they are right and sometimes wrong things can be right in a way. I do not know is this a stupid example or not but I will give it anyway; people say don't do drugs, scientist say drugs are dangerious, our parents tremble and scares that we are going to use drugs. I am not saying they are healthy or anything but as long as we are not experienced and see them with our own eyes it is pointless like anything we are not experience in the world. William Blake, Edgar Allen Poe writes some of their poems on drugs, Van Gogh, Salvador Dali creates some of their masterpieces on drugs, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Kurt Cobain composed some of their best song on drugs, Marquis de Sade, Kosinski writes some of their best novels on drugs, Andy Warhol inspired by drugs, I am not very sure but some people say Lewis Carroll wrote “Alice in Wonderland” while using mushrooms. Aldous Huxley wrote “Doors of Perception” after experiencing mescalin(LSD or acid) and he mentions in it that many people do not have the eyes and imagination power of artists obviously and he claims that when one used LSD he or she may have chance reach that level understands the pure beauty of Amadeus Mozart's compositions or the colours of Claude Monet. Anyway, I mean Salingers characters hates the pressure of common beliefs. I am not quite sure that I expressed my feelings very well, I mean I am a Turkish guy and my English is insufficient. Maybe I should give a quotation from Franny and Zooey and perhaps you can get the point; “- i'm not afraid to compete. it's just the opposite. don't you see that? i'm afraid i will compete- that's what scares me. that's why i quit the theater department. just because i'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because i like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. i'm ashamed of it. i'm sick of it. i'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. i'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.”
Whatever I can mention about this book may not be sufficent. One should experience by her/himself. I have read Catcher in the Rye like 4 times. I read it whenever I feel lonely, depressed and bored from this world. Salinger always catches me on the edge of rye fields. It is like my Bible and I advice anyone who are lost in the fields of modern world.
Some quotations that I like from Catcher in the Rye;
“People always think something's all true.”
“I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.”
“Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.”
“People never notice anything.”
“In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.”
“you take a mother, tell her what a hotshot her son is and she listens to you as if you were god”
“Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”
"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."”
