What The Walrus Said: “If I were a piano player, I’d play in the goddam closet”; or why you should read The Catcher in the Rye

If you really want to read a book review, the first thing you’ll want to know is what the plot is, who the lousy characters are, and all that other David Copperfield kind of crap. But to be honest with you, I can’t be bothered to go into all that. In any case, with The Catcher in the Rye, that stuff isn’t useful. The main character is Holden Caufield, who drops out of school, and mopes around New York for a bit. That’s all that happens. There are events an all. I’m not saying nothing happen to him. But boy, you spend half the goddamn book waiting for the sonuvabitch to do something

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(I found this on this thing called Google, it's new but it's good)

Sorry. I'll stop pretending that I can write like Salinger now. Incidentally, one of the reason I immediately loved the book was the fact Salinger used italics for emphasis. I always wanted to do it in my own writing, but I thought it was cheating, and that others would think it tacky. I thought you were meant to just write superbly to show where emphasis and significance was, which I still can’t do.

When I first The Catcher in the Rye, I was confused when I was two thirds of the way though, the thinner portion of the pages in my right hand (that sudden moment when you realise the weight of the book has shifted subtly in your hands, and you’re nearer the end than the beginning. It’s a sad moment, like the story is literally slipping away.) and nothing had happened. I kept expecting Holden to finally get in touch with Jean Gallagher, so for him to have an epiphany, for good to triumph, for a happy, satisfying ending.

But, spoiler alert, that doesn’t happen. Yet I enjoyed it so much. I just didn’t know why.

Now I have a degree in English and I know all the words and phrases and terms to explain why The Catcher in the Rye works. I can talk about bathos, masculinity in crisis, and refer to other books where nothing happens for a really clever reason (Ulysses, Waiting for Godot...) with footnotes and references to make it all seem valid. But we all know that is bollocks. All the MHRA in the world can never explain why a book touches you. I was given The Catcher in the Rye for Christmas one year, when I was about 11, and it changed the foundation of me. I’ve subsequently lent it to people, who said thanks, yeah they liked it, leaving me aghast and confused. “You LIKED it?” I’d shout (inside my head) “It didn’t make you laugh, cry, reconsider humanity, want to run naked into the streets wantonly beating your breast? You didn’t get to that line on page 177 and start laughing so much you had to put the book down!?"

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(don't worry about the hipsters connotations, I know you liked it before it was cool)

The Catcher in the Rye was the first book I’d come across to admit that everything wasn’t ok. No-one tells you when you’re young that sadness isn’t confined to the obvious bad things like racism, genocide, natural disasters or the wrath of God. You have to learn for yourself that life isn’t always good and right. Only life and good literature can give you the disquieting realisation that the hero doesn’t always get the girl, there isn’t always an end to the long and weary path - that sometimes you just trudge. The Catcher in the Rye tells you that you’re going to loose things, and that people won’t understand you, and that you won’t be able to explain yourself, and that you won’t know what to do with your life. That sometimes, nothing much happens. The truth is, the world is full of phonies.

Life sucks, but as Holden would say, it’s nothing to get sore about. The Catcher in the Rye has kid sisters who know how to dance, and nuns who teach English and collect money for the Salvation Army, and records about a girl with her front teeth knocked out. This doesn’t mean that life is fine and that everything has a conclusion. It just means there’s still stuff to enjoy along the way. Just try not to think too much about the phonies, and don’t believe what the movies tell you.

I’ll shut the hell up, and let Holden finish;

“If you want to know the truth, I don’t know what I think about it...About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about...It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody about anything. If you do, you’ll start missing everybody”