The Catcher in the rye

“Boy, it began to rain like a bastard. In buckets, I swear to God. All parents and mothers and everybody went over and stood right under the roof of the carrousel, so they wouldn’t get soaked to the skin or anything, but I stuck around on the bench for quite a while… I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around… It was just that she looked so damn nice, they way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all.”

If this was a movie and this was the ending, I would be freaking in love with the movie. While I was reading this, I was keep thinking how I would want the ending to be. I don’t want a boring ending; I wanted it to be dramatic. Either this guy died and was thinking about these while he was dying or he has hypochondria; he imaged all these shit. Because this book was actually very depressing, and if it is meant to be depressing, then let’s depress the hell out of it and have a freaking ending.

Nonetheless, I love the ending, the way it is. It is perfect. If it was a movie, I would love it. That would be a beautiful and powerful scene to end.

It is one of those books that hooks you, once you start reading it, you can’t stop it. I didn’t read the book until now because back in high school, when I first wanted to read it, Michelle, my English tutor told me that was a very depressing book and I wouldn’t be able to handle it. However, I decided to read it because 高晓松 said that it is his favorite novel of all time. Therefore, I got very curious.

For this summer, I actually promised myself that I wouldn’t read any novel because I want to read some more academic stuff so that I can gain some actual knowledge. I know I don’t read enough. However, as my journey started in HK, every day was too exhausted to read anything else other than a good novel. I have a really nasty boss. And he did his MBA in Ivey. lmao

One of the best parts of this novel is that the author is very descriptive. Therefore, whenever or wherever you open the book, on your bed, on the subway or in the office, you can be isolated from the world and literally became part of the book. It draws you in. And that is exactly the part that makes reading it so relaxing, you forget about where you are for a moment.

Another thing about the way how the author writes is that everything is very coherent. He uses a first person in the book and the way he writes the book is just like he was writing a diary. But it is more than a diary because he recorded every single detail that happened in four or five days. Yes, the timeline of the whole book was only about four to five days. Therefore, he recorded everything that he encountered, every single little thought and feeling that he had at any moment and every conversation he had with people.

As a reader, it is almost like you jumped into his brain and experienced that 4 or 5 days WITH him.

And that was the thing that made me like this author at the first place. I thought he was a freak like me. Consistently being aware of what ourselves is thinking at the moment and consistently talking or describing things in our own heads. I do sometimes write them down too but I was too scared that I might be stuck in my own world. Therefore, to prevent myself from becoming a psycho, I often force myself not to be too self-conscious at all time.

This book is very very depressing for me, though the language part made me laugh many times while I was reading it, because the character was so straightforward about everything. Nevertheless, I do believe this guy is in medical depression. You can tell from his words. Doing things that himself cannot even figure out why and regret so much afterward but cannot stop. Being very contradictory about himself. He keeps imagining what himself would do in a situation but also knows that he would not have the gut to do it. He called himself a half-yellow person.

I feel sad. The way that he couldn’t help himself to be whom he doesn’t like to be.

The part that made my hands shake was he refused to give the prostitute another five dollars regardless of what, even though he has enough of money.

He was almost beaten to death because of that and lost that five dollars anyways. And when he was in terrible pain, he was acting on his own as if he got a shot in the stomach. It makes the scene very sad through an entertaining way.

It also reminds me characteristics of autism; always strictly sticking to the rules. And he broke every window that he saw after his brother’s death. He really likes his brother, and every time he became too depress, he would talk to his brother out loud as if he was still around.

Many people say it is a book about youth. About how you feel lost, confused and lonesome when you were young. Yes, I partially agree that. But for me, it is also a book about mental illness. It is a chance for you to actually go into “crazy” people’s mind, since the author is one of the most descriptive people I have seen so far. However, If you must call this kind of mental illness youth, I actually wouldn’t disagree with you.

The other day I had a dinner with Summer, Ikenna and Venessa. Some of us hate Christmas, some of us hate Father’s Day and some of us were curious about what a kid that grows up in a happy, perfect family would be like inside their hearts. Rachel’s parents have been separated for 10 years without getting a divorce. Summer’s family is even more interested and complex than a soap drama.

Sometimes, I really want to yell at my parents and tell them that they did a horrible job. I want to tell them that the last generation has made a horrible demonstration about family, about life and about love. However, we are still just sucking up this life.  The thing is, I don’t want them to get a wrong idea. I do love them. That is the idea. But it doesn’t stop me from being sad and depressed by watching them doing what they are doing now.

Do you know why this book is called “the Catcher in the Rye”? It is because the boy’s baby sister, Phoebe (my favorite character, almost brought me to tears couple times) asked him to name one thing that he likes, one thing that he wants to be. He said he pictured all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye. Thousands of little kids. And he will be standing at the edge of some crazy cliff.

What he needs to do is to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. If they are running and they don’t look where they are going, he needs to come out from somewhere and catch them. He wants to be the CATCHER in the RYE.

You see, we are the kids, and we all need a catcher at some point in our life.

I want to end this with a quote from the book. It is what the boy’s favorite teacher said to him near the end of the book:

“Among other things, you’ll find that you are not the first person who was confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You are by no means alone on that score, you will be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You will learn from them — if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It is a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. it’s poetry.”

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-- Hong Kong