The Book That Changed My Life
I know, it sounds possy and atificial but "The Cather in the Rye" really did change my life and the way I see the world around me. I read it for the first time 5-6 years ago, at a moment in my life when I was struggling with finding my inner voice and deciding what I want from myself and my life. I read it one warm November night, I remember it clearly as it was yesterday. I cried a lot while reading it (I cry a lot at books, only written word can shake the whole of me and to touch a very tender place in my heart) and cried even more after I finished it. Truly magnificent book that sounds very contemporary over 60 years after its first publishing.
The Plot
This is the story of Holden Caulfield told by himself. The dear old Holden is the most anti-hero hero you will ever meet in your book roamings. It will be an oversimplification to say that he is lost and angry young man that struggles with finding his place in the world. The storyline starts just before the Christmas vacation and Holden is expelled (and will not return after the vacations) from his exclusive private school. Later we will get to know that this is not the first time for Holden to get expelled from school. The general feeling we get from him is for a depressed, preoccupied and lost young man. A number of occurrences later Holden is back in New York and gets even more depressed. A date night went wrong doesn't improve his already bad mood and he gets really drunk. This is when we meet his little sister - his only solace and dearest friend. It is her to whom he shares his dream of becoming a "catcher in the rye". He imagines himself staying at the cliff edge of a rye field and being a sole guardian of the children playing there - he catches them if they are about to fall of the cliff. The story goes on and at the end we realise that Holden is now living in a mental institution after he "got sick".
Through the whole story two things keep on coming up - the death of his brother Allie and his very specific use of language (more or less talking "inappropriately"). The first is a symbol if his emotional attachments to his family and his vulnerability. The second is an act with which he tries to cover his vulnerability and to prove that he is already better than everyone else.
Why I love it
Because Holden is so beautifully lost that I just wish I am able to do something to help him. I wish I could be his cather, I wish I could be THE cather - to save the children from the storms and falls of the adulthood. The book is rather short but really emotional for someone like me who tries to save everyone at the same time. It is a symbol for all those turbulent first years into the adulthood, it deals with alienation, identity crisis, lost sense of belonging. Holden is so real that you can actually hear his sharp tongue in you ear while reading the pages. Holden is my best-friend and my mirror image - he is my dear old good boy who made all the bad choices. And he is the ultimate proof that goodness can exist even in the darkest corners of our mind.
You can't get lost if you don't know where you're going...
