When i Read The Catcher in the Rye

A compilation of some CathcherInTheRye art

What I read most recently  isn't new at all. It is, in fact, a classic we are all too familiar with -- J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. It is a classic and a misfit at the same time. It has the quintessential spunk of an adolescent growing up in America. The narration is completely unpredictable and in first person. The protagonist, Caulfield is intense and reserved, yet he cannot help telling you his story. What I love and connect with, in the book, is the rustic feel of a rough emotional life that is consistent throughout. 

Why, Caulfield is your everyday loser. You wouldn't think twice about him, unless you really want to. He is certainly not one of the most impressive characters you would come across, in literature or otherwise. Yet when you finish the book, you know he has rubbed off a little bit of himself on you, with his intense cynicism, want of affection and search for someone who is not phoney. Looking back, I realize that the irony of this book/ Caulfield’s life is that the high point IS the low point and vice versa. At places, I found that the narration dragged on a bit but I was also aware that it is Caulfield’s natural state of mind. 

Some people find it surprising that Salinger, who was easily twice as old as Caulfield when he wrote the book, has managed to dole out a narrative that is entirely inward looking into his protagonist's mind. While I am amazed at his style too, I kind of also get where he is coming from. This book does not pretend to be anything but itself. It makes no promises and doesn't bother to make you hopeful or anything. It is just one long ramble from start to end. Like a really long phone conversation you'd have with an old friend. Like this e.g. When he's telling you about how he hates going to visit his brother's tomb in the cemetery, he'll say, 

' ...  All the visitors could get in their cars and turn on their radios and all and then go someplace nice for dinner—everybody except Allie (his brother). I couldn't stand it. I know it's only his body and all that's in the cemetery, and his soul's in Heaven and all that crap, but I couldn't stand it anyway. I just wished he wasn't there.'

or this, his simplistic solution to all his problems 
'I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes... Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone . . .'

There are so many instance like these, funny and sad at the same time. You want to laugh at his naive wise-cracks and you feel for how how lonesome this kid is. I think, I might just come back to Caulfield from time to time - perhaps when I find an overwhelming sense of emptiness taking over me and I need someone to relate to. Caulfield etches a definite frame in your mind, for himself. Especially when in the ends he says, 

'That's all I'm going to tell you about. I could probably tell you what I did after I went home, and how I got sick and all, ... but I don't feel like it, I really don't ...' 

Cracks

Photograph by  Chinmay Dave

No matter what you do or say

Or don’t do or don’t say

There will be cracks and breaks

We will not mend them

Or stop them

This brokenness

Will be our stories

And the light from within our soul

Will come out

Through the cracks

In our personalities

The Half Door

Half a door's a shadow 

Half the door is mine

Half a thought means nothing

But you can keep what you find

There are stories untold

Half written

Half lost in time

Scuttling through the hours

And doors

And many matters in the grind

Need they be seized or held?

Or waited upon so that 

They alight on your shoulders and palms

And be etched in another rhyme

Ready to walk the line

Ready to keep the time

Yours and mine

Worth every penny and dime