Catching an Opinion on The Catcher in the Rye

We were asked what we thought of The Catcher in the Rye and I honestly had a hard time forming an opinion. I finished it and I just didn’t know what to think.

I couldn’t decide if I liked the writing style or not, I mean it was easy to read but written in such a scattered non-linear way. As much as I didn’t like the tangents that he went off on I totally understood why it was done that way so I can’t bring myself to be too mad about it. Holden isn’t a character who holds in what his mind wanders to unlike most people and if Holden wrote a book he wouldn’t edit out his random thoughts (it’s not his style) he would just write whatever came up. Holden writes like my mind thinks sometimes—flipping from one subject to another like sorting a set of cards into numerical order by suit as fast as you possibly can not looking at one card too long unless you make yourself. The problem is I see Holden as someone who thinks like this all the time not just sometimes like me.

Next is the issue of Holden himself. He is a slacker and he smokes and he drinks and he is depressed and simply makes bad choices without thinking things through. The thing is I kind of LIKE Holden he reminds me of an old friend of mine, makes stupid choices but he’s a good person under all of the bullcrap. Actually, now that I think about it he’s almost exactly like that old friend of mine (no wonder I like and hate Holden so much). While that may cloud my judgment of Holden a bit he frustrates me at the same time, he does and says thing that just make you shake your head and think “you’ve got to be kidding me, he didn’t just say that” and he never DOES anything he says he wants to or should do it’s aggravating.  I feel like such a hypocrite saying that though because I never really DO anything either, probably another reason I like him. So again, mixed feelings.

Before I finish I’m just going to mention that I don’t know why THIS story, of all the things Salinger could have written about Holden’s fake life why this uneventful whine fest? I have a theory about that but I’ll leave that for another post. But it doesn’t change the fact that it really isn’t the most exciting story in the world, kind of boring actually. Sure he gets kicked out of school, beat up by a pimp, and gets drunk. What’s so special about that? Not to mention the ending left us hanging, I prefer a little more wrapping up in my stories just saying “that’s all I’m going to tell about” is SO not sufficient in my book. Yes, if they do leave it open you can draw your own conclusions and I have, but I prefer to not be forced to guess so completely.

Like Holden at the end of The Catcher in the Rye “that’s all I’m going to tell about” and I still haven’t decided how much I like the book but I think I can at least say that—I liked The Catcher in the Rye, not my favorite, not the worst, either way I guess I enjoyed it somewhat.