I'm going to be absolutely honest. I know that everybody and their brother lists this book as being the one that changed their life, but I feel like I maybe read this a little too late. I wanted to like it because from what I understood (or at least from what everyone I know has said) it was a brilliant piece of literature. That might have been the case if I had read it as a teenager when the problems that Holden Caulfield faced seemed a little more relevant... but I didn't. I read it as an adult and the only thing that I could think as I did so was that I wanted to knock him upside the head with something heavy. Preferably a frying pan since anyone who knows me and my literary obsessions will recall my love for Lord of the Rings' Sam Gamgee... but that's beside the point. The point is, Caulfield did nothing but annoy me for page after page of repetitive, endless whining.So, semi-long story short, this book is about a seventeen year-old boy that has managed to flunk out of several different schools and is currently getting kicked out of another. He whines to his roommate, gets into fights, and then leaves in the middle of the night for New York City. He goes to a hotel, hires a prostitute that he can't end up sleeping with, gets beaten up, and then whines some more. Oh, then he drinks a bunch, goes on a date that ends horribly, whines some more, and then potentially gets assaulted by his former teacher. All the while, he's plotting his escape... because we all know that running away is the best answer when you get pissed off. Did I mention that he drones on endlessly about how much he hates everyone? Because there's some of that, too. Maybe a few other things happen, but I think this more or less covers the basics.
Truthfully, this book made me never want to hear the word 'phony' again. Everything seemed to be phony, but the truth (in my opinion anyway) is that Caulfield was the most phony individual of the bunch. I'm sorry, but there's no way for any teenager to be that fucking cynical. They haven't had the life experience to make them hate existence as much as any adult I know. I guess I just don't have the patience for that degree of melodrama. My life has been fucked up and you don't find me bitching about it to anyone that'll listen. Ok... maybe that's not entirely true, but I can't possibly be as obnoxious as Caulfield tends to be. At least I know when to stop. So, he spends the entirety of the novel complaining about how phony everyone else is without ever pausing to take stock of just what kind of impression he's making on the world. His disaffected attitude toward society as a whole is not fooling anyone. They all know he's just a scared, miserable little child. It's just too bad he didn't realize it sooner.
I'm not entirely sure what I was supposed to take from this book. Maybe the point was missed on me because I'm not a seventeen year-old boy... or a seventeen year-old in general. Maybe I didn't get it because experience has taught me that depression happens but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to drink yourself into a stupor and moan to anyone who'll listen to manage it... and that it's not possible to hate everyone that you meet because almost all of them have at least one redeeming quality that makes their existence worth your acknowledgment.
Rating: 1/5
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