If You Really Want to Hear About It
A review of The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
By Julia A. Keirns
I was told this was a difficult book. I didn’t care. I wanted to read it. It was on my list of classics. And the outcome is that I highly recommend this book be read and understood for generations to come.
Holden Caulfield absolutely adores his little sister Phoebe. He has had to grow up and find out how absolutely horrible the world is and most people in it, at least from his point of view, and he just wants to save her, and all innocent children, from having to grow up and find it out for themselves. It is a book about lost innocence and depression. Holden just wants to be the Catcher in the Rye…
“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”
This is a book about one young man’s struggle with depression. There are so many times throughout the book that I was sure it would end with his suicide. He was a teenager struggling with the fact that life, school and everybody in it sucked. Salinger wrote this book in 1951 and for years after was claimed to be secluded himself. I wonder if he didn’t write this book through one of his own bouts of depression.
This book has a life of its own and is reclaimed by new generations of young teens as teen depression comes to light in so many places. Today teenagers deal with school shootings and suicide and drugs. Holden found a better way to deal with his depression and I was pleased to hear him say, “A lot of people, especially this one psychoanalyst guy they have here, keeps asking me if I’m going to apply myself (better).” I think the whole point of successfully living through depression is to have “a lot of people” care about you.
I read quite a few reviews about this book to see if my feelings were similar to others. I couldn’t find where anybody really talked about this book being about depression. But that is just my take on it. I did actually enjoy reading this book after I got a couple of chapters into it and gave it a chance. Once I discovered some of the meanings in what Holden was talking about, it struck a nerve with me, and I am glad I read the whole book.
Everybody should completely read this book, especially anyone dealing with depression. It gives hope that you can survive, even when life sucks. Sometimes the chapters are daunting, and you wonder what the purpose is. But sometimes, when dealing with depression, there doesn’t have to be a purpose. If it is important to the one going through it, then it matters. After all, the book begins with the words, “If you really want to hear about it…” So if you do, then read the book.