Book Review: Catcher In The Rye

My friend Vinodh used to say: Don’t choose the music. Let the music choose you. Personally, this has been true for every best thing that has ever happened for me in my life till now. Maybe that’s why I got excited, when, in the opening frames of ‘Vinaithandi Varuvayaa’, Karthick ( I prefer Karthick than Simbu as I still think he is an over rated actor) would exclaim, “kathala thedi naama poga mudiyathu… athuva nadakanum...”, for love is the greatest art pursued through life. Likewise, when the book chooses you rather than the other way around, believe me, it can prove lethal. Especially the right book at the right moment can kill you. Catcher in the rye chose me at one such time. A time when every miniscule part of my life was falling apart that it appeared even my shadow was looking down upon me. I really wanted to go inside my cocoon and hit the hibernation button. “Try Catcher”, was all Jeeva said. Usually, I never ever do what he says (same goes with him for all I say) but that day I chose to go different. Maybe that was all needed to be done then.

The book was simple. The protagonist was still simpler. But his psyche looked convoluted. And here was I of the presumption that only my mind can put up such freaky outlandish shows when rattled. Only after a while I realized that his mind was not convoluted but naked. That was the moment of my epiphany. It was like speaking directly to you circumventing all those societal consciousness. I didn’t realize the exact moment but even before half the way down, the book had become anthropomorphous to me. It was like a shot in the arm, pure unadulterated bliss!! . I got kicked, bullied, embarrassed, sympathized, apprehended, impended, killed and I don’t know what not feelings of an adolescent kid intimidated by his mise-en-scenes. By the end of the last page, Holden Caulfield became my Jesus and J.D. Salinger, the Holy Father. The only thing I couldn’t comprehend after closing the book was how the fuck (I have even started revering swear words!!) could a man, half a century before my birth, record the blue print of my brain’s thought process. Then my dormant brain got hit by light. It was not specific to me but to my entire race - The Losers! The race which Fate had designed so deviously during Genesis to make their counter parts dwell in the glories of their own narcissistic world. I swear, this was a book written by a Loser about a Loser to a Loser!! How else could he have known every single stair in the caliginous castle of Losers? He should have dwelled in it.

Subjective narration at its best, it was neither Salinger nor Holden Caulfield but Holden’s mind, or to be exact Holden’s unabridged mind, that was unfolding the events through all the bizarre haphazardness. I remember having this recurring thought during my ruminations, of what if my mind had the capacity to think aloud. I mean what if that infinitesimal time lag between what you think and what you speak had by-passed all your inhibitions so that whatever you thought came exactly as words out of your mouth. How people would react to all those erratic blathers? Well, the book was the metaphor of that abstraction. Never before did a book have such a profound effect in me. There were moments when I put down the book and was laughing out loud with that particular scene going on in rewind mode in my mind. And was it funny? Yes, definitely. But more than that, it was nostalgically funny. Things which I had experienced in my teenage days owing to my vestigial brain started resurrecting. The particular instance where Holden enacts the dodging of bullet invoked my memories of the Anniyan-Ambi changeover scene from the movie ‘Anniyan’ that  my mind tried to emulate when my father got mad and scourged me for my carelessness during my eleventh board exams (It was the only acute moment my father had laid his hand on me!). One other instance was Holden’s penchant for ephemeral platonic romances. At times his he will start choreographing things for future with that girl even though his consciousness would remind him that it’s just a temporary fix.
Having said everything, the distinctive thought that hit me was Catcher in the rye should be felt through if not venerated at least. For every person a moment will come in life when self-detestation will reek in every breath of you for not being able to emulate the image of the societal embodiment that your mind had conceived of yourself. This book will shunt that moment like a blanket does for the poor soul lost in the frost.  Because, it’ll help, though not directly, to recognize the exact opposite of the conceived ideal You. In fact, it’ll celebrate and cherish the unorganized, the disoriented, the impulsive, the alienated and all those not so easily expressible layers of You. In short, it’ll help you to find those missing jigsaw pieces to identify You.

Had I got this book during my teens, my life would have been completely different. Different in the sense my understanding towards the same life would have been way better. For the first time in my life, I was proud of being the way I am. The exact randomness of my life which was a liability till then had all of a sudden become my biggest asset. I don’t know how long it is going to be this way. But I’m sure that whenever I feel like going back to my cocoon, Holden Caulfield would be waiting there with open hands to welcome me. I was jumping with joy like a mad man for my life being the way it is and was looking forward with open arms to confront the next weapon from the arsenal of life. Somewhere deep in mind I could hear the muffled voice of the commander from Tennyson’s verses,

“Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns! ”

-Arulmozhivarman T