The Catcher In The Rye – J.D Salinger

You’v probably heard of this well-written book. I’v never read anything that contained as many cuss words as this, but for a meager, shallow novel, it’s a reflection of  the community in the 1950′s.

The storyline is remarkably intriguing and is exceptionally simple. Through the lead – Holden’s aimless two-day wonder, with his unique perspective, attitude and his speech patterns, presents thoughts and psychological feelings of an adolescent realistically. When it was published in the States in 1951, it set off a ‘Catcher’s Cult’ , the reaction from public was polarized – it was listed as a forbidden book, has been selected as teaching materials and also, a novel which millions or more people have read. Holden disliked and tried to resist this hypocritical society, he was unprepared to the world of grown-ups and paid homage to the happiness in being a child.

This book has its position in the history of literature. Salinger was recognized as a pro on capturing modern American idioms and vocabulary capacities and wrote about his irony towards the world by using his ability. In which, I think, is the main essence of the book and the reason for the book’s success.

‘Catcher in the rye’ was made as the book’s title, an interception of Holden and his younger sister Phoebe’s conversation below :

“You know what I’d like to be?” I said. “You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?”
“What? Stop swearing.”
“You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like—”
“It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye’!” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.”
“I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.”
She was right, though. It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though.
“I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’” I said. “Anyway, 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. I know it’s crazy.”

When published, educational problems already existed, after 50 years we certainly can see the changes of the system – being able to tolerate the differences of their students, but the attitude is shifting in a rather slow speed. We can only hope that the government , for our next generation would be the victims under a corrupt policy.

Child 44 – Tom Rob Smith

I was browsing through the ‘Thriller’ section of a bookstore when I came through it. The title drew my attention since I thought it might as well be another story of a serial-killer. Before purchasing the book and looking into it, a plot immediately took over my mind – a victim gets killed, the government goes after the killer, killer gets justified, end of story, but after reading a few pages, I made up my mind to take it home,

The novel opens with a disturbing scene set in the winter of 1933 during the Ukrainian peasant famine: Smith created a woman and her cat in order to show the reader how tough it was to survive, gnawed legs of furnitures, strips of bark pealed in a pot in houses, domestic animals going missing.   Then the story officially began: Two brothers snaring at the cat for food, the hunt went wrong when the Pavel, elder between the two got became the victim itself and vanished leaving nothing behind but bloody marks on the snow. Andrei, the other brother went home bringing the tragic news about his brother’s disappearance.

Then the story fast forwards to 1953, the year when Stalin died. Leo Demidov took part in several investigations for murders of a young-children. There is no crime in the Soviet Union. Should some outrageous breach occur – like a murder – the government quickly names a culprit to be dealt with by a speedy, if tainted, trial. Problem solved. Leo’s superiors order him to ignore this information and, while he obeys, he senses there is more to the case.

Unfortunately not one of his subordinates even questioned the government’s biddings and believes that the government was wrong about the catch, so ironically he had to solve the puzzle alone even being accused of performing a spying act, a traitor to his country. From this point I can clearly see how much power the government had over the entire society at that period. The state will stop at nothing to prevent this information from reaching the public including denouncing and punishing its own investigators.

It was hard for me to guess who the murderer really is till the rear end of the story, you just go along with it, but not as complicated as Stieg Larsson’s work.

Leo found his brother, Andrei Chikatilo as the mastermind behind the murders and had no choice but to experience his past once again – what he tried to, but couldn’t forget all these years.

The ending was a surprise for me, I did not realize how quickly people can change within a short range of time, how much strength hatred held in one’s deepest and darkest side and how easily one person can change everything, even the things that seemed mighty – power and position.

This novel combines elements of the real case of Andrei Chikatilo and in my opinion, weaved in a combination of humanity, bravery and love. It left me hanging there for a while after I closed the book. I believe it still is, perhaps that’s the reason why I’m writing this.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. After you read this, you should delete and write your own post, with a new title above. Or hit Add New on the left (of the admin dashboard) to start a fresh post.

Here are some suggestions for your first post.

1. You can find new ideas for what to blog about by reading the Daily Post.
2. Add PressThis to your browser. It creates a new blog post for you about any interesting  page you read on the web.
3. Make some changes to this page, and then hit preview on the right. You can always preview any post or edit it before you share it to the world.