Honestly, I Can't Think of Any Other Name So I'll Go Generic: Catcher in the Rye

When I began this novel, I really disliked Holden. I found him to be whiny, nasty, and overcritical on others. However, over the course of the story, you can't help but be a little sympathetic towards him. He feels so lonely and depressed all the time, and he doesn't really open up to anyone. Towards the end of the book, he reflects over whether he wanted to tell the reader the entire story. However, I think he actually wanted to finally explain what happened to him. He writes as though he is talking to the reader about his experience, which is what he could never do with anyone before. As a reader, I try to get myself to understand the perspective of Holden, but it is kind of uncomfortable for me, because his perspective is a little crazy and I sort of don't want to think the way he is thinking. You could tell that he was getting more and more depressed, as he mentioned increasingly often things that depressed him.

By the end of the story, I actually start questioning whether Holden is completely crazy, or whether he is actually seeing something more than most people, that causes him to act crazy. His thoughts on the theater are pretty interesting. He believes that actors don't act like real people, because they are too perfect- they respond too immediately, the lines are all memorized. Even the good actors are then too good.

I felt really bad for Holden when Maurice and Sunny barged into his hotel room, beat him up, and robbed him. He must have felt horrible when Maurice trapped him undressed, and the two robbed him. I bet that sort of experience would make him feel really lonely and depressed, considering how even small other things depress him. He is still sixteen, which makes him pretty close to my age, and that makes the situation more horrific to me.

I'm glad that Holden gives a sort of reflection in the short last chapter of the book. I think it creates the full circle, especially when he mentions Stradlater and Ackley. However, I still think that his ending may not suggest a hopeful future. I think he will probably be steadier than before, though. At the end, he still shows his inability to connect with people, because he tells the reader not to tell anybody anything, because it will only cause pain and nostalgia. To me, Mr. Antolini was right when he said that Holden doesn't adjust and interact with his surroundings well.

The book, all in all, improved a lot after my first post, but still did not appeal to me as much as some of the others. It was somewhere on the middle of the spectrum, I suppose.