Continuing with "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger

              I am really starting to enjoy and giggle at this classic and extremely popular novel written by the legendary J.D. Salinger! I am seriously amazed at how well this guy knows the teenage boy's brain, who is the main character, in this book. The main character's name is Holden Caulfield, and man is he a troublemaker! Where do I even begin to explain what I know so far about this guy? Well, for starters, he has gotten kicked out of apparently every school he has been to (he is sixteen by the way!). I do not even comprehend how he got kicked out of every school, does he even try to improve? Not to mention he is extremely careless and irresponsible! An example if this is when he and the fencing team (a team that he assists quite often) were off to an extremely important competition, but guess what? Holden left all of the equipment on the subway that they were taking to the destination (go figure). Although there are so many negatives about this kid, there are lots of positive attributes as well.


            So going back to those positives, I do believe that Holden is a good kid at heart. This is because he had a history teacher named Mr. Spencer, that he dearly loved and enjoyed to spend time with, but the catch is that this specific teacher gave him a flunking grade for his class! Pretty ironic, isn't it? The part I find so funny is that when Holden goes to visit Mr. and Mrs. Spencer while he is deadly sick, Holden runs all of these hilarious (and extremely mean) comments through his head as they are having an annoying and unneeded conversation. An example of this is when Holden explains why he knows he deserved a flunking grade; "Well, you could see he really felt pretty lousy about flunking me. So I shot the bull for a while. I told him I was a real moron,and all that stuff. I told him how I would've done exactly the same thing if I'd been in his place, and how most people didn't appreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The old bull." As you can probably tell by this vivid example, Holden most likely has a few grudges towards this teacher, even if he doesn't want to openly admit it to everyone (meaning the readers).




            To be honest, I absolutely love this book! It is so funny and so true at the exact same time. I don't think I have ever read a book that accomplished both of those tasks. I was truthfully expecting this novel to be super boring and metaphorical, but it is the exact opposite of all of my prior predictions! I now understand why it is such a big book, in the late 1980's to now, it never loses it's truth, because human nature is displayed in this individual's actions and choices, and it shows our limits along with our freedoms. I have not seen too much of these aspects currently, but I can definitely feel them coming soon to add to the many hidden metaphors in this novel already. I am very excited to read further and learn more about Holden Caulfield!

[This is a picture of Holden Caulfield, strongly expressing his beliefs]