Catcher in the Rye Well it took me a few years to get to this, but I finally read it this weekend and was pleasantly surprised. I didn't know what to expect as it's a favorite book of so many whacked out people, John Hinkley being one and well you know that story! J.D. Salinger wrote a compelling tale a severe teen angst, angst that borders on mental illness. The Character of Holden Caufield is a terrific example of the turmoil one goes through growing up, his questioning of authority, his utter disdain for pretentious posers. Holden thinks to much, which I can relate too, he's very smart, yet he's failing in school, if he can't do it his way why do it at all? We follow him as he leaves school and decides how to deal with telling his parents he's been kicked out of yet another school. The adventures are sad and amusing and the reflections of his encounters are as he says "depressing" everthing depresses this man. I laughed everytime he said something depressed him, then I realized I was laughing at mental illness, which in turn, depressed me. The only joy this young man seems to hold dear are thoughts of his little sister, and the the simple dream of being a catcher of children at risk of falling off a cliff in a rye field, not an ambitious young man by any means. When he takes solice at the house of an old teacher the drunken instructor lectures him on his self destruction and leaves him with..."The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one", I would even argue that one! We all expect great things from life, and are constantly let down by many aspects of it. Some of us are a bit more passionate about our beliefs or want for beliefs, we search and question everything, we are deemed wierd on nonconformist if we don't play by societies rules. I can relate to this youngs mans angst on many different levels and again that depressed me, at what point in our lives do we settle for less than what we had in mind, knowing full well its out there, and are unwilling or through circumstance not achieve it? Sometimes we become prisoners of our quest and leads to its own lack of growth. We are our own greatest enemy and our best ally. I think that Salinger was trying to point that out. That walking to the beat of a different drum is not so bad, but it helps if you got rhythm. This is true of Salinger as well, he holds contempt for much of society and doesn't publish anymore, I liken it to withholding sex. I've got what you want, but ya can't have it. It's within his rights to do just that, but again the growth has become stunted or at least not shared with the rest of the world and as Holden would say, "that depressed me". At the end of the book when asked by his brother and psychoanalyst where he'll be attending school in the fall and if he'll apply himself this time Holden replies, "It's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question."