Catcher in the Rye

No, I didn't finish MiJ but I was on a vacation and picked up CiTR to take me through the 48 hours of train journey and managed to finish it. This was the first book that I bought when I came to Bangalore. So finally, the ball has begun to roll :-).

About the book, I guess I would have liked it more had I read it some 7-8 years ago but even then not too much because luckily or unluckily, at no point of growing up, I had such a cynical view of the world. So it is a little tough to identify with the lead character but I can see why so many young guys in US and other western societies like it. The lead character Holden is quite likeable though thoroughly confused and directionless but there is a certain honesty in his character that impressed me. He is not a hypocrite and at times, even in that messed up state of his head, manages to say things that I can quite connect with. The impression that I had of him before starting to read the book was of a over the top psycho but he is more like a depressed kid who can't even protect himself, let alone hurt somebody. And at 23 and living in the India of today, it is not difficult to appreciate his hatred towards the phoniness of the adult world. Yes, I also think that 60% of the world or may be even 80% of the world around us is so shallow and phoney that it stinks but once you have discounted that 80%, rest 20% is so beautiful and exciting that it makes up for all the rest.

Though what killed me in the novel was the character of Phoebe. Her affection towards his brother and her mature innocence (couldn't think of more appropriate word) felt so good after all the bull that Holden was shooting all through the book. It is that innocence and love that I am talking about when I talk about 20% of the world.

There are some parts from the book that I would write about in the next post when I'll have the book with me but here is something else that got me thinking.

The book is a bestseller through out the world. It came out in the post-war times when prosperity had come to American Society and it was under going major changes something that is happening in Indian Society right now. Untill now, the kind of childhood that an Indian child experienced and what an American child experienced were very very different. The period of growing up in an Indian society was wrapped up in the warm support system of family and was disciplined in part by the strong control excercised by the parents on the lives of the children and in part by the general lack of lavish style of living. Hence the experience was less in the face. I read the Biography of Vivekanand while I was 14-15, his growing up and his quest for knowledge and that appealed much more to me. Appeals to me even today.

But the times are changing and families are breaking down. The experience of growing up is becoming more painful (for want of a better word). May be the future generation of India would identify more with somebody like Holden Caufield rather then somebody like Vivekanand. Though it can be argued that it will produce young men tougher and more independent then today, they might also turn out to be more cynical and insecure. I think watching the sales figure of Catcher in the Rye would be a good idea to get an idea of how our young minds are feeling :-).