Book Review: The eternal hell that is love - Catcher in the Rye
The book is a perfect sketch of adolescent teen’s mind. Reading the words, it feels like you’re inside Holden’s head and hearing his mumbling through the situation, as if you’re experiencing not only the situation he is in, but also all the random thoughts that he was going through. These random thoughts present the chaotic and self destructive nature of Holden by having lots of contradictory thoughts and immediate turns of emotions.
Holden is someone who has lost his cause and goal, but he is also “awake” and know what he wants and does not want. This kind of mental state not only exists in teens but also in adulthood. The anger towards the system and the “fakeness” of general human being mixed with the despair of one’s inability to change all these things, sparks the desire to just be away from all this — either by jumping out of the window, or by getting far away and maintaining minimal interaction with the society.
The catcher in the rye metaphor seems to suggest that deep down Holden hopes that someone can prevent this “downfall”, this self destruction. I read reviews that say the book ends in a positive way, that Holden was “catched” by his little sister.
However I have a different feeling - as long as Holden’s despair is not fixed, he is still in the state of this “downfall”. What his sister prevented, or delayed, was his final crash onto the land which would have been relieving for Holden. Holden is now living in the eternal hell, always experiencing this fear and despair of the downfall, because he was not able to end all of it due to his loved ones. And maybe that is the state of lots of adults: due to the few people you truly care, they are preventing you from ending the misery.
“Hell is other people”. and people are not really “people” to you. They are just moving objects on the streets or statistics on the paper…. until you develop the relationship and you recognize that they matter to you.
Perhaps, the love we have is the eternal hell.