The End of the Catcher In the Rye

The ending, in my opinion, was the best part of the book, particularly the last two chapters-ish. I'd like to write about the book without having it right with me, so here's my best attempt.

The beginning of the ending was a little hard to get into. He's still depressed, he drops her

record, and he goes to the little pond, I was afraid he was going to freeze to death and that would be the end of the book. But then he goes home, and it made me so glad he finally went home because it was about time! He goes home and talks to Phoebe, and then Mr. Antolini, and then Phoebe again. Mr. Antolini was an interesting man. It's too bad he got his wife up just to make coffee, why can't the lazy man make it himself? They had a long talk, (that oral expression class sounded sort of strange) and then eventually he falls asleep there. Then he wakes up to find him petting him on the head, or something like that, and runs away because he's afraid of him. I think Mr. Antolini was just concerned about Holden, especially with all the careful advice he gives him.

Phoebe - I was so happy to meet her!! She just seems so realistic, not that the other characters weren't, but of all the people in the book, I could picture Phoebe the most. The way she is totally awake only a few seconds after he wakes her up, and she is so excited to see her brother. I mean, she doesn't even worry about why he's home early for a while, she only cares that he's back home. I wonder if she knows that she is the only person alive that he really likes. Who else is there? When she asks him that question, I think he should have said, "You," but he didn't! Oh, that made me so sad! Even Jane isn't really quite the same to him as his sister. He goes and buys a record for his sister, not Jane. I guess that's just bad reasoning, but I if I had to choose one over the other, I'd pick Phoebe. One thing that I appreciate about Phoebe is that she seems so sensible! Instead of just accepting her brother's life, she wants him to grow up. I love that about her, she already gets things when she's so young. I still feel like she's realistic though, because she doesn't always act sensible. She has the crying fit after she finds out he got kicked out, and doesn't talk to him. But at the same time, she saw it coming, she is smart enough to figure things like that out ahead of time. She is just the best.

Another thing about Phoebe is that not only can she understand and stand up to Holden, she also has some power over him. They both obviously care for each other, but Holden probably would only say no to her if she could get hurt. And that's where her power comes in. If Phoebe wasn't there, Holden would probably be dead or really really depressed. Whether she planned it or not, she sure did stop Holden from making a bad mistake by running off to wherever. So the question is, was she just being stubborn and childish by trying to get Holden to let her come with him, or was it her plan to get him to stay? Why can't she be smart enough to know she could stop him? I sure don't know why.

Other things that made me smile that Phoebe did? When she wore his hat, when she put his hat on his head for him, when she saved the pieces of his record, and when she lends him money. It just seems so sweet of her, with this truly unconditional love she has for her brother. She forgives him for getting kicked out (kind of), and for dropping the record, but she still has this way of pushing him on.

Then there's the carrousel. Phoebe is still mad at Holden, and it supposed to be closed, and Phoebe thinks she's too old, but she rides it anyway. Holden just watches her, and then it ends, and it starts to rain, and then she puts his hat on his head. Even when it starts pouring, he stands and watches her go up and down on the carrousel. I love it! It's not really a happy ending, but it's still good. You know what I think would be cool? If it was written from Phoebe's perspective. That would just be great. Then you're left, in chapter 26, with this feeling that it could happen all over again, but somehow he might do better, or something good might happen to make it a little better. It gave a hint that, maybe, he possibly could have a better life. He really could.

Catcher Chapters 13-19

I was so excited at the beginning of these chapters when he put his hunting cap on! I decided that it would be a good chapter. Unfortunately, the whole seven chapters (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19) ended up making me sad and more annoyed. It started okay, I liked the whole thing with the gloves at the beginning, and the ice skating with Sally, and looking for Phoebe/talking about the museum. I thought it was sort of cool how he described the museum, every person behind the glass, and how they went all the time. At least it wasn't a very depressing topic. Although it was a little weird when he asks the little girl if she knows Phoebe Caulfield. The girl first is confused, and she asks "Who?" and then he just says "Phoebe Caulfield" and explains she's in fourth grade, and she automatically knows exactly who. How does that work? If someone asked who someone was, then I would say 'yes' or 'no', not something like, 'maybe'. It was like repeating it a second time would clear any confusion. And then she wasn't very helpful, anyway. But I still liked it better than him wandering around and being so pitiful.

Unfortunately, I found the rest of it really depressing, probably because he kept saying he was depressed. Sunny was also sort of depressing, with the whole 'You owe me ten dollars not five' thing, and then Maurice getting all mad. He has that 'big, fat, hairy, crumby, stomach' and then they just take the money out of his wallet. I hope he doesn't go back there. He can go back to Pencey, but not there.

I also liked the nuns, which I sort of forgot about, but he seemed happier talking to them, and like I said, any time he wasn't talking about how depressed he was, I was happy. Then he had that whole talk about Catholics, which I thought was sort of funny.

Personally, I think that everything after the skating with Sally is uninteresting and fairly depressing as a whole. I'm serious, it reminds you how strange Holden is, and it isn't very comforting for me to think he might be sort of crazy. When he's talking to Sally, she keeps saying things like "Stop yelling!" which make you think he is sort of crazy, because he doesn't think he's yelling. I think it's sort of weird that he calls up random people that he knows from something or other and says, "Hey, let's hang out!" when the people hardly even know him. I found that I really was just feeling really sick of the story by the end of these chapters. Even with all that other stuff that I really liked, it just had this overall depressing feeling. Someone please tell me it gets somewhat better, whether Holden is crazy or not.

The Catcher in the Rye 7-12

So, I thought I would take part of Wednesday to read The Catcher. The thing is, I kind of got annoyed by the end of it. He doesn't accomplish anything, he just wanders a lot. Does anyone really care that he leaves early? His roommate is mad, Ackley is annoyed with him, and the guy with the typewriter is mad, and so no one really cares he's leaving, which was kind of sad. He doesn't say goodbye, or feel sad, but it was really nice to get him out of there. It was unbearable for him to sit there all the time, so it was time he got away. Unfortunately, he doesn't do much afterwards, either. It's not that I didn't enjoy reading it, it's just frustrating because it feels like the same thing happens: he goes somewhere, talks to someone and ends up sad and goes somewhere else.

I really liked when he kept asking about the ducks, and the argument about the fish in the pond with the taxi guy, when he talks about Phoebe and I liked the chapter devoted to Jane. I think Jane is the kind of person who would make you feel really good about yourself without you knowing it. He talks about how he taught her how to golf, and he always seemed comfortable with her, she made him feel good about himself, but she still had her own life. He never is mad at Jane for dating Stradlater, he's mad at Stradlater for dating Jane. It kind of makes you wonder what Holden is really like. He's surrounded by people he hates, going to a school which he hates, so what would he be like if he was actually happy? Say if Jane were to pop out, would he be any different? Does he act the way he does because he's unhappy and not because he's crazy? I'm still convinced he's not crazy.

What else, Bernice was a little weird. How could she be dancing and so spaced out? Of course, I know a few Bernices, always spaced out, or not paying any attention. Which reminds me, I really hate it when someone is trying to talk to you and you have absolutely no idea what they're saying. And it's horrible because everything they say you have to ask them to repeat four times and when you're on the other end, it's terribly annoying to repeat something multiple times. Does anyone else have this problem? Maybe I'm just going deaf...

Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say about The Catcher in the Rye. It was interesting to read, but the overall story during this part was a bit dull. So where will Holden go next?

The Catcher in the Rye 1-6

Well, Holden is a little strange, and that is something I'm sure about. I wonder how the author created this character, it just seem like such a weird idea. Do I like Holden? Well, I guess so. I really don't want to like him, but I do. In real life I would probably hate him, I think that's why I don't want to like this character. He is really really opinionated about most things, and for every thing that happens, he has to say something about it. Why doesn't he like school? Because he's surrounded by a bunch of phonies!! Actually I think he just has a hard time socially, so school isn't exactly for him, especially when everyone around him seems to disagree with his ideas about life. Is he dumb? No, no, no. He really isn't dumb. He remembers things he wants to, and if he was curious or cared about anything in school, he would learn it, but he doesn't. He also appears to be really good at writing, which seems like a funny thing, when he gets every comma right, but he doesn't stand any other learning. I do (as of now) trust he is telling mostly the truth. He does say quite proudly that he is a good liar, so maybe he's lying (he is a good writer). There are a lot of times where I have no idea if he's telling the truth, and then there are times where he doesn't seem to know about what's going on, but what he says is the only story we get. Oh yes, and I really like his hat. At first I imagined if sort of like an elf hat, and I still like it better when I imagine it that way. It's sort of like him, it's so weird and unique that I like it!
What else? I flat out hate Ackley, I think I would put my dresser in front of the space between the rooms, or something like that. He's the sort of person you'd want to shove into a closet and lock him in there forever. How does he choose to cut his toenails right then? Why does he even bother to come and talk to Holden, he can't be stupid enough not to see he doesn't like him. He goes over to talk to him, and then one of them (or both) end up annoyed. What does he do with himself all day?
Stradlater is just kind of blah. He just takes things and asks for things without any sort of gratitude or anything. He makes Holden do his homework, and takes his stuff, and then he is in no way grateful for any of it. If I were Holden I would probably drop out, too, because the people there would drive me insane. I am not so sure I believe he is really that generous with his stuff, (when Holden is giving that example with the tie) I don't see him being quite like that.

Other than that I thought the baseball glove was really interesting, because it led to this whole story about his brother and how different he had been. I can imagine a baseball glove like that, with green poems all over. I think he was right when he said that I would like Allie, I wish he was still alive. It seems like it would be hard to write about something so meaningful, because Allie was definitely important to him, but he didn't seem to get too upset about it. Maybe he really is crazy, then. Or maybe he isn't really crazy, and he is just normal. How can you tell? How would you feel if you knew you would never see someone so special to you again?