Song for Holden Caulfield

Writing about The Catcher in the Rye is a suicidal note.
But let the passion take over the masochism for a while. Because Salinger brings you back to the old school version of you, and Holden peeps out every now and then; never to be forgotten and never to grow out.

I've been trying for a while to continue writing this post, but something keeps me from summarising a masterpiece into a banal bunch of words. I might call this lack of self-confidence, shame or repulsion, but probably it's just what something this big can naturally haunt you with.
Because Holden's story might as well be everyone's story. A ritual of passage through the rye grass of life, adulthood and conscience.
I was 19 when I first read this novel, and someone told me that if you're older you're less likely to be impressed by the book. What I actually think is that there are several levels in everything we do, and thus several things to keep with you. The Catcher in the Rye is not children literature, it's not a bildungsroman; it is, instead, a stream of emotions and sensations we all feel during the course of our lives. And not only did Salinger give shape to what we feel all the time but never had the strength to forge, but he even antropomorphised it. In a shocking, uncompromising way. In a way that only Holden's words can truthfully explain:
"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."
And Holden is not a kid. Because there's no age that life can defeat of lock up. You can read the book at any age, you can read it at any level, but there is no age without sensations. And that's what makes this masterpiece a timeless, ageless, spotless journey.


And, I dare say, there's no heart within a person who hasn't cried to that tiny little moment between Holden and Phoebe, those minutes of epiphany of the soul.
"I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don't know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could've been there."