If a Body Catch a Body through the Rye…

I’ve recently (two months ago, maybe?) read The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Yeah, that book that’s mandatory in many schools. It wasn’t in mine, not to brag or anything.

I liked it. I really did. I won’t tell anything about the plot to support that opinion. However, I do have reasons. They are:

• Holden’s language: Holden’s the main character, by the way. He writes in a very particular way. He really does. He uses the same constructions again and again, the same structures, the same catchphrases and the same swearing words. He goddamn does. Why? Because TCitR is not an epic story. It’s a journal written by a teen who flunks his classes. He can’t write perfectly. But he can write. More on that later
• Holden’s hatred: As his sister Phoebe tells him, there’s nothing in the world he likes, except for kids and his siblings, but nobody is aware of that. He lives hating everything and everybody, calling people “phonies” and hypocrites. Which brings us to
• Holden’s Logic: He makes fairly good points explaining his hatred. It leads the reader (or me, at least) to hate the people he describes as much as he does, noticing those disgusting behaviors in people in his life (or maybe in himself). Because Holden’s Logic is correct. There are disgusting things in the world. But…
• Holden’s Solipsism: Yes, he is right. So? You cannot just live hating everybody. There are always exceptions. The lesson he learns is to stop directing his energy against the world, and use it in favor of it, instead. He learns. He makes mistakes, and recognizes them. Which leads to
• Holden’s Evolution: At first he is an angsty teen against the world. But, somewhere in the story, he learns. He decides to become a “Catcher in the Rye”, stopping the kids that play in the Rye to fall into the void. He wants to stop kids from growing into terrible people as the ones he hates. Then,
• Holden’s Coherence: That’s why he writes the book. He wants to teach kinds growing. Because, as teens, most of us have felt as he did. Disgusted by seeing how the world is not as we imagined it to be. And that leads to hatred, just like it led him to hate phonies. But he realizes it’s not right to fall into that trap. Being a cynic is easy. Being hopeful is not. He writes the book to prevent us from growing into suspicious people.

Those are the wonders of the book. It’s one of the best books I have ever read, and I do recommend it, for this brief post is not half as good as the novel is. It really isn’t.

 

Booooooooks

Thibault proudly presents…

The list of best books I’ve ever read in no particular order! (Though, according to my lousy memory, so “ever” might be “this year”)

A Chess Novel
(Stephen Zweig)

I am a chess fanboy. So, when I saw a book with “Chess” on the title, NOTHING could’ve stopped me from getting it. Not even the fact that it was in Portuguese.

AND IT WAS WORTH IT!

It had chess, weird people, competition, battle of wits, cleverness, obsessed characters, things to do when you’re alone and locked in a room…

I thought that the fact of reading it in portuguese made it more exciting to read because it was challenging, but I then repeated the story in my head to check, and it was perfect. Perfect perfect.

The Little Prince
(Antoine de Saint Exupery)

When I was a kid, my aunt gave my this book. I threw it against a wall after a few pages because I couldn’t stand the cheesiness of the Prince.

However, I gave it a second chance a week ago, and I loved it. Yes, people change and I’m people.

It was like a riddle book, where you had to discover what the author means by the symbolism. And, after each correct answer, you get wisdom as a reward. Brilliant.

Also, I read it when I was feeling really touchy-feely, so it helped me very much to feel clever again by being right.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
(Mark Haddon)

I had a serious addiction to this book. Maybe it was the indie style, maybe it was the math, maybe it was the character… Okay, it was the character.

Christopher is an autistic mathematically gifted teen. He sees math everywhere. He is an extremely logical person. He can’t give hugs. He is brutally honest. He screams when he’s in a new situation. He punches people if they get too close. How am I supposed to not love him?

Alice in Wonderland: 
(Lewis Carroll)

This book is nonsense. It’s pure, condensed nonsense. From the Dodo’s racing game to the trial, nothing is normal! And that’s precisely what makes it wonderful. Or maybe it’s wonderful because it’s Wonderland! No? Not funny? Ok.

The Amateur Cracksman/ The Black Mask: 
(E.W.Hornung)

This book and its sequel, both about an indie thief called Raffles and his colleague Bunny, created the idea of a bad guy who does evil for fun as a main character. The anti-hero is just brilliant: manipulative, cunning, calm, but still full of passion for what he does. He’s friendly to Bunny, always ready to surprise him (even though it may hurt his companion) and always with a trick on his sleeve.

The Lost World:
(A.C.Doyle)

The great Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes (also, brother-in-law of the author of The Amateur Cracksman) brought to live to the eccentric, irascible professor Challenger, one of the most brilliants minds of the century (the best in history, according to himself) in the body of a pumped-up Neanderthal.
And he goes to the Amazone looking for dinosaurs.
But, undoubtedly, one of the best things of this book is the continuous snark-to-snark combat between Challenger and the severe and sceptic Professor Summerlee to rise as “the greatest scientific mind of the millenium”

And these are all. However, be aware: I don’t have a ranking of best books, so I may submit many other posts about my favorite fictions.

PS:

Yeah, I may have counted the o’s in the title to make sure it’s an even number and so it’s read correctly instead of “boo-oo-oks”