If a body meet a body, coming through the rye
If a body kiss a body, need a body cry?
You might not know about Mr. Salinger the writer, but I bet you know who is John Lennon. Well, John Lennon was assassinated by Mark Chapman, who asked John to sign a copy of this book “The Catcher In The Rye” just that morning he killed John.
The story was told in first person as Holden Caulfield, a teenage boy expelled from school for the forth time due to his flunking in too many exams, decided to leave school a few days earlier before the vacation actually started, and to hang around in New York city instead of returning home directly. He took a train late in the night and stayed in the hotel; called for prostitute but ended up paying the due money without doing a thing…
To him almost all the people around were phonies: the school headmaster, his roommates, guys in the lousy bars and hotels…and he looked down upon all of them. He even wanted to walk away, down and down the road of the city blocks to the west. He missed his dead younger brother Allie very much– Allie was like his bosom friend and brother; and his affections for his little sister Phoebe was so touching and natural, I almost burst  into tears when I got to the paragraphs with him watching Phoebe playing on the carrousel.
The description of the boy’s inner thoughts and activities gets rather depressing sometimes (which did make me quite uncomfortable and depressed). Although lacking similar personal experience, I could still imagine the miserable boy’s situation. In fact you need not a large vocabulary to read this: it’s a literally simple story. If not disturbed with the aroused depression that I had to take a break from time to time, and if not had more time for reading in the holiday(you know…) , I could’ve just gone on reading, non-stoppingly, until finishing this 115-page-book.
This novel used to be rather controversial…even banned in America after its initial publication. It’s sooooo DEPRESSING…I even felt relieved when I finally reached the last sentence in the last page. However, just as someone quoted in his article that someone said that one writer said…
“the best novels are those that wound us deeply, which cause us to think afresh about ourselves and the lives we lead. ”
PS, the book title came from the poem “Coming through the rye”, by Robert Burns.
Coming Through the Rye
by Robert Burns (1759-1796)
——————————————————————————–
Coming thro’ the rye, poor body,
Coming thro’ the rye,
She draiglet a’ her petticoatie
Coming thro’ the rye.
O, Jenny’s a’ wat, poor body;
Jenny’s seldom dry;
She draiglet a’ her petticoatie
Coming thro’ the rye.
Gin a body meet a body
Coming thro’ the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body -
Need a body cry?
Gin a body meet a body
Coming thro’ the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body -
Need the warld ken
