The Novelle: rereading

18:00

The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

Holden Caulfield is a seventeen year old drop out who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the "phony" aspects of society, and the "phonies" themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scored with girls using sickly sweet affection.

Now let me get this straight, I am not a person who rereads books but I have had the recent urge to reread this book for quite a while now. I personally don't see the point in rereading books when there are just so many books out there that you haven't read or that haven't come out yet. However, this book has recently just been willing me to reread it and so I succumbed. This is by far one of my favourite books of all time and this reread has definitely cemented that for me.

Holden Caulfield is a character you will either love or hate, or even quite simply love to hate - I for one absolutely love him. He is a cynic and he is precocious, but he has this endearing naivety that you just can't help but feel for. It seems that experiences and influences in his childhood have shaped him to be the way he is, but you can tell through the writing that however cool, calm and collected Holden may seem, underneath he's just a scared little boy that doesn't know what to do with his life.

The narrative is written from Holden's perspective and the development of the story and of his character is predominantly displayed through this feature. His thoughts and speech throughout the book become more out of control as the book progresses; he starts to repeat himself a lot and the terms he uses in every day life, like "boy", "prince" and "swell" don't tend to pop up as often as they did in the beginning. The writing is very loud at the same time as being very subtle in it's background meaning which added to the greatness of this book.

This book has the simplest of stories but the deepest and richest of ways that it is portrayed and developed. It's a coming of age story that doesn't span across a long period of time (or pages in the book) but makes you feel as though you've learnt so much about yourself and Holden Caulfield at the same time. The focus isn't necessarily on what happens in the book, but the consequences and the reasoning behind what has happened - why is he acting this way? Why is he so cynical? Why is nearly everyone on the planet a phony in his eyes? It certainly has a lot of deeper meanings than the literal story itself.

The Catcher In The Rye is one of those books that I will treasure forever. I've currently only got it on my Kindle but when I return home I will most certainly buy my own copy to reread again and again as it's definitely a keeper in my books. I don't think I can express how much I love this book.

Rating: ★★★★★

(Pst, I believe I rated this higher the second time around - I don't know why I only gave it 4 stars before)

18:00

Let's Talk: Rereading Books

The same process goes around in circles; you read a book, you finish a book. So at what point do you decide that you want to reread that very same book?
The vast multitude of reads currently out in the market make it hard to believe that somebody would want to read something twice, when there are so many other books to start with. Unfortunately, it is more than likely that you’re never going to read all of the books that you want to read in your life time, what with new books being published all the time, and let’s face it, none of us have as much reading time as we’d like.
When reading certain books, some readers feel as though they loved it so much that they want to experience the book a second time around; to experience what they adored the first time around and remember. This creates a connection of sorts between the reader and the book; the book obviously meant so much or aroused certain feelings that they took away from the reading experience and couldn’t forget.
Rereading books at specific times of the year is also a trend I have seen happening in the book community; romance books around Valentine ’s Day and Christmas books around Christmas. Although this may seem quite stereotypical, it is understandable why people do it, to get in the mood of the seasons, but I don’t think you have to reread a book in order to get that feeling, that there are plenty of other books around these subjects.
On the other hand, there are a lot of readers that don’t reread books. Many feel that that the more you read the more you can broaden your horizons and discover new things. If you’re rereading all of your favourite books, then you are not branching out and finding anything new. To stick to what you know is safe, but reading shouldn’t be about safety, but should be about igniting that spark within your imagination.Personally, I don’t like to reread books, but I can understand why somebody would want to do so. Reading is a personal thing, and I don’t think anyone should be criticised for their reading habits. To each his own.