The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger | Teen Ink

The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger

March 2, 2011
By yasmina.tabbal GOLD, Beirut, Other
yasmina.tabbal GOLD, Beirut, Other
10 articles 0 photos 26 comments

Favorite Quote:
You can get arrested for wearing those colors - Zach, A Chorus Line


Dear Holden Caulfield,

You’re lonely. You’re upset. You don’t know what to do anymore, what life has become for you. You have no friend to sit at a bar with, to talk to without insulting or being insulted by. Life sucks right now.
You stroll aimlessly through New York on a late night, wander into a phone booth with no one to call. You step out the phone booth into the phony world.
You don’t cry though.
You miss a friend but don’t want to see her when given the chance.
You left your school abruptly, but deep down, you knew that you would miss it.
Thank you for going to New York. I’m glad you got out there, into the real world.
You’re a really cool person. You’re so right about everything, so sure of it. You state the obvious, and are aware of its bluntness. That is the strongest characteristic about you; it’s what makes you interesting. It’s like a magical power, that you have the ability to admit things others avoid facing thought of. That attracts people to you, for its like you can make them learn more about themselves by having them listening to you state the evident. You just don’t notice it.
You’re humorous, full of imagination. At the same time, you’re so much more mature than everybody around you, and that is the only thing you don’t allow yourself to admit, because your scared of it, because you don’t want to be mature; you want to that little carefree child who used to run around in circles for no reason at all, just for the fun of it. You try to, do things for the fun of it, that is, but it’s not the same anymore, your mind isn’t as innocent anymore.
You astonish me. Your magical powers astonish me, your childishness and maturity astonish me, your point of views astonish me, your boldness, your loneliness, everything about you astonishes me. I guess that’s because I’m one of those people attracted to you by your wisdom, your magical power, I’ll repeat. I’m just another pin attracted to your magnet. But your magnet, like all, has a negative side and a positive one. Pins can be attracted to your side, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but when they are not, that means that you should come closer and closer, deeper and deeper, until you’re strong enough to straighten their domains and shoot them towards you. That’s where the magic of your power is. But it’s pointless if you don’t know how to use it. I’m not trying to give you a cheesy, or ‘phony’, you may say, pep talk or anything, but I’m just stating that if you don’t have any pins in your magnetic field, you won’t be attracting anything.
Keep that in mind.

Yours truly,
Reader of The Catcher In The Rye


The author's comments:
I'm starting this thing where for every couple of chapters I read for this book, The Catcher In The Rye, I'll right a letter to the main character, Holden Caulfield. This is the letter for chapters five through nine. I haven't written one for chapters one through four because I was still being introduced to the book then. More to come, please comment and rate :)

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