Catcher In The Rye : By J.D Salinger

'The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.' - Wilhelm Stekel




There are times in every one's life where one could relate to 'Holden Caulfield', the main character and the narrator in the book. Though through his point of view one can see the how the world which is so progressively supposed to be dependent on elite and full of ivy league people is actually composed of nothing but mere phonies which is what Holden repeatedly refers to them as, which surprisingly never seems incorrect. The book is full of very emotional moments experienced by Holden.
    

The narrator tells us about his experience after being kicked out from a reputed school, though he is a brilliant student, he is just not interested. He is frustrated with the people around him and their phony behavior. He is sick of people being fake to each other. For him the idea of the basic society human behavior in which one person has to behave in a particular manner to other is somehow unacceptable. He is a rebel and is thus unacceptable to the society.

But what you find so adorable about him and makes you totally relate to him is the fact that deep down at some point of time we feel the same way, we feel rebellious at times, don't like the way we are supposed to be in the society, at times the way the society portraits itself to you, it just wants to makes you want to puke your guts out, this it the extent to which 'Holden' is frustrated. 

I particularly liked two parts one where he comes to his teacher Mr Antolini and he preaches him about how he is not the first person has failed and not necessarily the person who have failed in their past were failures, and also that they have kept records in the form of journals as books and poetry which are famous today from which people like him should learn and then again there's a conflict about the character of Mr. Antolini which I will leave unexplained here but was quite intriguing to me.

The most satisfactory part of the whole story was about the narrator's ten-year old sister Phoebe, because she was among the only few people the narrator really admire in the whole world and that was not because of the mere fact that she was his sister, it was because she was a kid and unlike others she was not phony and was more sensible than any person he knew.
I just loved the way the he wrote after anything he described about phoebe...."good old Phoebe, you would have liked her." :)

Twilight:: superlike it?? or dislike it??

        





I would be really biased in saying anything about twilight right now, because not only I have read all the books of the twilight series more than just thrice and know most of the quotes too but also I have gone through as many as possible spoofs that have sprung as a result of the publicity of the series. Oh! so come to think of it, I might actually be the right person for writing something about it.











Initially I liked it a lot, which was pretty much the reason for the number of reads i gave to those books and even I like any other girl fell into the Edward\Robert obsession, but then I started reading the other vampire literature and also the spoofs available on twilight and to be quite frank, being a quite proud Twilight fan myself I could not help myself laughing out loud, particularly when reading the same things in that books again keeping the spoof in mind. Some of them were hilarious.

 They offer you with a general idea of how to make a Bestseller novel with no whatsoever literary benefits to readers - Like mixing ingredients of a truly self-conscious and selfish female lead who is also very clumsy for reasons unknown to mankind, with a perfect to-die-for handsome male lead who is also an extremely powerful and dangerous vampire, (readers love that part) Also throw in some mythical special effects like some werewolves etc. and some love and friendship issues between the characters. Also bring in some high school scenes and prom details , if the story if the story is meant for young adults, they love that and also garnish it with a few villains to keep the readers distracted from the otherwise boring plot.


 And finally don't forget but keep telling how perfect Edward is or people will lose interest in him ;)


and there, you have your complete twilight.







I can't even believe I used to be a fan and now here I am writing a spoof on it myself :)


If you still find this unsatisfying, you might just notice one small thing in the whole series, apart from the fact that Bella is pale the writer does not even describe her completely, how is a person (who has not seen the movie)even supposed to imagine her? pale?

Music "la musique"

       Does this ever happen to you, when you listen to a song you relate to somehow, the manner or things in which you relate to it, those moments flash through your mind with the song still playing as a background score, your life's moments in flashes come across like a video with that same song playing as the soundtrack to it and you just sitting by summing it all up,by all I mean your experiences, your mood, the way you feel,all in the song.











There are better ways than just words to describe emotions and the most beautiful of them is 'music' - be it with lyrics or without, it gives you an exact idea idea of the mood setting, the feel of the surrounding, the things the musician is trying to express through this beautiful representative art.





        Sometimes when words are simply not enough to lay the correct amount of emphasis on the way we feel, like if you are sad, its just not enough to say, you are sad, you might just accompany it with the saddest symphony or may be even 'rock' may help you :) Another example might be of the song by James Brown - "I Feel Good" which would be simply incomplete if not followed by the 'tadada' music to express it in its full and utmost form.

         A beautiful melody perfectly gelled in with the magical words to describe the mood is just what is required sometimes to represent emotions the best, which is why we say that " la musique est le miroir à une âme" ie "music is the mirror to one's soul."




          From very simple statements or emotions or feeling like feeling good, love, soothing, rage, anger, to other more and more complex emotions and relationships can be composed through music.Its Fascinating to trace how music has so much power to express feelings. Music from a very early period has always been revolutionary in its nature and will always continue to amaze us by being so..... 

I solemnly swear that i am up to no good ;)

 Ever heard of the phrase " your reputation precedes you" , that's exactly what comes in my mind when i think of the what people in the big wizard world of J K Rowling think about Mr Harry Potter. I know its kind of late to write a review on the "harry potter" series because by now there's not much that can be said about the Harry Potter phenomenon  that hasn't been said already. Worshipped by kids, enjoyed by adults, this modern myth has become an accepted classic worldwide. Pull any copy of the series off a shelf anywhere in the world and you're holding magic.

   And there are probably numerous reasons for it. For every individual with a good imagination these books provide an excellent experience of a whole new world where the major cause of existence is 'magic', which is beautiful because sometimes you don't really want to read about the same old things that happen around you in the real world. The wizard world definitely offers you a great escape from the misery of the real world. But that's not the prime reason - Besides this out and out imagination it still keeps you rooted to the basic amenities of life like friendship, love and courage (as in the words of Dumbledore himself "love leaves its own mark").

        The character harry potter how initially starts off sympathetically as a male counter-part of Cinderella, living off on his cousin's old rags, with his little room below the stairs somehow ends up in a world where he is so mysteriously famous for something that happened to him when he was a year old and this continuously keeps up the mystery from the start. Drawing the readers more and more close to him is also the fact that how natural he is and how he manages to do great things at the end of every book, though like he always says modestly "with help from others" of course.

              The magic potion Rowling herself concocts starts solidly with Harry, a remarkably unassuming kid who's got "hero of mythical proportions" written all over him. He's courageous, clever and resourceful. He's got a special talent in the form of magical powers, and a noble and mysterious birth. He's wounded - a big one in myths - not just physically as evidenced by the scar on his forehead, but emotionally as well due to the death of his parents, not to mention a tortured upbringing by uncaring relations. But most of all, as was hinted right from the start, he's got one heck of a destiny.  All this comes together to introduce a character the reader immediately bonds with. You *really* want to be this kid's friend and hang out with him to see what happens.

        Another major essential element in this magical potion of J.K Rowling is the friendship portrayed between the characters and the fact which keep it so real is that no character is perfect, every one in the story makes mistakes even the famous Harry Potter. Every character becomes so real around you that it keeps you all the way in the story like Hagrid for example - despite his love exotic and deadly creatures, you can't help it but feel good about him. Even the character "Malfoy" that was truly depicted as a minor villain in the start makes you feel pity for him when he fails to obey "he who must not be named" (Voldemort) 's orders to kill Dumbledore.   

And to sum everything up its through out the simple yet extra ordinary writing style of  J.K Rowling that draws the readers in the first place. From the mystery of 'he who must not be named' to the subtle humor at times ,to every classic explanations of Dumbledore, the writer keeps us thinking of all the logical explanations for the deeds these characters do until explained later in the book itself. 

       Its definitely addictive and even though imaginary fiction yet bizarrely as close to reality as possible. And the books are definitely much much better than the movies. All that the movies do is confirm the look of the characters which  the author herself has done a fantastic job in describing. Though the movie even disappoint at that sometimes. (for example the Sirius Black the author describes is much more handsome than the one in the movie.)

"I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future - there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will know his name."

Professor MCGonagall, first chapter titled "The Boy Who Lived"

Hopeless........

  Everyone reaches a point in their life when they think they have failed in every aspect of life, when they start to doubt their capabilities, when they find themselves at the nadir of the otherwise hopeless world which doesn't seem exactly welcoming to them. A point where every thing you have done before seems nothing and what you are expected to do now is either beyond your reach or is completely clueless. I won't say all people at some point in their life feel so but many of us do, and what we need at this point of time is a refill of confidence and support which only our friends and family can provide us with.
           At such a crucial stage of life we need the support of our closed ones, people who have known us from the start and who know the things we are capable of, who still have hope in us. A hope that says this is just a rough patch, you will get through it and strike again with all your might and eventually you can get whatever you want. We need people who can help us find out the path which we have so efficiently missed. Only such love and support can get us through this and help find the right chosen path for us.

            But what if you reach a low point in you life and people around you are determined indeed to make sure you feel all the more depressed and when you doubt your capabilities, they make sure you realize you have none. When the people you trust the most to help you come out of this situations are the people that discourage you the most. Tell you at all point that "you are nothing and we are all better off without you to worry about". Life doesn't seem any more fair and just leaves you with a choice to make - Either work double hard and try to convince yourself and others too of what you are worth of, or simply accept the fact that most of the people who know you the best, that includes yourself and your family, think you are worthless, what more is required to make it official- you really MUST BE a good-for-nothing jerk who has really let down everyone including yourself.              

what people see and what they don't??

        we live in a world where we are all hypocrite in some way or the other, not always in a bad way.

People like us are so insecure, they have a tendency to behave or do things in a way that would please the other person, it might not be in any way a characteristic quality of your behaviour, it might not represent in any possible manner what we as a person would tend to behave in certain circumstances. But it definitely is how the other person who may or may not know us, but expect us to do the same. Why? because we can't do everything right, and even if we have a notion to think we know the difference between right and wrong and our instincts will guide us to do the right thing, its not as angelic as we give it credit for.

         A lot of the times we don't speak the truth to the people we may actually care about because we know it hurts to accept the harsh reality at times but it is the right thing to do at the time. A perfect saint kind person's instinct will tell him to be honest and speak the truth which may also be the right thing to do at the time considering that at some point of time in the future the person will face the truth and that won't make him any more prepared than he is right now to face it.

        So basically the whole point here is there is no such thing as right or wrong and no matter what your instincts tell you, you can't always trust them to be true. The society runs with a balance of rights and wrongs, deeds that people do. Sometimes the thought behind it is so noble that all that should be taken into account is the thought and nothing else. So being hypocrite is the nice thing to do, if you have noble intentions for some one other than yourself behind it.