Customer Reviews

The Catcher in the Rye

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It's the second time I am reading this novel. The first time was about 10 years ago when I just came to Canada for studying in the ESL 3 high school class. It was one of our required readings. I didn't quite like the book the first time I was reading it because at that time I thought the whole story was about this damn stupid crazy kid Holden horsing around in New York City and swearing throughout the book. I couldn't remember and doubt if I actually finished reading the whole book first time. Anyhow, this time I've realized that this book is much deeper then I previously thought. It uses a lot of metaphors to describe the world that crazy kid was experiencing at that moment of his life. But even so, I wouldn't recommend this book to ESL or grade 10 students.

Failing out of high school, teen-intellectual Holden heads for New York in the early 1950s with nothing to do, no plans, and a red hat. In New York, Holden runs into the 1950s jazz scene, prostitutes, homosexuals, and ample opportunities to drink himself to oblivion. Told from a first person viewpoint, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE depicts a young man's painful journey toward a coming of age. I won't try to deconstruct the symbolism in this novel. Perhaps Holden's red hat refers to his attempts to lose his virginity and his expensive luggage is a Freudian symbol for the female. Perhaps his name indicates the need to hold onto something (certainly his dream of becoming the 'Catcher' does. Certainly sex and death underlay the entire novel. Holden attempts to confront his sexuality by picking up older women, flirting with nuns, dating a school-girl contemporary, and watching his young sister sleep. At the same time, he seems fascinated by homosexuality and fights off a homosexual encounter with an older man. Anyone who has survived the teen years will identify with Holden's concern that he be cool even if it means not being able to enjoy music, the movies, or the company of the women he spends time with. His introspections on his brother's death are moving and further justify Holden's alienation from society. CATCHER IN THE RYE is a modern literary classic. As such, it is not always a lot of fun to read, but provides insights into the human psyche. Not a bad tradeoff. Also very highly recommended would be the all-encompassing and brilliant CHILDREN'S CORNER by Jackson McCrae. Perfect reading for anyone interested in good writing and knock-out stories. Not too long either. Check it out.

The storyline is remarkably intriguing and is exceptionally simple. The reason for this book's success, in my opinion, is the way the story is told. Since the story happens to be so common (adolescent escapades) Salinger had to make the book standout in his own way. His formula for success in this case was speaking in a truly original dialect. The slang that Holden speaks, is still edgy to this very day. Salinger is a master of dialect, and it really shines in The Catcher in the Rye.

Salinger's characters are also among the main ingredients in his recipe for success. Each character with it's own trademark. He really captures the different personalities in the world. The characters are written about in such a way that keeps you entertained, and interested. The emotions portrayed by the characters make such a strong impact. When someone is annoyed you can empathize, when someone is angry, you feel bad for them.

I really can't emphasize enough, the talent that Salinger has. He is so fresh, so unique, so smart. The conflicts he comes up with really make you think. The whole story makes you think, and it doesn't stop at the last word. The Catcher in the Rye will leave you in puzzlement for many days. There are so many questionable actions, and so many questionable reactions.

If you like an intelligent and clever entertaining novel, check out The Catcher in the Rye. If you've read some of Salinger's work, and you liked it, you have to read The Catcher in the Rye, it's by far his best work. I really can't stress enough how important this piece of literature is in the fabric of today's books.

Quite frankly, this book was breathtaking. I was truly astonished by the fact that something written in 1951 was this fascinating. Who would have thought that a book about a cynical adolescent would become one of the greatest bestsellers of all time? If you're in the mood to learn a lot of lessons from an entertaining perspective, you should read The Catcher in the Rye. Another, more recent book I enjoyed is "The Losers Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, a lonesome and funny book -- which reminded me of The Catcher in the Rye, in many ways.

The Catcher in the Rye is a book about a young man named Holden Caulfield who gets traumatized by the death of his brother Allie. This story is narrated by Holden himself as he tells the story to a Psychiatrist in a psychiatric hospital.

Holden is a troubled young adult who is afraid of growing up because he doesn't like grown ups and he wishes he could stay a child. Throughout the book Holden describes why he doesn't like grownups (I don't want to completely ruin the book for you so I won't tell you any reasons.) and why he loves children.

When I read Catcher in the Rye I was really moved at how J.D. Salinger used various symbols throughout the book to help you get inside the mind of Holden Caulfield. The main symbol in the book when holden talks of being the catcher in the rye and standing on the edge of the field keeping the children from falling off. What Holden means by this is that he just wants to keep kids from falling off the cliff and dying (child dying and becoming an adult). Holden beleives children are innocent and he respects them completely. I really thought it was neat that although Holden curses every five to six words throughout the book, when he talks about any child he doesn't curse at all. This is one way that J.D. Salinger shows holdens respect for children in the book.

I must add that even though I absolutely loved this book, friends of mine said they didn't like the book because there were too many symbols and they didn't catch them all therefore the book didn't make much sense to them. I must say this could be a problem for many people. I have read The Catcher in the Rye several times and every time it never fails but I seem to catch something new that I missed before. This is one of the many reasons why this book is one of my favorites. Give it try! Another recent Amazon purchase I loved is THE LOSERS CLUB: Complete Restored Edition by Richard Perez -- it also takes place in New York City and is about loneliness and not fitting in -- and reminds me in certain ways of The Catcher In the Rye.

I read this first in high school and thought it a masterpiece. I've read it since and I wasn't quite so impressed. It is however a very important work in our collective catalog and no literate person should miss out on it.

The first thing you need to know about the book's plot is this: nothing happens...and yet everything happens. It's that simple. Salinger takes us on a journey through 48 hours of one boy's life as he gets kicked out of Pencey Preparatory School ("molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men"). He's flunking every class but English. This is just before Christmas, so you can just imagine what this must do to his peace-on-earth-goodwill-to-men spirit. He decides to ditch the last couple days of school and heads for home where he hopes to say good-bye to his much-loved younger sister Phoebe before he heads out West where it's pretty and sunny and nobody'd know him and he could pretend to be a deaf-mute. That's it. That's the "action." Over the course of those 48 hours, the sixteen-year-old Holden fights, smokes, drinks, hires a prostitute (unconsummated) and writes an English composition about a baseball glove.

Through it all, there's his voice. Oh, what a voice. Salinger builds the book based on the cadences of language. Every "anyway," every "boy," is carefully calculated according to the Principle Law of Staccato and Repetition. The art of this book is that you don't see the art of it. Salinger took ten years to artfully create an easily readable, stylized first person narrative that to this day remains unmatched. If you haven't read this book yet, you'll enjoy it now. Other books I highly recommend: To Kill A Mockingbird, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez

Holden was cynical.
Holden was inarticulate.
Holden was observant.
Holden was intelligent.
Holden was lost.

Salinger, on the other hand, is articulate enough to let his readers to see the world through the eyes of his inarticulate main character. As the story unfolds, Holden grows. A once lost soul who has lost himself within the rye field we may call it life, by the end of the story, he has found the meaning of his life: to be the catcher in the rye.

Is the world corny, foolish, meaningless, and perverted as Holden described to be? I'd say yes, but life is a game, a game one plays according to the rules. Should one despair over the facts of life?

This book is very flexible for interpretaions. It is meant to be that way so people with different experience may relate to the story differently and find a guiding light within their confused souls.

Life is like a rye field surrounded by cliff edges. Will you share your light to others and be a catcher in the rye?

You know what happens when something becomes too famous, too utterly successful that everyone has heard about it? People stop caring, the significance that gave this book its importance grows boring, overused. All the young writers who identified with this book keep re-telling the "Holden Caufield philosophy" because they stopped being individuals like their hero and sucked up something somebody else said. Holden is too familiar. We all know him. What's gonna happen when somebody says 'Who cares?'

Nevertheless The Catcher in the Rye is a wonderfully well-written and entertaining novel about a self-absorbed little punk who thinks he is--and probably is--smarter than everyone else. But he's too young, too inexperienced, too unsure of himself to survive on his own. He questions everything until nothing has an answer and increases his frustration until he's completely unable to do anything but dream, imagine he were something else--a protector. He imagines he was somebody's savior.

All subtextural religious nomenclature aside, this dream delves more deeply into the personality of the character, not some unattainable dream as the cynical and lacking in self-confidence narrator tries to tell you it is. It is about someone frustrated because he is unable to change the world around him and a quest he already knows will end in failure of escaping himself and retransforming his life into something more profound.

Yes, this is an extraordinarily powerful book, filled with the cadence of lingo and slang to give you the feeling of having an actual conversation.

And yet the problem of over-exposure cannot help but influence the outcome of experience. I remember hearing teachers and older siblings rave about this book when I was eight or nine or ten years old and when I got around to being assigned it myself I skipped it arrogantly and somehow got an 'A' on the paper just by copying down the hearsay and over-emphasis other people gave to the ability of someone else's story changing your own life. The fiction I submitted as my then analysis was lauded not because it was an accurate expression of opinion, but because it justified the teacher's own overwhelmed ideas regarding the novel's importance.

It's a great book, truly. Just don't get bogged down by hype.

I don't think a book like "Catcher in the Rye" will ever be written again. Ever since it's publication in 1951, people have been trying to write a novel that would outshine J.D's Salinger's classic, but no one has succeeded. To this day, it is still the most significant and popular book on American youth. The whole story is seen through the perspective of Holden Caulfield; a cynical, lost 16 year old who is struggling to find some virtue in the world around him (1950's, New York City). J.D Salinger's writing is evocative and fascinating, but it is the way he creates the character of Holden with such great complexity that makes this book so extraordinary. Everyone, especially teenagers, will be able to identify with him on some sort of level. The book is almost like an emotional oddysey, everything that Holden encounters provokes some sort of thought, in him and also in us. We may not completely understand his pessimism towards life, but we do feel his intense emotions of sadness, fear and hopelessness. "Catcher in the Rye" does however end in a genuinely optimistic note, and it will leave you seriously thinking about your own life, and that there may just be true hope for everybody, even for people like Holden Caulfield. A truly remarkable novel.

For several years the connotation of a being a "classic" had kept me from reading J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Not knowing specifically what it was about, I finally gave into curiosity when I read it for a literature class. I was instantly sorry I had waited so long to read this book. Holden Caulfield is a lazy, cynical teen in 1950s America and he has just left his third prepatory school to return home to his family in New York City. His parents are expecting him home on a Wednesday, yet it is Monday, so the events of the novel unfold over two days in the Big Apple.
The theme that struck me the most was the one of trying to grow up too early. Holden is very much like this. He presents himself as a mature figure, smoking, drinking, hanging out in clubs, yet in his personal relationships with people, he acts quite immature. In one part of the story, Holden calls up a prostitute, wanting to become a man after all the stories he had heard about girls from his class mates at Pencey Prep, only to acquiesce to his lack of experience and asks if the prostitute would "like to talk".
My main complaint of this novel is that it reads like a journal, giving only Holden's perspective on the events that occur. I believe it would have been an improvement if Salinger had given us a look into other character's minds so we could see their perspective. This is an especially important flaw because Holden, at his center, constantly wonders what others think of him.
I would recommend this novel to teenagers, especially those who feel they do not fit into their particular environment. I know when I was younger I could definitely relate to Holden. I also find it a delicious irony that much like Holden, J.D. Salinger has spent the better part of a century in seclusion in his Northeast home.