| The Catcher in the Rye |  | Author: J.D. Salinger
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
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Rating:  2323 reviews
Sales Rank: 63
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0316769487
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780316769488
ASIN: 0316769487
Publication Date: May 1, 1991
Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
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From Amazon.com
Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them." His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 2323
 Memorable March 1, 2010
Kona (Emerald City)
Teenager Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another prep school for failing his classes and having a really bad attitude. This story recounts his adventures and observations during a weekend on his own in New York City.
I remember being quite shocked at Holden's anti-social thoughts and non-stop profanity and not liking him at all when I first read this book. It was a pleasure to reread it forty years later and find that my feelings for him had changed a lot; now I find him a bright, charming, and pitiable combination of the social misfit from "Napoleon Dynamite" and the angry young man from "Rebel Without a Cause." His manic emotionality and penchant for vulgarity remind me of a scared puppy who's all bark and no bite; he's in desperate need of attention and affection and luckily, he gets it.
This classic character study of a troubled boy is highly recommended for mature readers.
How to Feel Less Lonely; also, The Inspiration of a Lifetime September 21, 2009
Jonathan Mendelsohn
"The Catcher in the Rye" made me feel less lonely at a time (15 years of age) when all I touched, as Salinger put it in one of his legendary nine short stories, seemed to turn to complete loneliness. It's the reason I started writing.
THE INFATUATION
For the longest time I tried to keep my obsession with Salinger's only full-length novel to myself. Oh I would tell people I loved the book, or that Salinger was my favourite writer, but I honestly tried to not go further with it than that, to put a lid on it. I'd never have admitted that it wooed me to falling in love with New York forever, never mind the number of times I have read it, not including random flips for favourite passages. Or the fact that I somehow managed to write my Masters thesis on it, when my Masters was in applied linguistics not English literature.
That first 15 year-old time was not for school, which may be the key to everything. I read it fast, just a few days and I was not (and am not) a fast reader. Holden Caufield's breezy first-person narration was so much like conversation you just zipped through. The book's famous opening:
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
The book read so fast, so easy, so true I was convinced it was pure autobiography. Not even, cause autobiography still implies some semblance of putting together, of structure, work, effort. 'Catcher' to me that first read, and the way it stayed in my mind long after (cause I wouldn't re-read it for at least five years, afraid of tainting that first read experience) was, I was sure, simply, if beautifully, Salinger writing his thoughts and experiences in a journal. The book was a particularly fascinating series of diary scribblings. This to me was profound because it felt like the true heart of a person, which has always captured me more than the mind, and the gimmicky tricks it can play (much as a twist ending is always exciting it's not the kind of thing that'll make it to my desert island).
WHAT LIES BEYOND POP IN MUSIC, AND HARRY POTTER IN FICTION
"Catcher" was not a story, not in the Narnia, Hardy Boys sense. "Catcher" spoke the truth about things that I was living, that I was struggling with. The "Hardy Boys" was like a Coke treat. "Catcher" was water. I NEEDED it.
HIS TRUTH
Holden spoke of things I'd never heard anyone say. He spoke the thoughts I had in my head. About the phoniness of people. About dishonesty and how hard life can be. And somehow, in travelling with him as he sneaks out one night to leave Pencey Prep forever (the school he is about to be kicked out of anyway) and trains it to New York, I felt less lonely. This kid was searching for something as I was, as so many kids do as they hit that age when they start to become aware of the world. And what I love is that the novel is as much about grand philosophies, on death, and what it means to live, and about losing the innocence of childhood, as it is about the simpler (or maybe more complicated) things. Like girls.
"I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can."
Great art is about connection. At 15 I was sure I was Holden. In my twenties it was Salinger I wanted to emulate most. The real point though is about what makes a book great, what makes something worth re-visiting. Holden, of course, says it better than I can:
"What really knocks me out is a book, when you're all done reading it, you wished the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."
This is the end of Part I.
-Bookworm, Movie Nerd
For Part II:
[...]
A Classic September 12, 2009
Saro (Montreal, QC)
Typically, one is introduced to Salingers quirky and at times stoic characters in High School as a delightful reprieve from the Gates of Adolescent Hell, and not because of the other reason. I found myself without music on my jaunt downtown yesterday and I needed just the right little tome to fit into my handbag. Perhaps I craved Rudolph Schmidts (see Holden shooting it on the bus) antics.
In any case, I have put aside the textbooks and research material that call to me and find myself immersed into a world that I, like so many others before me, identify with. . . Holden Caulfields mischievous, pitiful, and zany temperament makes us yearnful of the yesteryear and truth be told, we wonder how we would have fitted in his misantropic worldview. What type of roommates would we have been? Would we have been the kind of girl that would knock him out? In brief, we identify with his persona and love him for enabling us to break free of the stereotypes that are imposed on us and rebel one tirade at a time.
A classic July 13, 2009
Kevin M. Donnelly (Vancouver, BC)
Just read it. Quick read, interesting points made. It's a classic book from 1951 that everyone should read if you're interested in the plastic faces people in our society put on.
The Catcher in the Rye December 10, 2008
Pauline
"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger is written in first person. Holden Caulfield tells the story of his expulsion from Pencey, a college preparatory school and of his experiences in New York City while he is missing in action. It is evident from the beginning of the book that Holden is about to crash and burn. Holden looks at everything as being phoney and has a negative outlook of his friends and teachers, but he does have a soft spot for his younger sister Phoebe, for a friend named Jane and for his family.
Phoebe, Holden's younger sister has a power over Holden, and she is able to understand him in ways others are not; I love it when Phoebe tells Holden to stop swearing (I often felt like telling him myself). Holden's main reason for finally seeking the help he needs is Phoebe, though younger she is more mature than Holden in a number of areas and she rescues him from himself.
By the end of the book, Holden is in a psychiatric hospital, which is a relief because it was painful to read about him falling apart and no one was smart enough to get him the help he needed.
As much as I loathed Holden and his foul mouth and his hypocrisy, everything he hated in others was mirrored by his own actions and he was blind to it, I found I liked him and I wanted him to make things work out in the end. Kids unfortunately grow up and face situations that can no longer be blocked out by adults and the kids either survive them (some scarred) or they do not survive. Holden in the end does survive, but is scarred and his attitude seems little changed, but he is still breathing and I guess that is something.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 2323
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