The Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger
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Book Reviews of The Catcher in the Rye
Book Review: Catcher In the Rye: Through the eyes of Holden
Summary: 4 Stars
Every human in this world is different from one another. Being different from someone else is a unique characteristic. The book "Catcher In The Rye," deals with being different and not being yourself. The book is basically a journey through life of the main character, Holden.Holden always has trouble with applying himself in school. He has been in many private schools and managed to fail out of each. His last school ends up being Pencey, an all boy's school. He fails to apply himself in his classes except for his English class. He ends up being kicked out of school and has to return home to deal with his parents.
Holden never seems to want to be alone. He gets depressed alot when things don't go his way. When he did get to New York, which is where he is from, he had to hide out for a while. He didn't want to be alone, but he couldn't go home. He was unable to go home due to a letter from the school. He wanted to wait until the letter arrived and then return home. He began calling up old girlfriends and friends and staying out until all hours. He even went so far as to buy the company of a prostitute. He ended up feeling sorry for himself and he lied to get her to go away. He always lied about something to save himself, but that would create depression. This depression led to alcoholism and then thoughts of suicide.
Holden ended up going home to visit his sister. Holden ventured home and got inside the house very quietly. He didn't want his parents to know that he was there, just his sister. He had favoritism towards his little sister Phoebe, and she looked up to him. He figured things would be ok once he saw her.
In the end, Holden wants to leave, saying, "he wants to get away from the phony people." It is funny because Holden was phony himself. He never told the truth and he was always pretending to be someone else. He got so fed up with these people that he wanted to kill someone. He mentioned that "he wanted to be in a peaceful place where phony people can't talk." Phoebe decided that she wanted to leave with him. After talking her out of it, he realized that he wasn't going to leave either. He ended up returning home.
To finish this book, you have to realize where exactly Holden is telling the story from. Just by seeing the type of character that he is, you realize that he is crazy. Holden had to wait a semester to go to school, he ended up staying in the psych ward. His character made the story and symbolized his crazy mind and the moods of his character. Catcher in the Rye deals with mental problems and the reality of living with them.
Book Review: Maybe a classic if you haven't read very many books.
Summary: 1 Stars
My sister and I are basically literature partners in crime. Maybe that's why we get along so well. We basically will go to each other "Hey check out this awesome book called ________! I'll lend you my copy!" every week. Me being the bookworm I am, she raved about this book like it was the second coming of Jesus. However my parents both hated the book, calling it "dated garbage". Nonetheless I chose to ignore the warning signs and borrowed her copy in the wink of an eye.
I'm never doing that again. Especially not after reading this garbage.
This is quite possibly the most over-rated book ever. Even moreso than Twilight or any Robert Jordan book. This book took me a MONTH to get through, it's so boring... and it's only 214 pages.
I can literally not name a single memorable thing about this book. 75% of the time I felt like I was reading the incoherent ramblings of a stoner. Plus, if I wanted to read complaints about life and people, I'd listen to a crappy emo band. I'm serious, it really is that bad. I really can't tell if this book has a story at all- aside from some kid who clearly has issues. Yeah he gets kicked out of school, yeah he has a crappy family life, yeah he's screwing up his life at 16. Problem is... WHO CARES??????
The writing is so poor I'm amazed I didn't throw this book in the trash. Salinger clearly has a lack of vocabulary, as the word "goddam" appeared at least 20 times per page, and at least in every line of Holden's. Towards the end I got so tired of J.D.'s lack of vocabulary or lack of ways to portray Holden's expletive-riddled mind I was just waiting for the end of the book to come. Oh and don't get me started on the amount of times the word "phony" was repeated. That, plus I swear there were a lot of pages where the same description of someone was repeated 3 times but just re-worded differently.
I'll admit I can forgive bad writing if the book has good story development or interesting characters. This has neither. The plot isn't a plot. It's just a bunch of rants and uninteresting stories thrown together. Holden is an awful character- I find it baffling people look up to this guy. He just strikes me as a loser. His swearing doesn't make him a badass. His sexual conquests don't make him badass. He's just a cheap lowlife with issues.
I'm ready for your "THIS BOOK IS ART AND YOU DON'T GET IT!!!!" insults, so go right ahead. I'm sure it's art. But you can puke all over a canvas and call it art, at the end of the day it's still puke.
Book Review: Authentic Urges Portrayed in Connected Short Stories
Summary: 5 Stars
"Now concerning virgins: I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy." -- 1 Corinthians 7:25 (NKJV)
My last reading of The Catcher in the Rye came about 50 years ago. I loved it then for its validation of so many feelings I had about how fake most people were. My friends and I had wonderful discussions about specific chapters that helped draw us closer together.
I didn't feel any need to reread the book until Kenneth Slawenski's new biography of Salinger caused me to wonder what my reaction to the book would be as a new grandfather, rather than as a young teen.
Sometimes rereading a book enjoyed in youth is simply a trip down memory lane. In this case, I found that my memory of the book was quite fresh. Knowing what was coming next caused me to appreciate more of the storytelling skill that connected all the episodes and chapters together. Being older and having read a lot more, I could also appreciate a lot more of the literary references that went over my head before.
Having become a nonfiction author who loves to use stories to convey "truth," the writing craft was much more apparent this time. In particularly, I had failed to appreciate that each chapter is really a short story . . . but that each story proceeds in a sequence that builds into a novel.
On the first reading, I picked up that something was wrong in Holden Caulfield's life. On this reading, that hidden pain screamed out at me.
I also now see parallels to Don Quixote that I missed before because I hadn't yet read that seminal novel.
So what's the story about? In the space of a few hours and two cities, Holden Caulfield stands astride the worlds of childhood innocence and adult cynicism. His desire to do the right thing and to protect the innocence allows him to stretch across that "impossible" chasm. The lessons are much more universal than what a "coming of age" novel usually portrays. The lessons here are more like those in Huckleberry Finn than they are in novels about teens dealing with their angst.
The theme is actually broader than that. As much as Holden is repelled by people, he is also drawn to them. He's making a spiritual pilgrimage from youthful, critical judgment of all into loving all those in God's creation.
Ultimately, it's a beautiful story that will bring out your finest sensibilities. When was the last time that a novel did that for you?
Book Review: The place where the youth novel was born
Summary: 5 Stars
Because this is one of the most heavily reviewed books on Amazon, I will not at this late date attempt to do a comprehensive review. I'll merely focus on one reason this is such an important book and then comment on one odd yet persistent misreading of the novel.
First, this is the first novel that was written with the narrative voice of a disgruntled youth. In fact, one of the most amazing developments in the 1950s was the birth of Youth. Before the fifties there was no sharp chasm dividing young and old. There were, of course, differences between being young and being older, but the main difference was mainly that you were merely younger, not that you embraced a completely different culture. CATCHER IN THE RYE anticipated everything that was about to happen in youth culture within the next few years. No novel had been written in slang before, at least not in youth slang. You would be a very rich man or woman if you could count the number of times that Holden says something like "I'm not kidding" or "I can't stand it." Salinger's genius for maintaining a consistent narrative voice from beginning to end is unquestionably one of the novel's greatest claims to fame.
The second thing I wanted to mention is the rather bizarre turn that so many people consier Holden Caulfield a hero. If anything is clear in the novel, it is that Holden is a profoundly troubled, disturbed, emotionally stunted and sick individual. The events he narrates are cleary done so in a mental health institution. For all his railing against phonies, no one in the book is as phony as Holden. To appropriate the language of existentialism, he lives a completely inauthentic life. But sadly the only person who calls him on the pathetic existence he is living is his teacher that Holden suspects of making sexual overtures near the end. But clearly the events in the novel presaged some kind of emotional collapse. Holden at age 17 in the mental institution writes about significant events leading up to his collapse at age 16. That anyone could view Holden as a role model or a hero is unfathomable.
I reread this because I'm about the read the Frank Portman novel KING DORK, in which CATCHER IN THE RYE features prominently. I had not read CATCHER since college, but I was pleased to discover that it was as excellent as I remembered it being. I wouldn't rate it as one of the greatest books that I've read, but it is unquestionably one of the most important American novels of the past century.
Book Review: An Adolescent Perception: By A. Roets
Summary: 5 Stars
The novel The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger is a powerful novel chronicling the life of an upper class teenage boy, Holden Caulfield during the early 1950's. Around this time, more and more people were conforming to society, dressing the same, acting the same, and through Holden, Salinger challenges those ideals. The book opens when Holden is expelled from yet another boarding school, because of his awful grades. He finds the world around him to be fake, and those people who demand him to conform to be phonies, not true to themselves. He sets off for New York City on his own, in a journey of self-exploration where he learns about love, life, and sex. As a troubled youth, he is a constant pessimist about the world around him, seeing it to be a mass conformist nation, without any true individuals, except for himself of course. His early life is troubled, and his younger brother's death shook him badly, and effected him deeply. Some of the pessimism comes from his older brother, a writer who in Holden's opinion became a prostitute for Hollywood, abandoning his own writing to work for the movies, selling out in the worst way.His parents seem vastly absent in the novel, perhaps suggesting that his parents are not role models for him, and while they may love him, they do not truly understand him. Without this adult guidance he mistrusts the adult world, a cynical view which pervades the whole book. This kind of teenage rebellion is something that the youth of today can easily relate to. Holden himself is an easily relatable character, and modern teens will find something of his character similar in themselves, whether that's his cynicism, or his constant thoughts about sex. He is confused by sex, but still finds it intriguing, and of course wants very badly to experience it. He goes on a date, with an old friend, and while he tries very badly to be charming, he cannot stand how absolutely fake he feels she is, and this leaves him disappointed with the world in general. In the end, he finds that while the world disappoints him, there is still good in it, and while he wanted very much to be away from people when he was with them he wanted them back once he had to live without them. This poignant tale of an adolescent growing up on his own in a world he despises is a must-read, one that can change one's views on the world, and on life. It teaches the importance of individuality, a love of beauty in all it's forms, and of one youth's perception of the world around us.