The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

The hero-narrator of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices—but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.

Wow this book was a slow read given that it was only 198 pages. It took me 4 weeks, which, isn't a huge amount of time, but the first 80% of the book felt like an age that just wouldn't end.

I was originally going to rate this book 1 star but it changed toward the end (the last 20% as I'll explain).

Holden Caulfield, as read by myself a near 40 year old man, is a bit of a whingebag, if put subtly. He's self centred and believes the world owes him something - god knows what though. The 1950s language doesn't really pose much of a problem (as I read it), and I appreciate that lives were very different to that of 70 years later in ~2018. Not being a teenager myself, I'm not pissed off at everyone for existing so I had trouble connecting to a large part of the story that Holden shares with me during the book.

The book is also fairly heavy with 1950s sexism, and it isn't uncommon to come across lines like “the trouble with girls is...”. It's hard to read and I can imagine how it perpetuates the image of men being above women for the following decades. Either it's reflecting how men thought at the time, or it re-enforces how they were supposed to think.

Also, the trouble with Holden was that his (teenage) exaggeration made it hard to tell what was real and what was imagined and what was him simply trying to be older to his peers. Sometimes I was just confused as to what was real and what wasn't. But then he'd share his feelings about his family, sister and deceased brother Allie...

When Holden did talk about his family, it seems like you're able to see the real Holden under all the complexities of being a teenager. Then finally, around the 85% mark, Holden shares with his younger (adored) sister, that if he could be anything he would be:

“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start going over the cliff–I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”

“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 wants to live humbly for one.”

Oh, boy, did this book take me a loong time to read

I swear to God, judging from the title of this book, the person who recommended the book to me, the cover of this book and the time period at which it was written, I seriously thought that this book was, out of all things a western. Yeah...dumb me.

Okay, so when somebody is trying to tell a tale (any form: book, movie, short story, play) I firmly believe that everything that their tale is trying to tell is devoted to character. And I mean everything. In a movie (and I'm more of a film buff than a bookworm), even the sets and the backgrounds are devoted to story.

You can do the same thing in a book. I love books that JUST try to sell the character. But, it's a little hard to do that when you have no plot. Or story for that matter.

I think that this book is just loved by old people who like to view the world from the eyes of an angsty 16-year old. Well, I am a 16 year old. And I'm not angsty. And I didn't like this book very much. I ONLY gave it 3 stars because I had to appreciate it as a “classic”. There are 3 reasons for which I can actually give it one star each for:

1) The writing is unique. It's beautiful in it's own way. So, that keeps you entertained for the first few pages.
2) He cares for his sister. awww
3) The nihilism in the book is pretty darn hilarious.

The rest is kinda dumb. I mean, I understand that JD Salinger is a nihilist, but come on! This book doesn't have much going for it here. It's like the equivalent of a failed experimental film. AND Holden Caulfield is sort of an asshole. Except that's redeemed (for some reason) because he loves his sister....

A quick and easy read! Very insightful during the last 30 odd pages, and amazing last line. Felt quite empty after reading it - which I guess is a good thing ‘cos good books are supposed to make you feel empty once you're done.