The Catcher in the Rye

Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece Touches Your Soul and Stimulates Your Intelect
Review: Wow, I started this book at 5:00 in the afternoon and have stayed up until 3:00 this morning to finnish the book, even though tomorrow is my first day of classes. The plot was so moving, I just couldn't fall asleep. This story of the experiences of an intelligent, unmotivated, 16-year old is filled with clever antecdotes and emotional passages. This is a must read for everybody!

Rating:
Summary: It killed me
Review: Holden Caulfield is probably the most interesting character I've ever come accross. I think that everyone can see a little bit of themselves by peering into Holden's mind and seeing the seemingly small, insignificant things that "kill" him or depress him. The book was also surprisingly funny at times - I often caught myself laughing out loud.

Rating:
Summary: one of few timeless works
Review: I don't understand when people label Holden as a bad seed or an awful person. Did you not read the part where he explains his 'catcher in the Rye' theory? If more people had a heart like that-a true beneath the surface kindness- as does Holden then i believe we would all be thatnkful. Of course there are 'catchers' in all our lives. Be it a caring friend a confidant, our mother or father, whomever was there to help us through a rough time. to keep us from falling off the cliff. Unbeknownst to him, holden did live out his dream. i think his character saved many adolescents 'playing in the field'. Also, jane is so symbolic! it's amazing. I truly recomend this book. Glorious job J.D. Salinger!

Rating:
Summary: Wake up and hear Caulfield!
Review: To all the morons who say this book is boring because it has no plot, why don't you read The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence and find out what boring is! You guys give me the royal pain. You don't have to be a psychopath to get this book, just human. I'm not a smoker, I'm not a drug addict, heck I don't even swear. But I adore Holden because he's an idealist. He won't throw an snowball at a fire hydrant because it's too white. He won't sleep with a prostitute because he feels sorry for her. He doesn't want kids to see the "f*** you" sign because it'll pollute their minds. He feels bad for the nuns since they don't eat anything swanky for lunch. People say that Holden is cynical and doesn't care about anything. But he does care, not about materialistic things, but simple things that really matter. Now, that's more than I can say for some people I know.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best I have read
Review: I read this book a few weeeks ago and It all rang completely true. I'm 16 and go to prep school, it was so true and has so many hidden messages, an amazing book. Holden is without a doubt the best character ever created in a novel. But I think this book is more autobiographical than fiction. This is definitely one of the very few books that I will keep forever. I don't know how anyone could not enjoy this.

Rating:
Summary: Innocence transforms experience, not vice versa
Review: When my friend read this book, she said she wanted nothing more than to slap Holden. I didn't. I wanted to marry him (which I subsequently did, but that's another story). What I loved most about Holden was his elemental uncorruptibility, a fundamental innocence that could not be lost through experience. Instead, the power of his innocence shaped all of his experiences, transforming even his mistakes into acts of courage, idealism and beauty.

Rating:
Summary: compelling, honest, and brilliant. A deserving classic.
Review: The book speaks for itself. Holden Caulfield is the classic disgruntled adolescent.

Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: quasi-autobiographical depiction of depression in a teenager
Review: I have not read all the reviews listed here, and so my comments may be redundant, but I feel that most of the customer reviewers have missed the mark. This book is a brilliant study (probably quasi-autobiographical from what I know of J.D. Salinger's life) of a teenage boy who suffers from severe depression, and barely hangs on through his odyssey from the time he leaves school until he is rescued by his younger sister. There are clear parallels between this book and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, except that she found nothing to anchor her to life. As he travels along, Holden tempts fate on a number of occasions, any one of which could have resulted in his death or serious injury- a vulnerable teenage boy staying in a flophouse of a hotel, engaging a prostitute and taking on her pimp, walking through Central Park after dark, and generally roaming around a usually unforgiving city. His salvation is his sister, who is the only one who can cut through his cynicism, and self-destructiveness. She is truly the "catcher in the rye," standing at the edge of the cliff, guardian and protector, keeping all the children from falling off the edge. In this case, she keeps her brother from the abyss, as he finally agrees to go home, and to not follow his fantasy to go out west, which I think is a metaphor for the great unknown, and probably his own ultimate destruction. Why he honors her so is not entirely clear, but it could be because she is truly pre-egoic; innocent, caring, displaying unconditional love and concern for Holden, and no facade that he can disparage with his cynicism and wit. The "epilogue" final chapter shows Holden acknowledging that he is in some institution, probably as a psychiatric inpatient, who is letting a psychotherapist into his world. He seems to have lost his severe cynical edge, and one gets the hint that he is going to make it, to recover from an illness which almost destroyed him. The novel leaves us on a hopeful note, although, interestingly enough, I dont get the impression that the author ever similarly extricated himself from the reclusive life which he has lived. All in all, I think that we bear witness to a brilliantly-crafted case study of adolescent depression, with all of the contrasting anguish and humorous cynicism expected in such a pathetic figure. The irony here, of course, is that the world and its inhabitants are indeed phony, and to cure Holden is to allow him to become everything he so incisively rails against. Do we do him- and any other beings who see the world for what it really is- a true service by trying to change them??

Rating:
Summary: not as great as I thought it would be
Review: I did not like this book. I am a teenager and I found this book very depressing. It was confusing and he told stories that just got off the subject of being in New York and such. This book is not worth reading.