The Catcher in the Rye

Rating:
Summary: Don't say Bravo
Review: What can you say about this book without sounding phony? Praising genius is banal, praising stupidity is stupid. Salinger's Holden Caulfield is the epitome of cynical "teenage angst"--so honest and fragile, he's dangerous.

Rating:
Summary: The Catcher in The Rye
Review: I liked The Catcher in the Rye because it is a book about just one person and you can follow his life very easily. J.D. Salinger wrote this book in first person which makes you feel like you are living Holden Caulfield's life. You get to know his innermost thoughts and see through his eyes.
Holden Caulfield comes from a very wealthy family and has attended many private schools in a small amount of time. He has been kicked out of every school due to pure lack of interest. Even though he is very bright, his perspective on life is all wrong. To Holden, the world is made up of phonies, lies, and cheats. Holden has never felt that any of his teachers or mentors has ever cared much about his life, but more so the grades he gets. He can barely get along with anyone because of his past experiences with people. The mere fact that he cannot cope with others makes his life very depressing. He also is involved with many things a young man shouldn't. Even though times have changed drastically since the 1940's I think that anyone could relate to some of the things he is goes through. J.D. Salinger allows you to get very close with this character by giving you an insight on Holden's life and never letting you know what's going to go on next.

Rating:
Summary: Very few space battle scenes
Review: I confess to some disappointment with this book, though I should mention that I did appreciate the scene where Europa, a moon of Jupiter, collides with an asteroid. But the purpose of the space exploration chapters is a bit of a mystery to me, as much as I enjoyed them. How does this jibe with the prep-school coming-of-age theme in the earlier chapters? Perhaps my copy had some printing errors.

Rating:
Summary: One of My all time Fave books
Review: God, i loved this book! the first time i read it, i was going thru a bad time myself, really low and depressed and i could really realate to holden. My favourite thing about the book is that all the characters are so REAL, they are not the flimsy shallow images you read in todays novels, Holden Caulfield is a real human being and i wouldn't be surprised to meet him one day.

I loved the descriptions of the people at Pencey. Stradlater, "Ackley-kid" and his history teacher who read out his exam essay.

The style of writing is beautiful too, really keeps you hooked on till the last page...
So overall, i would say this was an amazing book, and if you are thinking of reading it, go ahead....you'll enjoy it for sure

Rating:
Summary: Great book, great buy
Review: This was my favorite book from highschool reads, i like how it had a not sad ending. And had some funny moments,that were so true to life.

Good short read, great price.

Rating:
Summary: Great for teenagers
Review: Catcher in the Rye was one of my favorite books. I read this book as a sophomore in high school and I absolutely loved it. I don't read books very often, but this one caught my eye. I think it was mainly because the main character, Holden Caulfield, is the narrator of the book and he is a teenager himself. He tells the story how a teenager would tell it, however, he does curse occasionally. The way he tells the story, and how he lives his life as a teenager really interested me and I think that's why I liked this book so much. So give it a shot, what do you have to lose?

Rating:
Summary: Great, classic book
Review: "The Catcher in the Rye" is a first person narrative by J.D. Salinger. The point of view is through Holden Caulfield's eyes, a sixteen year old junior in high school. Holden has just been kicked out of his school, Pency Prep. for bad academic scores. He decides to leave before his parents find out he has been expelled and goes to New York City, where he grew up. The story is mostly set here, and this is where Holden goes through an internal conflict. He cannot decide whether he wants to retreat back to his childhood or interact with people as an adult, ie: have a sexual relationship. The story mainly tells of his interactions with others and the conflicts inside his mind. He cannot decide if he wants to interact with them as an adult or retreat from them like a child, calling the adult world "phony." Holden changes a lot throughout the story, he cannot decide if he wants to become an adult or recede to childhood. He knows that on wednsday he will have to face his parents and become the same child again, yet for the moment he is free and having somewhat of an adventure. The story can be boring to some, however many will find it very interesting. I dont want to ruin the rest of the book for you, as if you have not read it already i encourage you to read this classic, wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: I'm the real Holden : )
Review: When I first read "Catcher in the Rye," the one thing I noticed was the parallel between Holden and my own life. I live in Los Angeles, land of many "phonies"--the same type that Holden appeared to be criticizing. Holden wants to be a genuine human being, one who can actually be himself. Instead of playing a role in life, Holden wants to live life. It is quite unfortunate that the life Holden wants to lead is not really achievable. We all have roles to play, whether we want to play them or not. Witness the scene where Holden calls up a prostitute -- and, in Holden's character, he does not play the role he's supposed to lead -- where he enganges in sexual behavior with her.

Instead, Holden wants to learn about the prostitute. He cares for her. He wants to talk to her. Discuss things. Isn't that strange? Totally out of character. It is not what one would expect. That's Holden.

Perhaps one of the biggest problem, though, is that people who do not want to be a "phony" -- those who would prefer to, in Thoreau's words, "march to their own drummer," have a difficult time. Holden doesn't have many friends. He seems like a drifter. Doesn't really do well in school.

Is this a lesson to be learned? Are the bums on the street former Holden's, unable to adjust to reality, drifting to find their authenticity somewhere in the world? It is certainly possible.

On the prose: The prose is wonderful. Very readable, as many have mentioned. It's always very inexpensive and I recommend that everyone should have one copy in their book shelf.

-- Michael Gordon, from Los Angeles.

Rating:
Summary: Everyboy's talkin' at a frozen fish
Review: The great irony of The Catcher in the Rye isn't that Holden is a hypocrite (which he is), it's that Salinger, using Holden as his voice, stresses the phoniness of his language -- "old so-and-so," "and all," "knocks me out," "kills me," "gave me a bang," etc. -- as much as, say, Laurence Olivier hams his way through "Hamlet." It's like Salinger is admitting his own phoniness through a guy who hates phonies, who himself has moments of phoniness. That's the joke. And it's funny. Yeah, it's cute to watch Holden give all those young kids his tips, since he's as clueless as they come about the world around him; or watch Holden admit, just a tad, when he's wrong. He's tremendously likeable to us (even if he must come off as a jerk to everyone in the book not privy to our insider information) because we see all his insecurities; it certainly has a therapeutic effect on the teenage mind that thinks he's all alone in the world, and Salinger mentions this near the end of the novel, of course.

You could hardly say the book is profound in ideas -- the closest it comes is that bit about the suitcases -- but it is an important book, obviously, and a good one because, even if we're not in Holden's economic situation (and even if we're not growing up in the '40s and '50s), nearly everything he says stays relevant. (Well, maybe not the part about the frozen fish, but doesn't every teenage brain imagine leaving everyone behind and starting life anew?) All that's changed is the degree of cursing. (What's written on the wall that shocks Holden into anger is kinda funny, seen from today's perspective.) I haven't read Salinger's other stuff so I can't compare, but it strikes me as far too easy to criticize this book for its thin vocabulary -- Salinger lays it on so thick as to become comical and has Holden himself mention it once or twice, for chrissakes.

One thing most of us are interested in when we read a novel or watch a movie (not Holden on the latter, I realize, though I wonder what he'd think about Brando in a few years) is to be planted in some other world. Here, the world is sparsely described to us, but it's neat to put yourself -- as I did -- in the shoes of someone of the time. Where words like "flit" were used; or where Holden says "colored" people, which is indicative of the times, and then goes and overcompensates by telling us a white musician could never be as good as a black one because she'd made a song too cute. I get a bit of a thrill when I read stuff like that, a little ahead of its time. Holden even has a reasonably modern view of "flits" for someone his age. (Maybe all that time around the "gorgeous" Stradlater influenced him...) I can't say the book changed my life, but I can see why it would make countless readers wish they could call up Salinger up on the phone whenever they felt like it.

Rating:
Summary: hello entertainment, goodbye pretentiousness!
Review: Some people give it 1 or 2 stars for this simple reason: "IT'S TOO OVERATED".

OKAY listen you pretentious little maggots, go dig up more RARE books and then bring them to the "we love unknown books" club and parade all you want for that brilliant accomplishment.

It is simply UNBELIEVABLE that such a great book doesn't even get more than 3 stars. If you're the kind of person hunting for content and meaning all the time, i'm sorry this book let you down. but perhaps you should get off your high horse and try something new???? perhaps you should see this book for it's entertainment, for it's humor, for Holden's boldness to let go of the cynical thoughts that so often linger in our minds.

i'm no book critic. if you were to ask me to dissect the book like a piece of meat, i'm sorry, that's not what i look for in a book. i think books should be entertaining and THIS HAS DEFINITELY DONE IT.