The Catcher in the Rye

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Summary: Read the goddamn book and all
Review: This is the book that created a new generation. J.D.Salinger realistically portrayed the protagonist Holden Caulfield, who absolutely despises phoniness and becomes initiated as he travels in New York City. The use of the goddamn language is totally brilliant and all, simple yet powerful. If you havent't read this book, read it. If you have, read it again, and again

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Summary: A must-read for anyone of any age, sex or background
Review: OK, I confess. I stole a copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" when I was in high school. I didn't really feel all that guilty about it at the time. I mean, after all, it's the sort of thing Holden would've wanted me to do. It's the sort of thing he would've done himself. When I did it, it was for somewhat selfish reasons, for "Catcher" helped influence my manners as a free-thinker in the midst of living in the South and having all of these preconceived notions passing as facts passed on to me. I was told, in fact, not to read it by a number of my classmates, who felt that it was dirty or anti-Christian. Instead, that intrigued me to read it all the more. When I realized it was about an adolescent, basically going through the same sort of struggle growing up outside the norm, driven insane by those who don't understand him, I was hooked and have kept it near me ever since. Whenever I think I'm crazy, I turn to Holden Caulfield. Whenever the world makes no sense, I turn to Holden Caulfield. Whenever I feel like running away from obligations that seem to make no sense at all, I turn to Holden Caulfield. Holden has a lot of timeless, meaningful things to say, and the reading of "Catcher" should be encouraged because of that. He's a brilliant, fully rounded character interacting in a number of very real, very frustrating situations, much like children (and adults) today face. It's worth multiple reads

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Summary: "Catcher" through the years.
Review: When I was fourteen in 1965 I caught my mother reading a book on the beach and laughing out loud, the surrounding sunbathers be damned! When I asked, she told me the book was "The Catcher In The Rye" and I seem to recall that I orginally thought it was about a baseball player's drinking problem. She gave the book to me when she'd finished and I was soon in hysterics of my own: at fourteen I wasn't looking for deeper meanings.Rereading "Catcher" about six years later, after having weathered a few Holdenesque travails of my own I found myself identifying (and sympathizing) with old H.C. and his often off-centered points of view.Twentyfive years later I found myself back where I'd started: enjoying the humor of the book as I had that first time. Personally I find ¨Catcher" the perfect "rite of passage" story, even if the passage is the long corridor of years that make up a lifetime. It has been there for me, in different incarnations to suit the times, as joker, teacher, and amusing friend. What more does one need to call a book a "classic"?

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Summary: A lesson in American culture
Review: I am English and I first read this book when I was around 20. I am now nearly 50 and I am trying to encourage my American husband to take up reading. I got the book from the library in England, and we sat down and took it in turns reading a chapter out loud to each other. I still enjoyed the book; that inimitable way Holden has of expressing himself..so American..so different to the way we speak in England. Yet my husband did not enjoy it. He did not understand the pathos that I saw in the book..he did not see the funny side of things..he, an American himself, could not understand Holden's way of carrying on..to him, Holden behaved very badly and was a crazy mixed up kid. I, however, thought Holden was really sweet and I loved him and wanted to cuddle him and be a good Mom and friend to him

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Summary: Since 1959, Catcher In The Rye has never left my nightstand.
Review: I first read this book in 1959 because a teacher in my high school was fired for putting it on his Required Reading List and I wanted to know why. There has been a copy on my night stand ever since. I can only feel pity for anyone who did not grow up in the "fifties" when the world learned, through Salinger, that teenagers were people too

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Summary: Awesome for the Ages
Review: I'm 52. Majored in English. Made phenomenal living for the past 30 years as a writer. Just gave Catcher to my 13-year-old son (kids are growing up faster than they did in '59). My kid finished the book, looked at me, and said "Dad, did you tell this Salinger guy about me?" 'Nuff said. Brilliance, though fleeting, is eternal and deserves our respect

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Summary: If you like CATCHER, read BLU'S HANGING
Review: THE CATCHER IN THE RYE is the best American novel of the century. I am biased; I love books with first-person narrators that sound more real than real people. Other favorites are Huck Finn (of course), Scout Finch, and newcomer Ivah Ogata, narrator of Lois-Ann Yamanaka's BLU'S HANGING. Try it

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Summary: A Classic. Why is it banned?
Review: This book was a classic tale of teenage angst. Holden's character was compelling as an anti-everything kind of guy. As far as the extreme vulgerness that is supposedly in this book, it is minor and probably equates to 5 minutes of MTV

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Summary: An interesting tale of adolescence at its worst.
Review: In what may be a truly unqiue viewpoint among this plethora of reviews for J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye," I am a fifteen year-old who loved the book precisely because of how much I hated Holden Caulfield. The only thing I could possible hate more are the critics who present Holden as the perfect epitomy of the adolescent experience. Holden is everything we detest about the maturation process of teenagers -- the fear, the frustration, and the angst. Yet he shows few of the "decent" qualities of any teenager that would allow him to be the rule of adolescence rather than the exception, as so many critics (mostly baby boomers) would have you believe. Certainly this is evidenced by the fact that both his fictional and real-life peers, at least most of them, do not flunk prep school, solicit whores, wander the New York bar scence, and dance with forty year-olds in a dank hotel. Yet of course, I can identify with Holden, precisely because his depression and anger (what else is it?) occupies us all at one time or another. But Holden is the extereme. His ceaseless ravings against "phonies" (the word occurs about every 10 sentences through the book) drove me absolutly nuts! So many times I pleaded with Holden to simply chill out, if that is the right phrase. His endless frustration with almost everything in the world is obviously a looming aspect of any kid's adolescence, but it is by no means ubiquitous in our lives! To me, Holden is simply out of touch with the world -- a world, ironically, that he despreatly hopes will accept him. Of course, read the book. Of course, triumph at how well Salinger captured teenage angst. But please, don't suggest Holden's beliefs are the indelible stamp inevitably paralleling all of our lives from ages 13 through 20

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Summary: Why the bad reviews?
Review: One cannot fail to notice that the positive reviews on Amazon for 'Catcher' are longer, and display a superior quality of literary criticism. Strangely enough, many of the finer European critics have been unwilling to deem Salinger much worth as a writer. For example, George Steiner, uncomfortably aware of the book's vitality, cannot bring himself to consider it a modern classic; Salinger is secondhand Dostoyevsky. American literature has fought a long battle to gain due respect from the European 'literati'; even in Britain, with it's supreme tradition, many are now looking to the American novel as more dynamic, healthy and wideranging. On a personal note let me mention my favourite line from Catcher, viz "I'm sort of an atheist". A statement that does not permit qualification, succintly reflective of Holden's confusion! (I agree with view of howardstaunton (below), that Holden should not be viewed uncritically as hero figure) And typical of the care and craft Salinger took on the book's style; this is no pulp fiction!