The Catcher in the Rye

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Summary: Will stay with me forever
Review: My camp counsellor read Catcher out loud to us six 11-year-olds in the summer of 1968, and never finished it. Back in the city, I underwent a hernia operation and the minute I came out of my anasthetic state, I asked my sister for a copy so I could finish it. I'll never forget how some iodine from my fresh wound stained the book's spine. It was so great, I remained stunned long after the gas wore off. I re-read the book as I convalesced at home, and the character of Holden Caulfield will stay with me forever. I was actually afraid to become a teenager after I read it. Today, I still cherich that old, dog-eared, iodine stained volume that cost 75 cents. When we studied Catcher in grade 10, I, of course, was an old hand and I understood it all, or so I thought. And I still just want to pick up the phone and call up old J.D., just like Holden thought everyone who enjoyed a book should. I loved Holden, and just wanted to give him a hug. Of course, I also associate the book with a pain in my groin.

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Summary: If you loved Catcher in the Rye, try Rule of the Bone!
Review: If you loved Catcher in the Rye (as I did!), try Rule of the Bone, by Russell Banks

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Summary: The presant through the eyes of the future
Review: Holden is a character which I personaly found that I could really relate to. He is one who tries to preserve the beauty and innocenses of the youth. He reveales to the reader all of the purities in which children have, yet unconciously lose through there becoming of greater age. Befor I read this book I never was clear exactly on what was that made children so inocent and how it all changed. Now I have a beter understanding and a much higher respect then I thought I could ever have for children. Don't get me wrong I 've always loved children but this just clarifies them alittle bit better. What's in age any way

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Summary: Terence, this is stupid stuff.
Review: Yes, yes--you know the shtick: I read CATCHER when I was in high school--and, like all things banally true, have rediscovered it again at 35. But what a book! I'm not sure any writer, no matter how talented, can pull off consistency of voice the way Salinger did. I could only think of Twain's Huck Finn, perhaps Cather's Jim Burden, and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. I felt as if I had touched (if you will) a real person, a real voice, one that lived on days after I had finished the book. I'm sure the plot is far too contrived (the homosexuality, veiled and polite, is so predictable as to be laughable), and the other characters disappear into a miasama of similarity. But then Holden. He remains, a voice of unfettered adolescence born out of the fevered memory of adulthood, mine and Salinger's. A genuine voice, the "real thing" (without James's silly ambiguities)--perhaps no reader can ask for more

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Summary: Simply The Best
Review: Even though it has been a school work in English classes, when I was in eleventh grade, "The Catcher in the Rye" has been the best book that I have ever read. I could almost forget that I was supposed to study each word that I was reading, since I was assigned to do so. Instead I could live everthing Holden lives and feel his feelings inside. The language he uses got me closer to his world and him being that straight forward in his attitudes, made me approach certain things with wider perceptions at the end. Since English is not my native language, as a student at high school in Turkey, I gained the maximum benefit from the piece, both philosophically and academically. As it address to anyone at any age, I guess everyone needs to take the chance to meet with Holden in order to witness the natural growth of the personality inside one and how he confesses every piece that he keeps inside. Thank You

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Summary: Too bad this great book has a bad rep.
Review: I read this book expecting it to be the best novel I've ever read; I can say that I was left with nothing more desired than what I recieved. This book is ideal for anyone who can analyze what they are reading. People who believe the book is dangerous should really just be asking for an explanation of the books meaning; something along the line of "HOLDEN IS NOT A ROLE-MODEL!!! LEARN FROM HIM, DON'T IMITATE HIM!!!" If you teach this book, or recommend it to someone who may get the wrong idea you should explain those important things.

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Summary: this book can change your life if you're not careful.
Review: Many years ago, I gave my beloved copy of The Catcher in the Rye to my college boyfriend--a dark, sensitive soul who I fancied a modern Caulfield. Weeks, then months passed, and he never mentioned it -- didn't exclaim how Salinger's character so perfectly embodied his own alienation. Well, the relationship lasted for years, but that shabby paperback always haunted me: why did he not understand the enormity of what I had given him? Turns out, he wasn't the misunderstood one, I was. Thanks, Holden

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Summary: A must for any social outcast!
Review: I have never read a book that captures all the trauma of an out of place teenager with as much reality and humor as Salinger does in this book. While not everyone will be able to completely understand the path that Holden takes, those who do know can learn many lessons about life from this chain-smoking, phony-hating, misfit high schooler

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Summary: what's the big deal?
Review: I don't get it. What's the big deal? The plot is predictable; the language is uninspired and repetitive (goddamn it) and the character is adolescent -- so are most of the people reading this book. I suppose it has a place in the canon of 20th century American literature - but I'm not sure where..

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Summary: The best book ever written, if you want to know the truth
Review: If you want to know the truth, this is the greatest book ever written. It's the only book I can keep reading and I keep laughing out loud at. It kills me. It really does. The New York City of Holden's (that's our Hero) adventures is the New York City of my childhood, and we grew up 40 years apart! Catcher in the Rye is real and honest, it's the most real book ever; there's nothing phony about it at all.