The Catcher in the Rye

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Summary: Holden a Teenager Lacking Hope
Review: The protagonist Holden Caulfield will forever remain a brilliant literary character as equivalent to Huck Finn in his episodic novel many decades earlier. Holden's cynical outlook on life makes him a very flawed narrator, however his satirical insight sheds new light on situations that forces a overly optimistic or even naive reader to reconsider their belief that the world is simply peaches and cream in a golden bowl of happiness. A very interesting character clearly makes this novel one for the ages both for it's controversial dialogue and nihilistic theme.

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Summary: A True Classic
Review: Here's a question: if this book was written fifty years ago, how come every year since then a new generaton of readers has come along and read this novel and felt it was written about them? That's the timeless, universal quality of this amazing book. It captures whatever alienation and disgust with society in general are really about, ad distills them into one character that just about everyone I've ever met thinks describes them, at some point in their lives. Once you are done with this book, you will want to read something else that evokes the same emotions, that is written as well, as convincingly. You will search the bookstore shelves. The only thing that will come close is Brauner's Love Songs of the Tone-Deaf, but that's more recent a novel. The Catcher in the Rye is a classic that has not only withstood the test of time, but will still be standing long after most of the books you see around now are long gone.

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Summary: I great CLASSIC!
Review: I read the reviews of this book read what it was about and I thought this looks like a good book so I decided to buy it and see for myself!Boy was that a good,but depressing book!Holdens adventures throughout the unforgiving cities were very sad and kept you reading!(I got so mad when that prostite got Maurice to beat Holden up!!)Anyway this was the classic I thought it would turn out to be!This is totally one of my favorite books!At parts I could relate to Holdens sometimes complicated feelings and other times I failed to,and yet other times I felt sorry for him.He thought mostly everything was depressing!He frequently used the phrase "that kills me".And he said GD at least a million times but despite that it did not ruin this great book at the look into a complicted distrubed juvenile!So if you are a teen and would like a great book to read this is it!(I'm really 14!)

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Summary: Catcher in the Rye Review
Review: The theme of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, centers on adolescence and the loss of innocence. The protagonist and narrator is Holden Caufield, a sixteen-year-old boy from a wealthy family in New York City. He has just been expelled from another boarding school for academic failure. Holden's pessimistic outlook on life makes the reader think he has no hope left in the world. Yet, Holden is only shielding himself from more damage to his early loss of innocence. This moody, yet sensitive character foolishly spends his money, hoping to find a temporary haven from his emotions. Holden's emotions only escalate and nearly cause him a nervous breakdown. In many ways Holden can be compared to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Both teenage-boy runaways, they are keen observers upon unplanned travel routes. Salinger's stream-of-consciousness style of writing makes the story very real. The reader can relate and keep up with the narrator's thought process, even when he rapidly changes subjects. Salinger's dynamic characters become genuine people in a believable setting. Salinger's capture of adolescence in this novel is profound. There is much in Holden's irrational decisions that make this novel very truthful. Salinger's creation of a teenage boy, who constantly debates with himself on decisions of morality, is a character with which all adolescents can relate with in one way or another. Though some may find The Catcher in the Rye, offensive or controversial, it is representative of an adolescent and his struggles to find assurance in a world of doubt.

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Summary: catcher in the rye and counterfeit son review
Review: Since I have read Catcher in the Rye, I believe that the book should be read by all young readers. This book deals with every day problems that young men go through in their everyday lives. There is now a book with a fictional character that young men can relate to; I understood most of Holden's problems throughout the book. I haven't read Counterfeit Son, however I think all young adults should also read this book today. This book deals with kid napping. There are a lot of kid napping cases now more than ever. Kid napping has risen tremendously around the world. Many young adults do not know how serious this issue is. After reading the reviews for Counterfeit son, I finally understand that issue is more serious than I thought. Mature young adults should read both books because both of them relate to the problems we face in society today.

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Summary: Insight Into the Human Mind
Review: In J.D. Salinger's novel, Catcher in the Rye, he masters the ability to captivate a reader of any age or sex by expressing the universal voice that speaks differently to each person through his smooth, slang, stream of consciousness. From the first page on I was fascinated by the mystery of what knowledge I could absorb about myself and the world from an author who began his novel... (3) At the beginning, Salinger establishes his main character, Holden Caulfield, as a normal, saucy, teenage boy of fifteen. He speaks in first person and recounts everything he experiences through long portions of stream of consciousness. These streams of consciousness serve as dialogue from Holden directed to each individual reader, so that the reader gets the sense that they are a close, personal friend of the character. This relaxed reading relationship portrays Salinger's laid back, straight-forward style. Once the reader is on a similar level as the first person narrator, reading is fast, easy, and enjoyable. To further accommodate the reader, he writes clearly without cluttering his work with pompous words that hinder the real meaning. This simplistic speech enhances the child-like style. This emphasis on children and their innocent honesty can be seen throughout Salinger's other works. Proof from Salinger's life shows that he cares for young adults and favors them over corrupt, phony adults. In the streams of consciousness he embeds many insightful tidbits which everyone has experienced at one time or another. Since the focus of Salinger's work falls into character development, he follows a loose plot which enables him to express a teenage boy's perspective of the world of "phonies" and disappointment. The word "phony" occurs innumerable times throughout the book when Holden encounters many minor characters which serve as examples of humans fake, superficial air. He meets phonies such as Sally Hayes and Ernie which provide evidence of the sad fraud that America has become. From Holden's contempt of American's flaws, Salinger exposes the phony way of life in America during this period. In each of Holden's encounters, each person has some emotion or truth that Holden reacts to. Both the reader and Holden learn about the human nature together simultaneously. For an adult, Salinger summed up many of the unspoken concepts and feelings that many fear speaking about or just do not know exactly how to state like a true teenager. In instances where he describes the types of people he meets, such as his roommate Ackley who he says "always had to know who was going" before he committed to going himself, I found myself putting people I know into the characters in the book (47). Through all of the minor characters he meets along his journey towards awareness and satisfaction, Salinger develops one of the most memorable characters in fiction so well, that by the end of the book the reader feels as if they share a strong mental and emotional tie to Holden. Thoughts, feelings, and problems children and adults all share are illuminated from the universal voice Holden possesses. Along with the eternal voice Salinger creates, above all he completed a work of art that anyone can enjoy and take with them their whole life, and a character that mirrors their own feelings, insecurities, and personality.

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Summary: Stream of Consciousness in the Catcher in the Rye
Review: J.D. Salinger's controversial The Catcher in the Rye, told from the perspective of 17 year-old Holden Caulfield, explores the clouded worlds that many "lost" young men face bitterly every day. Caulfield's journey is not merely physical but also emotional, as it touches ideas burnt into the minds of many but expressed only by those few brave enough to confess them. Salinger's stream of consciousness take the reader directly into the mind of Caulfield, making him see the world through his eyes, strained with emotional tension.

Caulfield's train of thought serves as a link to his character. Salinger's diction is that of a teenager in the 1950's, complete with broken grammar and frequent slang with swearing. Caulfield's narration does more than show what happens in the novel, it shows the action through his eyes-the eyes of a self-justified teenager, trying to do the right thing in a crazy world. Almost everything Caulfield says is backed up with a short comment on what he thinks about it, from kids to life in general, giving a bit more depth into what kind of person he is each time he says something, no matter how insignificant it may look at times. This constant manner of speech reminds the reader that the Caulfield is not a learned scholar nor an accomplished grown man, but an everyday teenager trying to get by.

The stream of consciousness in The Catcher in the Rye illustrates Caulfield's awakened, yet somewhat tainted view of the world. Caulfield represents the many young men that few dared to write about at a time where many themes common today were considered inappropriate.

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Summary: dramatic social criticism
Review: J. D. Salinger shows us a young man pushed over the edge by the shallow emptiness of social behaviour and by lingering grief for his dead younger brother which he has felt forced to bury. Holden Caulfield is perhaps not an immediately attractive character - he is hypercritical, edgy, self-absorbed and self-deceiving - which is understandable since the book chronicles his gradual emotional disintegration, ending with him 'getting pretty sick' and having to "rest up a bit" in an unidentified institution. Holden's desperate attempts to prevent his collapse start when he flees school and the book follows him round his hometown where his grip on reality begins to slip and he becomes increasingly emotional. I found it interesting that one of those giving this book a bad review seemed to think that Holden was a real person - Salinger's portrayal is certatinly realistic enough to make this understandable. Many of the reviewers have concentrated on the fact that its main character is a teenager - however I believe that people of all ages will identify with Holden's distress and the anger and despair he feels about society.

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Summary: Holden Caulfield and How Salinger Portrays Him
Review: In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger employs repetition and irony to portray the picture of an adolescent boy attempting to find himself in an adult world and grow into a man. Salinger continuously inserts the same small phrases throughout his novel in order to illustrate the uphill battle Holden Caulfield faces in order to prove and understand himself. After every statement, thought, or personal anecdote, Holden always declares to the reader, or to the character he is speaking with, that he is telling the truth. Over and over again, Holden exerts the phrases "I really am" (98), "They really are" (118), "I really do" (9), "We really did" (8), and "I really didn't" (10). With the recurrence of these simple, three word phrases, which begin by stating who is doing it, followed by the word "really", and closing with an affirming verb, Salinger paints the portrait of a boy struggling to convince himself that he can actually be correct and gain confidence in himself. Another key phrase Salinger employs through Holden is "That killed me" (160). Whenever something "kills" Holden he finds the event amusing and comical. When Holden is looking through his kid sister's diary, he discovers the name she had printed in it was different from her real name. Holden loves children's jokes and expresses his attitude toward her private joke by saying that it "killed him" (160). By stating that "it killed" him repeatedly, Salinger eclipses Holden's peculiar, adolescent sense of humor with the fact that he has such a huge sense of humor. In this way, Salinger covers the evidence of Holden's unsophisticated mind. As well as repetition, Salinger utilizes irony to display to the reader that Holden seeks manhood and himself. On his way to Ernie's, Holden strikes up a conversation with the cab driver named Horwitz. After conversing for a couple of minutes with him, Holden concludes that Horwitz is "a touchy guy, it wasn't any pleasure discussing anything with him" (83). Ironically, the very next sentence Holden extends an invitation to Horwitz to join him for a drink. In this instance, Holden shows he wishes to spend time with anyone willing to listen to his ideas, even if they disagree wholeheartedly with them. This characteristic of Holden strengthens the fact that he is morphing from an adolescent to an adult. Adolescents close their minds to outside ideas and opinions, while adults share their ideas with everyone. As we all know, realizing your problem is a big step to solving your problem. Phoebe, Holden's little sister, correctly points out Holden's problem to him that "you don't like anything that's happening" (169). Instead of taking her advice Holden breaks out into an all out defense declaring "that's where you're wrong - that's exactly where you're wrong!" (169). Immediately following his defensive, Holden thinks to himself that she "was...depressing me" (169), thus fortifying Phoebe's position. Instead of taking the mature route and listening to others opinions, Holden shuts his sisters beliefs out as "wrong" and continues to believe that he does not have a problem. The Catcher in the Rye delivers the inspiring story of a boy struggling to break the bonds of adolescence and bloom into adulthood. With the use of his skillful repetitions and ironies, J.D. Salinger "really did" masterfully create this American classic.

Rating:
Summary: Trash
Review: I paraphrase Nabokov:

To write a book whose purpose is for the reader to identify with the main character is nonartistic candy.

J.D. Salinger (the J.D. stands for "Faust") has written a book from the perspective of a 16-year-old, who is the throes of adolescence. He is self-centred and pessimistic. In my adolescence, I did identify with Holden, but each time I read the book I could never make it past page fifty. Not only is Holden's narrative redundant and cliché, but, as I soon discovered, IT WAS SOLELY MEANT TO APPEAL TO TEENAGERS. I was repulsed by this book - not because I am the child of some over-protective gay couple that loves me dearly, but because it was a waste of my time. It told me nothing about myself (the role of art, as Wilde put it, is to reflect the spectator). Reading this book was painful and boring. I gave it two chances and gave up on both. I confess with immense shame that I feigned appreciation of this book -- "so good! so good!.. the BEST book" -- in social situations. But I stopped fooling myself. The people who read this book over and over, aside from the scholars, are people who are addicted to things and have attempted suicide.

In my review for "Ulysses" on this website, I stated that that book ("Ulysses") marked the end of literature for the next few hundred years (until a new reincarnation of Joyce/Shakespeare shows up....man, metempsychosis of the geniuses takes a while) and Salinger's book helps me in proving my point:

It is a theme that has been done to death. It was controversial at the time (or was it) but, as far as I'm concerned, it was in no way transcendental, groundbreaking, or any of those nonsequitors that are thrown around too much. It was, quite simply, something that this bulimic, urine-drinking recluse wrote to strike it rich, as with everyone else in our society (just because I can't sympathize with Holden, it doesn't mean that we aren't similar - I am the king of nihilists and pessimists). People like the book because it is them that they are hearing. It mirrors our society, but not in the constructive, critical way, but in a way that turns us all in little heroes, little Holden Caulfields.

In short:

Do yourself a favour. Don't define your philological merit by how many books you have read. If literature is where you want to be, spend the rest of your life reading "King Lear" and "Ulysses".