In honour of the centennial of the birth of J.D. Salinger in 1919, Penguin reissues all four of his books in beautiful commemorative hardback editions - with artwork and text based on the very first Salinger editions published in the 1950s and 1960s.
'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.'
The first of J. D. Salinger's four books to be published, The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most widely read and beloved of all contemporary American novels.
Im not sure if I would've liked this book 25 years ago. But now, I can appreciate the feelings Holden talks about, with nothing making sense and everything being depressing at his age and current path in life. He doesn't know where he belongs yet. His life goes to pieces.
Yes, the language is dated and yes, there are parts that are highly controversial today, so you need to take into account the time it was written, as trite as it sounds. I'm glad I read it at an older age. Things get better.
Definitely not the demographic for this one, so after trying to read it twice, I gave up
No rating
Not giving it a star rating b/c I didn't finish, so it wouldn't be fair to.
I was annoyed by this rich kid who hated everybody and complained that everybody was a moron. He wasn't trying and my inner teacher kept coming out telling him HE was a moron for throwing everything away. I mean, if he had real life-or-death issues to deal with, like family members dying or he was dying or anything like that, then I could follow his story. All he did was call people morons, talk about sex and try to hook up while hurting people around him.
I heard this book finds itself with males between late teens to about 25. I'm already way older than that and female, so I guess that rules me out. Just felt like a whine fest. I remember being a depressed, angsty teen myself (before I was an even …
Not giving it a star rating b/c I didn't finish, so it wouldn't be fair to.
I was annoyed by this rich kid who hated everybody and complained that everybody was a moron. He wasn't trying and my inner teacher kept coming out telling him HE was a moron for throwing everything away. I mean, if he had real life-or-death issues to deal with, like family members dying or he was dying or anything like that, then I could follow his story. All he did was call people morons, talk about sex and try to hook up while hurting people around him.
I heard this book finds itself with males between late teens to about 25. I'm already way older than that and female, so I guess that rules me out. Just felt like a whine fest. I remember being a depressed, angsty teen myself (before I was an even worse 20-something), but sheesh. It does give a helluva portrayal of an outwardly-destructive person vs. one who internalizes the anger and pain.
I will give props for one thing, though--the writing style was very different and at least kept me trying to go on with the book. I just couldn't like the character.
Review of 'The Catcher in the Rye' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
Read this due to its historical impact in the formation of YA literature. I enjoyed it, felt it accurately depicts the angst of adolescence and I likely would have related to it if I had read it as a kid. It was very dated though, one thing I highly disliked and got caught off guard was <spoiler>just how casually homophobic the book is and how that at times plays into the plot. How far we've come, huh!</spoiler>
Read this due to its historical impact in the formation of YA literature. I enjoyed it, felt it accurately depicts the angst of adolescence and I likely would have related to it if I had read it as a kid. It was very dated though, one thing I highly disliked and got caught off guard was <spoiler>just how casually homophobic the book is and how that at times plays into the plot. How far we've come, huh!</spoiler>
I wasn't forced to read this in school, and I was curious why all the psychopaths have it as their favorite book.
I still don't know.
It's a good portrait of a spoiled kid with some mental illness. After, I read some thought PTSD, and that sounds about right. It's like talking to a 17 yr old, but the message is strong. Worth reading.
Published in 1951, J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye focuses on the teenage angst of Holden Caulfield, a depressed seventeen year old undergoing treatment in a nondescript mental institution. Caulfield narrates his expulsion from an elite private school, Pencey Preparatory Academy and what happens to him after he runs away from the school a few days prior to Christmas Break to sojourn alone through the red light districts of Manhattan. His odyssey carries him through various experiences that begin to clarify his outlook on life and his opinions about the world.
Salinger wrote Caulfield’s coming-of-age story in the years immediately following the Second World War, initially as a serialized set of short stories before its eventual publication in a novel format. One of the most salient themes in this book is the tension between individualism and conformity in postwar American society. Salinger prefigures many issues later articulated by the …
Published in 1951, J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye focuses on the teenage angst of Holden Caulfield, a depressed seventeen year old undergoing treatment in a nondescript mental institution. Caulfield narrates his expulsion from an elite private school, Pencey Preparatory Academy and what happens to him after he runs away from the school a few days prior to Christmas Break to sojourn alone through the red light districts of Manhattan. His odyssey carries him through various experiences that begin to clarify his outlook on life and his opinions about the world.
Salinger wrote Caulfield’s coming-of-age story in the years immediately following the Second World War, initially as a serialized set of short stories before its eventual publication in a novel format. One of the most salient themes in this book is the tension between individualism and conformity in postwar American society. Salinger prefigures many issues later articulated by the beatniks and the counterculture during the late-1950s and 1960s—primarily that American culture and its attendant social relations during postwar years became one of routine, crass materialism, solidified gender and socioeconomic roles, and the leveling of individual self-expression. Or, as Holden Caulfield would say, Americans had become “phony.”
Holden is an extremely precocious high school student. He suffers from depression, but more specifically something akin to cyclothymic disorder: a milder form of bipolar disorder in which individuals suffer from extremely short-lived oscillations between depression and mania. There are moments when Holden feels he could conquer the world, such as when he invites Sally Hayes to run away with him to Connecticut where he would seek employment and support them in a hardscrabble existence suffused with authentic feeling. At other times, something as simple as conversing with nuns in a diner can spiral Holden into “sadness,” as he contemplates various pitiful visions of their lives. There are also some inflections of Henry David Thoreau’s transcendental writings in Holden’s worldview and there is not-so-subtle nods toward Walden in some of the narrator’s musings.
By-and-large, Holden’s inability to “fit” into society hails from his obsession about authenticity. He seeks authentic experiences and authentic people, and finds that most of the world and its inhabitants operate like automatons by saying and doing things not from a wellspring of true sentiments but from the sustainment of pretense and artifice to get what they want (sex, money, power, reputation). There are many examples of how Holden shies away from inauthentic experiences in the book. The most poignant, perhaps, is when Holden hastily decides to pay for a prostitute after an elevator attendant in his seedy hotel offers Holden “five dollars for a throw” if he needs company. When the prostitute enters Holden’s hotel room his teenage curiosity about sex and the desire to feel physical intimacy becomes subverted by the sudden realization that the entire transaction was based on something other than pure feeling. Holden admits to an acquaintance later that he would need to “like a girl” before he could consider having sex with her. Salinger deftly handles sexuality in this book in ways that belies the belief that America during the 1950s was extremely conservative about sex. There’s definitely a nod toward the existence of the Kinsey Reports inherent in Salinger’s approach to sexuality here.
There’s a lot of appeal to this book even today. For all the emphasis placed on individual expression in 2022, there remains a strong undercurrent of conformism in our culture wherein even those hoping to proclaim their individuality have unwittingly fallen into the trap of becoming part of the crowd. Many will find Holden Caulfield’s cynicism familiar as our level of distrust in institutions is far stronger now than when Salinger composed this novel.
To be frank, I would have liked to give this 2.5 instead of a solid 3. I believe my disappointment is a product of two things:
Firstly, I am "late" to reading this and I simply am not the intended audience. The catcher in the rye most likely would have intrigued me a few years ago but it falls flat for the current me. It is incredibly hard to connect with Holden Caulfield, to note: this book is a narrative of sorts—a lack of relatability with the main character somewhat renders the rest of the book jading—regardless, I understand the appeal of this book to other readers who may find fragments of themselves in the main character's attitude to life.
Secondly: I Really Dislike Holden Caulfield.
I don't think it needs much elaboration as to me, he is the definition of insufferable... A good portion of this book is about …
To be frank, I would have liked to give this 2.5 instead of a solid 3. I believe my disappointment is a product of two things:
Firstly, I am "late" to reading this and I simply am not the intended audience. The catcher in the rye most likely would have intrigued me a few years ago but it falls flat for the current me. It is incredibly hard to connect with Holden Caulfield, to note: this book is a narrative of sorts—a lack of relatability with the main character somewhat renders the rest of the book jading—regardless, I understand the appeal of this book to other readers who may find fragments of themselves in the main character's attitude to life.
Secondly: I Really Dislike Holden Caulfield.
I don't think it needs much elaboration as to me, he is the definition of insufferable... A good portion of this book is about all the things Caulfield dislikes—practically everything in existence. I must add that the repetitive nature of Salinger's writing only added on to the tediousness of this read.
I enjoyed the writing style of this book and found it mildly humourous and relatable. I fully annotated the copy I was reading and overall I have the most tags for funny, relatable, and quote. I would recommend everyone read it once but it is not on my favorite list.
Read for school, around 1979 or 1980. Did not like at all -- felt vulgar and depressing. Would probably experience it differently today but have no desire to reread. Let those who love it enjoy it, but if you didn't like it don't feel guilty.
Review of 'The Catcher in the Rye' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
Although the book is a bit of a drag today, if read in the context of when it was released it's easy to understand why this is such an influential book
