The Catcher in the Rye

There are sentences you'd revisit years later. Innocence and the need to preserve it.

My first experience with an unreliable narrator story and I think after reading all the stir up about the book online, I've experienced both forms of emotions for the main character; The beginning of the book really made me hate Holden for his whininess, not really having fleshed his character out to the audience. By the middle of the book, you really start to get sick and tired of his complaints, but you can start to see the phoniness in some of the things he thinks about. By the end, you empathise with him, and also understand everywhere he is wrong, while "getting what he really means". Really killed me with the ducks metaphor.

The name of the book though catchy does not sound serious enough and that is the reason the reader does not start reading it with great expectations. Therein lies the advantage for this book like a dark horse. Through this novel J.D.Salinger takes you on a laughter ride using not his sense of humour but I would say his command over humour. While travelling in a city bus in Mumbai I was reading this book but at a particular stage the humour so much overwhelmed me that I realised that I would no longer be able to control my laughter so I had to halt my reading lest the people around me might think that I was a little insane, laughing alone. But of course to appreciate the humour of this book one needs to be prepared a bit, that is the reader should be conversant enough with good literature. The humour also a has a touch of sadness at some places bringing tears in your eyes. Thus its a complete package. But perhaps the most striking feature of this controversial milestone of English literature is the honesty and novelty of expressing the thoughts without inhibitions. No wonder this book has inspired many other renowned books! But my advice to other readers is that do not keep great expectations from this book, just read it. It could be almost be therapeutic.

The catcher in the rye is the first and last novel of J.D Salinger, originally published in 1951. The story is about a 16 year old teenager, Holden Caulfield, who gets expelled from his school Pencey and not wanting to go home, he stays outside and wanders along, trying to fit in the adult world. But through his endeavors, he realizes the hypocrisy of it and ends up being exhausted and emotionally unstable. The story details his life in two days and in these 2 days, we come to meet a lot of characters with whom Caulfield has to deal with. Though he mixes up well with everyone, he finds it difficult to make friends and like anyone from his heart. Everything and everyone is phony, according to him and amidst this 'phoniness', he finds himself lost and depressed. One thing to note, he didn't get depressed 'After' being exposed to the real world, rather he has been depressed since his brother Allie died and over the years, he started to question his existence. I really liked the way teenage angst is shown through a language, very raw and informal. The interior monologues of Holden, are described to well, it felt so real and like living the story, feeling the pain and the angst of him. I also liked the character of his sister Phoebe who is a little kid of 10 year old and is more mature than Holden himself is. She understands him well and listens to his problems. Holden talks more when she is with him and it was her who played a major role in bringing back the lost self of Holden. (to some extent?) This book has some major themes including the alienation, fragmentation, lost innocence and hypocrisy of post modern times that Salinger has beautifully captured. Highly, recommended💓 "That's the whole trouble. You can't even find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody will sneak up and write "f*ck you' right under your nose."

It is about a 16 year old boy named Holden Caulfield. It tries to explore the minds of tennagers and what they feel like about people, places, things, relations, movies, sports etc.Holden has an attitude of indifference, cynicism and loneliness which have been portrayed in this book. For him this world is full of phoney, bore, moron and depressing people..Also very apt discussion about the teenage age where you don't have idea where you want to go, what you want to do in your life, what do you like, who are your real friends? Holden feels so much lonely that he sort of invites anybody to join him for a conversation be it cab driver, nun, bar dancers, piano player or anybody..this shows the feeling of emptiness during teenage. After a few minutes interaction, he always classify people as moron, bored and phoney and just want to end the conversation or meeting. It's good and different read but to be honest not that much fascinating as it seemed from other reviews. Book for teenagers or the students of human psychology as they can related many things with the main character 'Holden'.

Read a sensitive novel after so long. The book is amazing and connects to us emotionally. Holden is not feeling emotionally ready for anything. And we find that we have also felt the same at some point in our lives. The vividness with which he explains each and every person he has ever interacted with is very true, very deep and very close to reality. The foggy things that goes in our mind, Holden speaks them out and is no where far from from real and that is why we understand what he goes through in those 3 days. Throughout the book I find Holden to be clearly suffering from depression, which he himself mentions quite a few times. What he needs is someone to support him in every decision he makes and that is why I think Phoebe calms him down. He is 12 and it might also be signs of coming-of-age. But what he needs is quiet listener and a blind supporter who believes that he will get it through. I love this novel for so many reasons.

Paper Quality could be better,

If you really want to know what the book is all about then you bang right on it,this book is all about the guy named Holden Caulfield who is studying in this rich guys school Pencey but he got axed from this school because he was flunked in 4 subjects and there is no redemption so he starts moving.The most of the story happens in that night its already a Christmas weekend,he gets to meet many people on his way to home(not quite home he got confused the whole time to go home or not) he is quite baffled the way things happening around him(he is a teenager). on his way he got to meet many people some really helps him some not most of them are taxi drivers(the helping ones chuckling),you may ask does he in love oh yeah he is in love with this gal named Jane and he also messes with this girl Sally :) ,old Caulfield likes his family very much especially his lil sister old phoebe,and his dead brother allie(he quite admires him) and his elder brother D.B,i could tell you one thing this old caulfield immaturely matured in a good way but he is quite confused, the whole drama surrounds this damn thing. at times you may cry,laugh you may feel his excitement, if you really involved though. ...

It's as advertised. I have also attached pictures of how the book looks without the cover for those interested.

جودة الورق رديئة بس الطباعه كويسه

I first read “The Catcher in the Rye” some time in either 1964 or more likely early 1965. That is over 54 years ago now. There are some similarities between my 17-year-old self then and the 16 year old Holden Caulfield. Both of us were naïve and having trouble transitioning into adulthood. The frustration of not understanding what was happening to us resulted in the same sort of anger within me as it did in Caulfield. He directed his anger outward and blamed the world. I took my anger inward and blamed myself. I entered university only a few months after having read the novel. The main thing that I recall about that reading of the novel is being given a lift by a philosophy professor who was curious as to how someone who was so young (I was 17 but looked more like 12) was getting along in university. A philosophy course was mandatory in first year. There were four choices - Philosophy 100 to Philosophy 103. I chose Philosophy 100 because it was first on the list. I was so naïve that I didn’t understand that the 100 course was designed as the first course for those majoring in the subject. The others were much easier and intended for everybody else. I remember the professor who picked me up asking me about the course. I answered him truly that I did like it. However, I do remember in the theory of knowledge of having a significant amount of difficulty understanding the difference between a correspondence theory of the truth and a coherence theory. I was young and very naive like Holden. For me then, reality was reality and there was one sort of truth. That there could be many types of truth was something that I had just not encountered as such. Holden faced the same sort of difficulty. He had difficulty understanding the changes going on around him. His reaction to this is anger and to run away from the world. He refuses to confront his troubles and acts out by refusing his work in school. He runs away from school and his parents and hides out in New York. He has escape fantasies of setting up a new life in the west. Like Holden, I found myself in a world that required emotional and intellectual skills that I just not grown into. The professor asked me about what I had been reading. I told him about Holden and his talk about 'phonies.' I had much to learn about the world. The novel is presented in the voice of an adolescent. Holden’s reaction of anger and escape are not untypical. However, this reaction is not limited to adolescents and the novel’s themes are not limited to them. This reaction of anger and denial is common when people are confronted with situations which challenge their preconceptions. There are many truths in the world and the truths that one finds thought life change with forces that lie both within us and without us. The novel is an examination of this for me. Reading it again now at 71 is something quite different from what I recall of reading it at 17. It does make me realize the naivete of how I understood the world then. I realize now how much I have learned from others over those 54 years of my life. I remember being puzzled by people talking about social theories of knowledge and of seeking out books on philosophy which could help me understand just what they meant. I recall how they helped my understand that I could not understand the difference between correspondence and coherence theories not because I did not understand the answer but because I did not know what the problem was. Life and the knowledge of others did teach me humility. I might have called people ‘phonies’ back then but I wouldn’t now. I would like to meet that philosophy professor again and talk to him about ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ again.. Now that I’m not that Holden Caulfield any more but a different one who is willing to listen and try to learn. It took me about 3 days to read the novel this time but maybe one could say that I have been reading it for the last 54 years.

The book is extremely boring.

I was reluctant to read this classic for awhile until a movie I saw sparked my interest. By today's standards there should be nothing controversial about this book, but, for it's time I could see how it would be controversial. I am glad I decided to read this great classic.