Catcher in the Rye - How is it?
 

I need to read and I think I am going to read this book. For some reason this was never required when I was in HS, but I always heard good things about it. So, am I going to love it or what?

It's one of my very favorite books. If you enjoy strong character development, you will love it.

If nothing else, it is a very easy (short) read and considered one of the best books of all-time. So you will be out nothing for giving it a shot. I guarantee one of two things will happen, however. You will either LOVE it or you will HATE it.

I'll guarantee a third: You'll never look at graffiti scrawled on a wall the same way again.

Right. I hated it. Maybe that was because I read it when I was 23 instead of 12.

Great timing on this thread. I've been thinking about rereading Catcher in the Rye. My dad gave it to me when I was sixteen and not by accident. A surpisingly wise move for the man. I loved it. However, that's about all I remember about it.

I never heard of any high schools assigning this book. My HS assigned books bored me to tears, except one teacher who gave us Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut. I loved that teacher.

I'm 27 now. Most things haven't held up for me in adulthood. I'd love to hear from anyone who read Catcher in the Rye as a child/teenager and as an adult.


Asinine

I read it as an adult - if 21 is an adult - and liked it quite a bit, but i wish that I had read it when I could associate with the main character a little bit - it may have changed my life then, maybe not

It's a much darker, sadder novel when you read it as an adult, or, at least that's been my experience.

Very deserving of being called a classic. One of my favorite books. Either you love it or you hate it, there's very little in between. I love it.

I personally think that Salinger wrote some pretty awkward novels. I think that they are overrated and not really worth the read, however, if you're set on it then maybe you'll like it. I didn't ever feel like it was worth my time but you can read it in a half an afternoon.

The Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book. I've read it four times:

1) at age 12
2) senior year of high school (age 17)
3) sophomore year of college (age 19)
4) senior year of college (age 21)

Well, for me, the book is still as great as it always was. The writing is excellent, and it inspires me to this day.

seeyouauntie, have you finished it yet? What are your thoughts?

I love all of Salinger's works. Catcher in the Rye gets all the attention, but if you like it, you should read some of his other stuff. Nine Stories and Franny & Zooey, etc.

Started last night. My friend actually had it in his car. I'm about 2/3's through. I like it. There are some things that Salinger put into words that I could never explain. Things just clicked. However, I'm really wondering where this is going too.

To be more percise, I am at:

I read it the summer after my freshman year in highschool and LOVED it. I found out a few months later that it was required reading for my high school English class. I didn't complain about having to read it, again, and quite enjoyed having it taught after having already read it. (FYI, I was at a Jesuit high school, so that may explain why we got to read that book)

My sophomore English class was by far my favorite, ever. It was American lit. We read:
Cat's Cradle
The Great Gatsby
The Scarlet letter (GOD that book blew)
The Crucible
LOTS of Mark Twain
all the Walden Pond-esque writings

It was a GREAT class and a WONDERFUL teacher. Only bad part was his wife gave birth right before we were to read the Scarlet Letter and we had a HORRIBLE substitute while he was out... so on top of an IMPOSSIBLE book, that made it even worse...

Finished. Still collecting my thoughts. Overall I liked it. Good points about the grafitti, but I don't think I am going to look at it differently. Did I miss something?

Someone mentioned character development earlier in the thread. One of the things I didn't like about Catcher in the Rye was that Holden seemed to stay the same... that there wasn't any development. Maybe I missed it.

<img src="http://communities.msn.com/_Secure/0LQCkGeIPRWcO1dr*q6Epi6Vg*hhUa0hDISa7u3u5FR*sG3fR8jGR8V6J!oPgfMjmhI9NIWcAkdI/frankie.gif"><font size="1">Fire bad!</font>

i read this book in grade 13, and loved it, totally loved it... went out, and bought two copies... such a good book... i need to reread it....

MATT

Do you feel compelled to buy another copy of this book every time you go out? ;)


Anyone else think of Conspiracy Theory when they read this?

It was assigned reading for a class I took in highschool, too, and I LOVED it. Of all the books that were required reading, I remember thinking that Catcher in the Rye was by far the best. I also thought Lord of the Flies was pretty good. Other than those two, literature classes made me despise reading for the most part, especially when I was require to read Ziddhartha by Herman Hesse. Hehe.

I liked Siddahartha. I had to read it in HS and just last semester again in college. I will also be reading Night for the third time, twice in HS and once this semester.

13!! -eek-

That sucks dude. I only had to go through grade 12.

He's Canadian, you have to do the conversion :)

Well, lack of character development is one of the prime componants of the modernist movement - if one considers Salinger to be a modernist, more of a post-modernist really - Anyway, the moderns rejected the whole billdungsroman theme - I'm sure I spelled that wrong. But essentially, they stand on the point that people do not change, so why should characters? Argueable.

James Joyce would likely disagree. As would Hemingway, O'Neill, Faulkner, Anderson, Stein, Toomer, and ten or twenty others I can think of.

....along with Ralph Ellison and his novel <u>Invisible Man</u>.

I love novels that deal with coming of age.

Notables:

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (although I don't think any of the children in this novel mentally came of age. They were all warped in some way, notably Quentin the son.)

The Catcher In The Rye Discussion Thread
 

So I'm 3/4 of the way through this book and I'm still expecting something dramatic to happen.

Something that wraps everything up and makes sense out of Holden Caulfield's ramblings so far.

But I've enjoyed what I've read. It's like reading someone's 1946 journal.

And I get a bang out of that. I really do. ;)

This was one of the easiest books I ever had to read in my high school career. Wait, no; that honor is reserved for Terry Pratchett's Small Gods.

I really liked Catcher in the Rye; while I'm not an illiterate who mindlessly rejects anything that has words harder than "misogynist", one of the things I liked about Catcher was its accessibility. And the fact that on the surface, it's not really about anything. Like you said, it reads like a guy's 1946 journal. I wouldn't want to set you up for disappointment, so let me tell you - there's no dramatic shift in tone near the end of the novel; Holden doesn't get murdered by drug-addled pimps or anything :). Although I did think it wrapped up nicely for a book without a plot. While I wouldn't call any of Salinger's prose beautiful (he is imitating the style of a teenager, after all, and is a bit more than workmanlike for that reason), there are some poignant moments that are very well done.

There is one scene that I found unbearably creepy, though. I wonder if you'll have the same reaction when you get there... :)

Just finished it yesterday. It's been on my mind since. I like Holden. And I can identify with some of the feelings he struggles with.

And the book actually does have a plot. But not the traditional kind - it's more about his emotional trek than what he actually does.

So...

Hmm... I dunno if that is the case. Holden is a very fickle person, and also prone to exaggerate. However, in the last case, I felt he really was going to do it - he seems more confident about this than anything else, except the fact that everyone else is a phony. However, he did want to meet Phoebe one last time, and he knew how she would react, so maybe he wasn't really adamant on leaving after all....

I'm still not sure if he would have left. But his time spent with Phoebe seems very important because for him she is the opposite of phony. She's innocent, honest, optimistic. Things that he wasn't able to find elsewhere.

So maybe she at least helps nudge him out of his depression by the end of the story.

I found this book to be amazing. I thought every character just came to life off of the pages, even the ones we never actually meet. I think everyone can see someone they know or maybe a little bit of themselves in all of the characters. I was just never lucky enough to give some girl "the business" in the back of Ed Banky's car. I heard the book is written in the style it is becuase Holden is actually telling all this to a therapist. Has anyone else ever heard that theory?

Anyone who posts on DVDTalk is a phony.

I think my high school English teacher told us that after we were finished reading it.

It's a really good book, in fact, I like it so much that I have hundreds of copies of it stored around my house. ;)

And there are those on DVDTalk who believe that everyone else is a phony. ;)

I just finished this 2 nights ago and enjoyed it. I really like Holden Caulfield just because he was such a cynical, hypocritical jerk. Its nice not to have a bubbly, bright protagonist. I guess I just gravitate toward those characters...Darl Bundren, Hamlet, Holden Caulfield, TS Garp, and Sula Peace are some of my favorites.

I expected the same thing: some big bang of an ending. But the way it tapered off was a good ending. People tell me its a coming-of-age story, but I have trouble buying that. He's still the same character in the end so what did he come to? I agree with the idea that he wasn't really going to leave. Holden was a lot of talk.

Am I the only one who really disliked this book? I was expecting/wanting some sort of journey for Holden... but basically, he just wanders around, and stuff happens to him, and he's unchanged by it all. I felt a real lack of progress, which I guess is not necessary for a book or its characters, but it's something I look for, I guess.

Yeah, I felt the same way in a sense, but unlike you, I still enjoyed it. It suits well with 20th century literature.

No, you're not the only one. I read the book when I was 23 (32 years ago, BTW) and I found it utterly worthless. I could not have cared less about Holden.

Maybe I should have read it when I was 12 like everyone else.

Or 19. I hope that wasn't some sort of insult.