seeyouauntie

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?

JAA

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.

renaldow

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

movielib

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

Christo

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

ziggy

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

Darren H

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

ClarkKentKY

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.

Alyoshka

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.

martin q. blank

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.

JAA

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

Nefarious

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.

seeyouauntie

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:

shaun3000

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...

seeyouauntie

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?

Static Cling

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.

Fire bad!

mdc3000

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

shaun3000

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?

Xytraguptorh

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.

seeyouauntie

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.

Bust

13!!

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

Christo

He's Canadian, you have to do the conversion

ziggy

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.

Darren H

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

conscience

....along with Ralph Ellison and his novel Invisible Man.

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.)