Cliffs Notes on Salinger's the Catcher in the Rye

by J.D. Salinger

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

"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. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

214 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 1988

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Works, most notably novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951), of American writer Jerome David Salinger often concern troubled, sensitive adolescents.

People well know this author for his reclusive nature. He published his last original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980. Reared in city of New York, Salinger began short stories in secondary school and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948, he published the critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in The New Yorker, his subsequent home magazine. He released an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield especially influenced adolescent readers. Widely read and controversial, sells a quarter-million copies a year.

The success led to public attention and scrutiny: reclusive, he published new work less frequently. He followed with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953), of a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961), and a collection of two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965.

Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton. In the late 1990s, Joyce Maynard, a close ex-lover, and Margaret Salinger, his daughter, wrote and released his memoirs. In 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish "Hapworth 16, 1924" in book form, but the ensuing publicity indefinitely delayed the release.

Another writer used one of his characters, resulting in copyright infringement; he filed a lawsuit against this writer and afterward made headlines around the globe in June 2009. Salinger died of natural causes at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.

Reviews

[Snorri Stefánsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does what it says on the tin

[Victoria Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really didn't think I'd learn anything new about J.D. Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" when I started reading Robert B. Kaplan's "Cliff's Notes" for the book, but I was wrong, because I learned quite a bit. Through his "Biographical Note" section I felt he really helped me get to know who Salinger was, where he came from and how fame affected him. Then in the "Introduction to the Novel" section his revelations about the book's "controversial" reputation because of the profanity and Holden Caulfield's role as a "hero," caused me to approach the story with a different mind set, than when I'd read it before without the "Cliffs Notes."
By studying each chapter's "Summary" and "Commentary" sections after reading the coordinating chapters in the book also made me focus on parts of the writing I wouldn't have been aware of otherwise.One of the most memorable was in the "Commentary" to "Chapter 1" where Holden's speech is indicative of a "modern teenager."
Contemplative, but intriguing, I found the novel was enriched by the "Cliffs Notes" and gave me added appreciation for a book I already love.

[Tracy Hansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

so I totally missed the fact that Holden was in psychiatric care, and he is telling this story to a dr. I didn't think Holden was crazy or going crazy,. I took it as he was talking to me the reader and that he was a 16 year old boy trying to figure out the world. I am so glad I read the cliffnotes. I can't wait to read Salinger's other works.