From the Bookshelf of Should have read classics…

The Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger

Start date: March 1, 2014

Finish date: March 31, 2014

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What Members Thought

May 11, 2011 Michael Anson rated it it was amazing

As I read Catcher In the Rye, I thought of other, even more contemporary retellings of the experience of having a mental breakdown. The books Girl Interrupted and Perks of Being a Wallflower came to mind, and, less so, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. What sets Catcher In the Rye apart is the confessional quality of the narrative. There's an immediacy and urgency to the story, told in first person, as we witness Holden Caulfield struggle to hold his thoughts together. I wish I had re As I read Catcher In the Rye, I thought of other, even more contemporary retellings of the experience of having a mental breakdown. The books Girl Interrupted and Perks of Being a Wallflower came to mind, and, less so, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. What sets Catcher In the Rye apart is the confessional quality of the narrative. There's an immediacy and urgency to the story, told in first person, as we witness Holden Caulfield struggle to hold his thoughts together. I wish I had read Catcher In the Rye in high school because it almost feels as though Holden is addressing someone his own age, albeit through the lens of someone who has gone through hell, at least the hell in his own mind, the hell of having a breakdown, the hell of knowing he's once again let his parents down by failing and being kicked out of school.

The decision to write in the first person point of view probably would have seemed even more daring when this was first published in 1945, and J.D Salinger draws the reader in sentence by sentence, building on seemingly innocuous statements, making observations such as, "These intellectual guys don't like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they're running the whole thing." At first this makes Holden seem merely disaffected and disenfranchised, and his rambling makes sense to us as he critiques all the "phonies" he encounters, all the "phonies" in the world of privilege. Holden is part of that world and at the same time he keeps himself apart, critiquing everything that's wrong around him. He's failing his classes in part because he refuses to conform, but it's the quirkiness of the narrative voice that compels you to read further, to find out not only what will happen to Holden Caulfield, but also to find out whether he will be able to hold his increasingly fractured thought process together.

Late in the evening, Holden crosses paths with Mr. Antolini who warns him, "This fall I think you're riding for--it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom." As much as Holden tries to pretend he doesn't care, we get the sense that deep down, he does, very much, and Salinger makes this clear to us when Holden sneaks home to see his little sister Phoebe.

The title Catcher In the Rye mirrors Holden Caulfield's fears for himself. He wants to save children from falling over cliffs, and as he tells Phoebe, "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in his big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around--nobody big, I mean--except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them."

The reality is that Holden isn't looking where he is going, and he is heading for that cliff himself. ...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Kat rated it liked it

Honestly, this book receives way too much hype. It really didn't intrigue me very much, and I often found myself daydreaming whilst reading. I didn't like the profane language. But I kind of felt like I could relate to the main character because I overanalyze things and I am semi-pessimistic.

The book was mediocre at best in my opinion. ...more

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May 13, 2011 Prashant Mudgal rated it really liked it

I read it long time ago but yesterday I found someone reading it at a cafe in Manhattan and I wrote a small blog entry on the same.
https://prashantmudgal.wordpress.com/...
...more

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