The Catcher in the Rye in Classics Without All the Class

Jul 04, 2011 Jeff Curtis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: shelve-e-5

The book begins with Holden Caulfield directly addressing you, the reader, and he begins to retell the events over a three day period from last December. His story starts at Pencey Prep, a prestigious boarding school filled with "phonies", as Holden likes to call them. It is just before Christmas and 16-year-old Holden Caulfield has been kicked out of the exclusive Pencey Prep, a boys' school in Pennsylvania. Considering everything, this reflects more credit on Holden than on Pencey. Life at Pen The book begins with Holden Caulfield directly addressing you, the reader, and he begins to retell the events over a three day period from last December. His story starts at Pencey Prep, a prestigious boarding school filled with "phonies", as Holden likes to call them. It is just before Christmas and 16-year-old Holden Caulfield has been kicked out of the exclusive Pencey Prep, a boys' school in Pennsylvania. Considering everything, this reflects more credit on Holden than on Pencey. Life at Pencey is dreary, regimented, artificial and, of course, expensive. This happens, however, to be only the latest of a series of schools from which Holden has been expelled. Understandably he is in no hurry to encounter his parents, but he is also reluctant to linger a moment longer than necessary at Pencey. He therefore takes what money he has and departs for New York, where he passes several days in a weird jumble of adventures and experiences, is involved with a variety of persons including taxi drivers, two nuns, an elevator man, three girls from Seattle, a prostitute, and a former teacher from whom Holden thinks it best to flee in the middle of the night and most of all from himself.

In New York Holden's nightmarish efforts to escape from himself by liquor, sex, night clubs, movies, sociability,anything and everything are fruitless. Misadventure piles on misadventure, but he bears it all with a grim cheerfulness and stubborn courage. He is finally saved as a result of his meeting with his little sister Phoebe, like Holden a wonderful creation. She is the single person who supplies the affection that Holden needs, and just in the nick of time.

At last, we pull out of the narrative and back to the Holden of one year later, the one who was telling us this story. He's clearly in therapy for getting "sick" in some way. He says he's supposed to go back to school in September, but he's not sure whether or not things will be any different (that is, any better) this time around. He concludes that he sort of wishes he hadn't told us this story at all, since relating it makes him miss all the people he'd met.
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Mar 28, 2012 Emong rated it it was ok

Shelves: books-i-own-in-paperback

It’s my first time reading a classic book and from the looks of it the second one might take a while.
It’s about Holden Caulfield and his angst in life. In some parts of the story I pitied him but most of the time I’m annoyed by him. He is a madman indeed. Reading about someone’s life and actually enjoying it is different from reading just for the sake of it and/or just to finish the book. It’s like he’s just repeating everything and what’s with the phone booth/phone calls anyway? It’s just too m ...more

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