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Jade asked this question about The Catcher in the Rye:
Am i the only person who fails to understand why this book is considered a classic, to me it was boring and tedious and the plot failed to engross me as many other books have?
Jeanne I think this book makes a lot more sense after you have children. It seems like nothing happens and the protagonist could just shake the dust of his p…moreI think this book makes a lot more sense after you have children. It seems like nothing happens and the protagonist could just shake the dust of his pants and stop being annoying and do better. But when you have a child who can't do that, who just can't function in the world for reasons that are incomprehensible, the book is shattering and captures exactly what you see when you try to help that child. Those children, like Holden, are often very intelligent, but lack the social smarts to get along with people and inevitably say or do the wrong thing which alienates them even more. When he said he wanted to a catcher in the rye to help children from going over the edge I knew exactly what he was talking about because there were a lot of suicides in my son's school one year. There are fragile children who for no apparent reason just don't click, don't synch. And the advice that he should use his intelligence to write stories to help those children, I felt that was what this book's purpose was -- to say you are not alone. But he will never get on life's carousel and grab for the brass ring and that is the heartbreak. You know he will fail out of the next school for no apparent reason and without intensive help will never do anything or be anyone. I found that heartbreaking.
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The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
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