Week 72- The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

[[deleted user]]

Week 72 brings us The Catcher in the Rye

From the article

One of the many remarkable things about Salinger’s portrayal of Holden Caulfield is that he seems to be fully inside the head of this troubled 16-year-old when the author himself was almost twice that age. Salinger had fought in Europe as an infantryman, after landing at Utah Beach on D-day, and later saw action at the Battle of the Bulge. Quite a lot of the downtown action in The Catcher in the Rye (a night out in a fancy hotel; a date with an old girlfriend; an encounter with a prostitute, and a mugging by her pimp) might almost as well describe a young soldier’s nightmare experience of R&R

The full article can be read here

[[deleted user]]

I liked this one when I read it a few years ago. I didn't like Holden as a character particularly, but then I'm not sure you are supposed to.

I haven't read anything else by Salinger though.

[Leslie]

Funny typo in the thread title!

I haven't read this & everything I have read about it makes me think I won't really like it -- should have read it as a teenager.

[Shirley]

Leslie wrote: "Funny typo in the thread title!

I haven't read this & everything I have read about it makes me think I won't really like it -- should have read it as a teenager."

Ha ha, I've changed it!

I feel much the same as you, Leslie - I should have read it years ago, and I am not sure if I want to read it now.

[[deleted user]]

Ooops...Sorry. Dare I ask what I had mistyped?

I was thinking about re-reading it at some point to see how my views changed.

[Shirley]

Heather wrote: "Ooops...Sorry. Dare I ask what I had mistyped?

I was thinking about re-reading it at some point to see how my views changed."

I wish I had left it now! You had typed the catcher in the eye...

[Alannah]

Haven't read this one but it looks really interesting.

[LauraT]

Didn't read it as a teen ager, but in University, for my second exham of Angloamerican literature. If compared with some other books of the same exham - like Walden or Leaves of Grass - it was a piece of cake. And I also have to say that studying it more than reading it for pleasure, made me appreciate a lot of things that I'd probably have missed in any other way. Holden is unsufferable, but the whole books remains.
Said that I rather like his short stories better!

[[deleted user]]

Oops, that is a good typo!

I definitely think it is worth reading. I think it would be fantastic to study as well.

[Pink]

I read this in my early twenties and wondered what all the fuss was about.

[Greg]

I read it as an adult and actually liked it, though I think I'm in the minority.

I didn't dislike the narrator at all, though I admit dealing with someone like that in real life would be a nightmare; I just felt sorry for him. He was such a mess.

[Monica]

Yet another book that was required reading during high school. Unfortunately, my opinion of many praiseworthy literary works seems to have been clouded by the rigors of "too much dissection". But this one, I recall, wasn't so bad.

[[deleted user]]

I bought a copy of this book for my Classics Shelf about two years ago, and haven't picked it up since. It's one of my friend Michelle's favourites, so I probably should get around to it!