Did anyone else just not "get" this book? Showing 51-100 of 1,174

[Simon]

Kressel wrote: "I think the kids who *get* Holden are probably nothing like him."

Do you always make statements without any kind of support?

[Serena]

I don't know if I 'got' this book (I'd probably need a quick chat with Salinger to work that out!) but it certainly got me. Having been raised on a diet of books such as Anne of Green Gables and those written by Enid Blyton, reading this has a teenager was like breathing a huge sigh of relief. The world of lashings of ginger beer and gentle adventure was clashing with my experience of life. Being given that space inside Holden's head validated my own feelings as a teenager and, having been written 20+ years before I was born, demonstrated that they were nothing new. But I think the book is about more than that. It is about the onset of ennui in Western society, the boredom of privilege and the illusion of safety that are our societal norms.

Catcher in the Rye showed me that a book can do more than just tell a story and spurred me on to investigate more interesting literature.

[Kressel]

Simon wrote: "Kressel wrote: "I think the kids who *get* Holden are probably nothing like him."

Do you always make statements without any kind of support?"

My support is simply my own experience. As a teen, I didn't *get* the book, but in my college years, I was a lot like Holden (and even more like Franny). But the more sophisticated kids I knew who *loved* the book were too self-assured to be anything like him.

[Geoffrey]

I found MOBY DICK tiresome, but strangely I recognized its worth. I didn`t realize how good a writer Melville was until I read BILLY BUDD and later the short masterpiece, BARRY THE SCRIVENER, which I deem to be one of the best ss in the language.

Melville is difficult to read as his writing style is not the most transparent, but its brilliance is always there. I believe him to be the most literary and heavy of all the American writers. Would I got back to reading him, well....that begs the point.

[Geoffrey]

I found MOBY DICK tiresome, but strangely I recognized its worth. I didn`t realize how good a writer Melville was until I read BILLY BUDD and later the short masterpiece, BARRY THE SCRIVENER, which I deem to be one of the best ss in the language.

Melville is difficult to read as his writing style is not the most transparent, but its brilliance is always there. I believe him to be the most literary and heavy of all the American writers. Would I got back to reading him, well....that begs the point.

[Geoffrey]

I found MOBY DICK tiresome, but strangely I recognized its worth. I didn`t realize how good a writer Melville was until I read BILLY BUDD and later the short masterpiece, BARRY THE SCRIVENER, which I deem to be one of the best ss in the language.

Melville is difficult to read as his writing style is not the most transparent, but its brilliance is always there. I believe him to be the most literary and heavy of all the American writers. Would I got back to reading him, well....that begs the point.

[Geoffrey]

I found MOBY DICK tiresome, but strangely I recognized its worth. I didn`t realize how good a writer Melville was until I read BILLY BUDD and later the short masterpiece, BARRY THE SCRIVENER, which I deem to be one of the best ss in the language.

Melville is difficult to read as his writing style is not the most transparent, but its brilliance is always there. I believe him to be the most literary and heavy of all the American writers. Would I got back to reading him, well....that begs the point.

[DeeDee]

I read this at age 16. It was lent to me by my Sociology teacher, as he knew I was an avid reader and he was certain I would love it....I didn't!

As far as I was concerned it was about a miserable teenager who needed a kick up the back-side and who needed to get over himself. I persevered with it only to please my teacher really. He asked me about every day! I was so glad when I finished it. Oh, and by the way, I am English, so perhaps that was one of the reasons I couldn't relate? Who knows..who cares, lol

[Leah]

Okay. For people who are saying that they didn't "get it", or thought that Holden is a whiny teenager who complains about how much his life sucks, you're definitely missing the whole point of the novel. It's definitely a lot deeper than all of that, and a main thing that I think most people miss is the importance of the theme "loss of innocence" which is continuous throughout the entire story. If all you're getting from it is a whiny teenager, you might want to reread it . . . and retake English I.

[Dave]

It is just a pretentious piece of writing that English teachers love to use to thump their students on the head with just to prove their superior appreciation for 'literature'. As with most I'm sure, I read it as a high school english assignment. The singular bit of compulsion alone took much of the joy out of it. Pure book-snobbery, pretending to impart some wise enlightenment of teenage angst pre-Nirvana by about 40 years.

[Bryon]

Spiritfeather wrote: "This is a book that one definitely has put into context. Because it takes place in the 60's, one has to be aware of what was considered acceptable behavior then as opposed to now."

I agree. Trying to read Catcher* with freshness today would be like trying to read On the Road with a fresh eye. It's just not gonna happen.

[Kristen]

I feel like this book appeals to all the misfits out there. I think that is just how Holden feels, like he doesn't really belong anywhere. So maybe if you never felt that way growing up, you can't really relate to it.

On a side note, I watch a lot of Criminal Minds, and one of their episodes said that this book has been often quotes by serial killers. Now I don't know if that is true or not, but in a way it seems to make sense to me. Most serial killers don't feel like they really belong, so I could understand them relating to the book.

[Bryon]

Honestly I didn't much care for the book. I made myself finish it without too much pain. I think, as someone said earlier, that this is one of those books that you have to read at the right time in your life. I was able to enjoy its adolescent irritation with all things authority, but it just kept droning on; like being stuck in the car with a bunch of teenagers on a very long road trip. Now, maybe if I were younger, or an aspiring presidential assassin I would have enjoyed it more. Alas, I'm just a bookworm.

[Stephen Livingston]

I didn't think much of this novel at all. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[Anthony]

I read it in college. I went into it with much anticipation and was bored all the way through. I didn't get it. I was the prime age for this novel but thought Holden was a jerk and couldn't wait to be free of him. The symbolism blew right past me. I know people love Catcher but I wasn't one of them. Ah, confession IS good for the soul. :-)

[Ian]

Read it at school - hated it.

Read it in mid-life, really appreciated the narrative style and enjoyed it.

My daughter reading it at school - hated it. She says she gets enough teenage angst in everyday existence, without having to seek out more.

I agree with Kressel, that I don't think there has to be any of Holden in you to enjoy it.

[Kiki]

i understand it. it's easy

[Kressel]

Ian wrote: "I agree with Kressel, that I don't think there has to be any of Holden in you to enjoy it."

What I meant was that teenagers like Holden probably don't get the book because they're too clueless to recognize themselves. That was my experience, anyway.

[Toni]

I read this book when I was 17, and I too found Holden to be an insufferable spoiled brat. It did not make sense to me that this was a classic. I hated it! I do love that name though, Holden Caulfield.

[Nanci]

I had to read this book in high school and hated it. I tried to read it as an adult and was really glad I didn't have to finish it. I don't know who decided it was a classic. But I think they might not have had to finish the book either!

[Danielle]

I'm a junior in high school and had to read it for school. I just felt like it was really overrated. I kept hearing beforehand that it was so fantastic and all, and I just couldn't wait for it to be over while I was reading it. I kept flipping the pages to see how many were left. I liked the other books we read for class this year a lot, this one I just didn't get. I'm 16, apparently you're supposed to understand it if you're a teenager, I had no idea what was going on.

[Nanci]

Judging by the comments, it seems that students for the last 50 years have the same opinion. Shall we start a movement to downgrade it from classic to just plain dull? LOL!

[Robin]

Sure, works for me. I don't know who judged it a classic, but to each his own.

[Rae]

Oh nooo. I'm just starting this book today. I'm in my 30's also and I'd thought I'd try some of the "classics" to broaden my horizons a bit (get out of the sci-fi/fantasy stuff). But now I'm worried I will find it boring. Well into page 1, guess we'll see.

[Rae]

Just finished it, was horrible, it took all my strength to not put it down. I'm determined to read all the way through a book just in case it gets better, the only book I have ever stopped reading was Princess Bride, just couldn't do it, this one was really hard too but I stuck it out.

[Leslie]

Stockwell wrote: "I read it to see what all the fuss was about and I still have no idea. All I got out of it was a teenager whining about his life and college and girls and how everything sucks. I don't understand w..."

I loved this book and I didn't at all see Holden as a whiny teenager. I thought maybe he was bipolar or had something else going on with him.

[Amy]

I'm not so sure I "get" the book either. That's a good way of putting it since I don't want to completely rule it out, however, for me to call this book a "classic" it would have to be explained to me from a whole other perspective. I get really annoyed with Holden and just feel as though I must be missing something. Some big idea or tone of the book that has somehow gone completely over my head. Like the light would suddenly go on if I knew "it".

[Peter]

I just got done reading this book for my summer class. My teacher told us that to really connect with Holden immediately, you would have had to experience a young person die when you were young. He said that people who have had that happen in their lives have absolutely no problem really understanding just how Holden's thought process is working.

I personally really liked this book and I really understood it when I got to the line about Holden wanting to be the "catcher in the rye." I'm glad I had the teacher I did to really explain to me a lot of other things in the book as we read it. Maybe you would like this book better if you read it when you get a little older. (I'm 20)

[Karian]

I really liked this book, and I've talked to many people about how they liked it, and they all thought it was rough and had poor grammar.

That's precisely what I loved about it. Holden's voice echoed through the whole book, and he shamelessly chopped through every story. Every little story or tidbit he told made me want to find out even more about him. I read this in the middle of 8th grade, about 4 months ago.

[Leslie]

I agree. It was not so much the story but Holden's voice and the way he viewed things. To be honest, I couldn't put the book down once I started reading it.

[Debbie]

For those who "do not get it". Setting of the time: US in 1950s. The things Holden thinks and talks about were topics that no one in those days was even supposed to think about, let alone write about. It was the time of "Father Knows Best" and women wore dresses when they did housework. My mother certainly did. Slacks (only men wore pants) became part of the regular wardrobe for women in the 60s.

Adults were horrified that Salinger would dare to suggest that children not only had those thoughts, but that they had such thoughts frequently. Salinger dared to bloody the squeaky clean view by stating that which is not even acknowledged. The adults were afraid if their children read such things that they, too, would be poisoned and their lives horribly scarred.

And anything related to (imagine breathy whisper here) homosexuality. GASP!

So it was the adults who caused all the uproar.

[Robin]

I think so. The ideals and platitudes of that time were being questioned by Salinger, and so he kind of rocked the boat in that regard.

[Operacija]

This book is considered a classic because up until that book, novels (traditional novels) had a different narrator - an objective narrator who knows all the facts about all the characters. Catcher in the rye is one of the first (or first) novel to be called "modern" because of the way the story is narrated in the novel. There is a subjective narrator, and you can see other characters only through his point of view. It was a bit of revolutionary detail back in the time it was written. Even if you can't relate to Holden's point of view, I think you can't deny how well-written the novel is. Salinger made Holden believable, and realistic, and each sentence he says in that book, suits Holden's personality perfectly.

[Red]

It's not that I didn't get it, it just didn't appeal to me in the slightest. I would say it speaks to "certain" American teenagers, not generalizing that it would speak to all. I spent most of my teen years in America, and am technically so, in that I am Native American.

Although I realize it's the author choice on how to write his novel as it occurs to them, but for me "The Catcher in the Rye" was too directed to a particular group. The imagery of the catcher in the rye appealed to me, but the rest of the life revealed, did not.

Francine wrote: "A pessimistic view on the world can only be brought on by 'SERIOUS' loneliness. "

No one specific thing creates an emotional situation like loneliness. Many different things can contribute to a pessimistic view of the world.

[Robin]

I hear you Red. Many different things can contribute to a pessimistic view of the world. Look at the world around us, aren't we all kind of jaded?

[Carol]

Stockwell wrote: "I read it to see what all the fuss was about and I still have no idea. All I got out of it was a teenager whining about his life and college and girls and how everything sucks. I don't understand w..."

same here i wondered what all the hype was about spoiled whiney kid

[Cris]

Stockwell wrote: "I read it to see what all the fuss was about and I still have no idea. All I got out of it was a teenager whining about his life and college and girls and how everything sucks. I don't understand w..." Wish I could...I have never found anything else other than whining.

[Bella]

I read it in the 70s and found it scandalizing but ultimately depressing.

[Annamarieb]

I first read this in high school and I also didn't quite understand it. I read it again some years later (I'm now 21) and, perhaps just because I already knew the plot or because time gave me a slightly different perspective, it said a lot more than I originally thought it did.
If listening to Holden whine annoys the heck out of you that's because it's kind of supposed to. If you've ever read up on J.D. Salinger he's a bit of a recluse and vociferously praises the innocence and purity of childhood (in a non-pedophiliac way). Holden is a boy on the cusp of becoming a man. He is unwillingly being pulled from the innocent childhood he longs for into the world of adults--his opinion of which I don't think I need to go into detail on.
Holden's characterists are at the opposite spectrums of maturity. He is tall with graying hair and glasses but he isn't even 18 yet. People aren't sure whether to hand him a drink or card him upon first meeting him. His thoughts are simple and immature, yet he speaks in a deep voice and uses curse words a-plenty (the source of said controversy over the book). He attempts to go on dates, drink at bars, and pick up prostitutes (very adult activities) but he is neither successful in these endeavors nor enjoys them.
In the end he sort of accepts a position in the adult world safegaurding the innocence of other children--the "Catcher in the Rye" as it were.
If you reread the book, I think you may find everything that initially annoyed you plays a strategic role in the larger context of what Salinger is trying to relate. It's kind of like Gatsby in that sense.

[Anne]

I remember reading this my freshman year of high school, while I attended private school. I remember identifing with the main character. I am sure if I read it in my 30's for the first time it would have made such a connection.

[Janna]

I'm new to Goodreads, and I must say I am delighted to find this discussion. I, too, finished that book as an adult long past the teen years, and said, "HUH? What was the fuss all about." Maybe that's why J. D. Salinger became a recluse. He didn't get what all the fuss was about either.

[Robin]

Or he did, and that is why he was reclusive.

[Maja]

Stockwell wrote: "I read it to see what all the fuss was about and I still have no idea. All I got out of it was a teenager whining about his life and college and girls and how everything sucks. I don't understand w..."

I get you! I started reading it and stopped... Maybe I should have read it when I was younger and angrier... :)

[Karen]

When I read Catcher in the Rye in high school, I saw Holden as a rebellious, misunderstood boy who was more intelligent and better than the adults around him. When I re-read the book as an adult, I saw Holden as a very sad boy who was trying to deal with the death of his brother as best he could. Reading it as an adult gave it a far different twist for me and I enjoyed it much more.

[Jack]

Yup, that is why I didn't even finish the book. Why? was my question. I really don't get it. And why was this book so much part of the Mel Gibson move Conspiracy?

[Robin]

Frankly, it has been years since I read the book, and I did read it in high school, so maybe it didn't resonate with me, since I was not enrolled at a private school, so I didn't see what Holden was whining about. I may have not read all of it.

[[deleted user]]

This book has been known to change lives. It didn't change mine, but...I think? I get it.
- Holden is the ultimate portrayal of the unformed adolescent. You can just see him struggling to make connections, but he never makes it.
- It got me thinking a lot about the way that teenagers can have so much to say, but no way to say it.

My advice? Try it again in a few years. I found my reaction was different when I read it for the 2nd time.

[Lorenzo]

There is a lot of misanthropy in this book; I fully understand Salinger because he himself was a recluse, one who hated and understood the stupidity, mediocrity and phoniness of human beings.

[ke-sha]

I got it...I just didn't like it. At All.

[Carol]

I got it...but it was boRING. Disaffected youth, yeah. But something could have HAPPENED, maybe a bit of enlightenment on his sad, sorry life.