Catcher in the Rye

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Summary: Catcher in the Rye
Review: You have to let yourself enjoy it, and then it will mean something to you.

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Summary: You Know The Drill
Review: You know the drill... Holden goes to a New England Prep School. Holden goes to New York and rides around on the merry-go-round and gets whacky. Holden shoots John Lennon. Author of book gets whiney and cranky and moves from Manhattan to New Hampshire. Author has a bunch of secretive affairs with nubile women, and collects a big fat paycheck. Author never writes again and lays around collecting royalties.

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Summary: Here's the problem with icons:
Review: You know what happens when something becomes too famous, too utterly successful that everyone has heard about it? People stop caring, the significance that gave this book its importance grows boring, overused. All the young writers who identified with this book keep re-telling the "Holden Caufield philosophy" because they stopped being individuals like their hero and sucked up something somebody else said. Holden is too familiar. We all know him. What's gonna happen when somebody says 'Who cares?'

Nevertheless The Catcher in the Rye is a wonderfully well-written and entertaining novel about a self-absorbed little punk who thinks he is--and probably is--smarter than everyone else. But he's too young, too inexperienced, too unsure of himself to survive on his own. He questions everything until nothing has an answer and increases his frustration until he's completely unable to do anything but dream, imagine he were something else--a protector. He imagines he was somebody's savior.

All subtextural religious nomenclature aside, this dream delves more deeply into the personality of the character, not some unattainable dream as the cynical and lacking in self-confidence narrator tries to tell you it is. It is about someone frustrated because he is unable to change the world around him and a quest he already knows will end in failure of escaping himself and retransforming his life into something more profound.

Yes, this is an extraordinarily powerful book, filled with the cadence of lingo and slang to give you the feeling of having an actual conversation.

And yet the problem of over-exposure cannot help but influence the outcome of experience. I remember hearing teachers and older siblings rave about this book when I was eight or nine or ten years old and when I got around to being assigned it myself I skipped it arrogantly and somehow got an 'A' on the paper just by copying down the hearsay and over-emphasis other people gave to the ability of someone else's story changing your own life. The fiction I submitted as my then analysis was lauded not because it was an accurate expression of opinion, but because it justified the teacher's own overwhelmed ideas regarding the novel's importance.

It's a great book, truly. Just don't get bogged down by hype.

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Summary: more then just a classic
Review: You might have heard of this book because a teacher assign this book for you to read in english class or whatever. I end up reading this book because i randomly choose it from a stack of book in a bookshelf. I needed to do a report on a book and i randomly choice this one. I didnt know what it was at first, because the version of the book i had only had the title on the front and nothing on the back to kinda tell me what the book was all about. I got caught in reading this book for hour when i read just the first page. It really interest me alot, this was the first book ever that i read which is about how a teenage boy really think of life, and this book tell it alll, it didnt forget anything! As you read the book, you'll learn to see how the character is and get to know him REALLY well and how disturbed this teenager is. Overall i think this is a great book to read. I would this book in my TOP 10 favorite book.

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Summary: This book as completely changed my life
Review: You need a change in your life! You do! I did, I just didn't knew that until I read it. Before I read it I was a stupid kid who does what everybody do, and goes after whatever everybody go. After I read it I actually got smarter! I did! I start writing, I found a love, changed my life style, start reading some good books (Heller, Carver, Auster) and understand reall art. This book is so reall it's in-sane. I love it and I admire J. D. Salinger, for this book and all of his other books, ("Nine Stories", "Franny and Zooey", and "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters Seymour An Introduction" wich you can't find here, in Amazon)

Thanks you Salinger, you made me be truth.

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Summary: Overrated
Review: You should only read this if you are seriously into character studies. I must admit that I only read the first half of the book and I had to force myself to get that far. The book is plotless. It is all about a few days in the life of a cynical, whiny and immature teenager with nothing to look forward to. A very depressing and hard read.

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Summary: You have to look more deeply through this one...
Review: You'll finish reading this book without feeling very fulfilled, but perhaps intrigued. Holden is an interesting character because of his many levels of personality that Salinger so masterfully brought out. On one level, Holden swears and calls on prostitutes. At another, he goes around erasing swear words from an elementary school's walls. You only get fulfilled after you've looked at the book more deeply, and there always seems to be more to discover

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Summary: Thrilling, exciting and funny.
Review: You'll like it and not really know why

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Summary: An overall good book, nothing to lose from reading it.
Review: You'll see this book come up over and over again on the highly recommended list of "classics". Not having heard much about it (thats surprising, I know), I decided to read it because again, it ALWAYS seems to show up on list after list of debated over, recommended classics. It's rated among the best, mostly older novels, which are usually deeper and take more effort to understand, what many people think of when they think "classic". This book is different. It's a lighter read that really made me smile. At different times throughout the novel, I guarantee you will see at least SOME of yourself in Holden.

The Catcher in the Rye is written in casual languauge, and uses slang. Several times throughout the book I almost forgot I was reading a book in the first place! It's very easy to understand, which makes it more enjoyable in my opinion because you won't find yourself struggling to understand anything, allowing you to enjoy the content. The only reason I gave it four stars and not five is because I've read books that are more powerful than this, but that certainly doesn't mean that this one isn't very good!

The only problem is, if you haven't already read this book, you've probably read several like it.. books about teens growing and maturing, changing and learning lessons. I've noticed it's become quite a popular topic in the last decade. Most of the newer ones are just plain trashy, shallow, and most are identical in plot and style. I assure you A Catcher in the Rye will be much better. While reading it, it's helpful to keep in mind that this was the breakthrough book in this genre, one of the very first, if not the first.

It's very good overall, and a classic at that (much different from other "classics"). You have nothing to lose from reading this book. It's not a difficult read, it's not long, and you'll smile at least a few times:) I highly suggest reading this book, and adding it to your personal library.

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Summary: To all the Nay-sayers:
Review: You're all missing the point. You complain of having been forced to read this book, and perhaps you shouldn't have read it...you can neither comprehend nor understand it, and thus, cannot possibly appreciate it. You come from the MTV generation. You like movies with Keanu Reeves and Brandy, music like Matchbox 20 and Alannis Morisette, and books by John Grissham and Stephen King. These media have subliminally established criteria with which to judge cultural output. Not surprisingly, pop culture meets all these criteria in full. The single largest criterion is that a piece of art (movie, song, or book, etc.) must have an exciting plot, one filled with action or adventure and one that will neatly wrap up at the end, leaving no loose strings untied. The moral, usually very basic and cliche (if there is one at all) will be so blatent and overdone, that it will usually make me sick. That is why, when all of you read The Catcher in the Rye, you were dissappointed. The plot is not very important, and is non-normal to boot. The plot is not integral to the theme, so much so, that the story could have taken place almost anywhere (granted, New York was great because of such things as Broadway and Central Park), and anyhow. This story is not about plot at all, but themes about which Salinger felt he wanted to write. It is about phoniness. It is about hypocrisy. It's about a young man standing on the edge of adulthood, realizing he does not want to be a part of the adult world which he sees waiting ahead of him. Has any other author written so completely, yet at the same time so inconspicuously, about someone's mental collapse? No, this book doesn't have a surprise twist at the end, or a car chase, or anything of that sort. And, no, it doesn't have character development. Holden is, for the most part, a static character, but an interesting, even provacative, static character. Another thing you all have to realize is that it is possible to appreciate an artist's (in this case, an author's) work while at the same time disagreeing with his beliefs. If you don't feel sorry for Holden, or if you think he was a pathetic, pitiful person, you still should be able to look at Salinger's work and view it simply as a different, but still valid, viewpoint. This brings me to my last point. Open your minds. Don't let pop culture influence your judgement of art. Doing so makes you no more than a pre-programmed, conformist robot.