Catcher in the Rye

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Summary: here's to children
Review: Great for teens, even better for adults. Constantly hailed as a book for youth, I think Catcher in the Rye should be read by adults. For all those who complain about Holden the hypocrite and Holden the jadded and foul mouthed punk, yes, that is the point. The inauthenticity of the 9 to 5, the cookie cutter, edward scissorhands innane-ness of "big" or "real" life. Movies, video games, etc that include violence, sexuality and language are labeled "for mature audiences only." Should be "for immature audiences especially." I truly think we can learn about how to heal and enjoy life again through children. Maybe we could all think of ourselves as catchers of humanity.
Great stuff.

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Summary: Salinger is great, and HOLDEN my LOVE!
Review: GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT EXCELLENTE ESTUPENDO INCREIBLE

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Summary: "I Hate Phonies!"
Review: Great novel. This is a must for everyone who loves reading.

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Summary: Hype in the Rye
Review: Growing up in Boarding school, reading Catcher in the Rye, whilst moping about the fields secretly smoking cigarettes and feeling quite misunderstood was a standard thing to do. I have always wanted to read this book, but never got round to it until now. May be I would have understood the trials and tribulations, of coming from a wealthy family and having the opportunity to be educated in style, back in the days, but now that I am older and more disillusioned, I can merely consider the protagonist as a victim of teenage angst. Caulfield; take a Prozac and grow up!
A one book wonder

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Summary: Timeless
Review: Hard to believe that this book was written 56 years ago! Also hard to believe that high school kids read it, it's so edgy and scary in a way. I see this book today very differently from the simplistic individual v. society view I held in high school over 30 years ago. Today for me it's an eerie portrait of a young person for whom the sub-text of daily life, the constant stream of petty frustrations that we all experience, has taken over and become reality. Caulfield is hanging on by a thread which frays by the minute as he wanders through NYC. His sensitivity to others, good (the nuns and Phoebe) and bad (Ackley), overwhelms him! The writing is superb, right down to the grammatical errors that so perfectly capture a teenager trying to sound like an adult--"I and Brossard and Ackley got on the bus..." A tip for book clubs: save the light fiction for the beach or airplane, and read classics, even if you've read them before--makes for great meetings!

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Summary: Addictive three-day documentary of a bitter 16 yr. old male.
Review: Hateful, insecure, immature... whatever you feel about old Holden Caulfield, it is impossible to deny certain resemblances between his train of thought and your own. This book is to me, not a story, but a cross-section of an inexperienced, stuck-up, angst-ridden teenager who cannot seem to channel his resentment towards adult life in a constructive manner. He catagorizes almost everyone by the comfortable term "phony", yet he doesn't realize that to succeed in life, one needs to utilize some of that malarky once in a while. After reading this book, I have thought twice before voicing my various complaints aloud, so as not to sound as much like a brat as Holden. The dialogue was extremely catchy, even for being almost half a century old. You go, Salinger.

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Summary: A timeless, honest, controversial, superbly written tale
Review: Have you ever gotten fed up with the world? Have you ever just had enough of everybody's stupid, phony attitudes and this tainted game that we call life? You feel like you're all alone, there's no one that will listen to you, and the ones that do turn out to be perverts and phonies. Are they all crazy, or is it me?

This is the attitude that Holden Caulfield, a disgruntled 16 year-old, takes toward life. He's just flunked out of another school, his younger brother Allie is dead, he's a virgin, and to top it all off, everyone around him is a phony. Holden is alone in this superficial, corrupt world he lives in.

What amazes me most about A Catcher in the Rye is it's incredibly controversial beginnings when it was first published. The book took place and was published in the 1940's, and society was based on being right and proper. Things like hollow conversation just for the sake of conversing defined what Holden held as "phony". Holden hated phonies with a passion, and throughout the book made brutal, dead-on observations about the world which were stated in crude dialect. This caused much uprising in society, and was stereotyped as "evil" and "insignificant" by the common "phony" book reviewer of the time. Even serial killers were found with the book on them. Mark Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon, was found with the book in his pocket after the crime. As you can imagine this didn't help the situation at all.

In the real world, evil was personified as Holden Caulfield. People reacted to the book just as people reacted to Holden in the novel. Holden was considered a rebellious, ungrateful, disrespectful teenager that, although rare, is a worldwide epidemic. But if you see past the narrow-minded view that people tend to look through, the book is a testament that this rebellious teenager is a person. The book shows that Holden, although a sarcastic, nasty, unlikable guy, is a person inside who is just trying to save the virtue of innocence.

Holden sees the world as perverted and narrow, and has a nervous breakdown when he sees innocent children about to fall of the cliff. This cliff is a thought of Holden's of which he states when asked what he wants to be when he grows up. Holden says that he wants to be a catcher in the rye. He envisions children playing on a field of rye, and next to this field there's a cliff. Holden would catch the children if they didn't look where they were going and accidentally ran off the cliff. There is incredible symbolism in this statement. The children represent childhood innocence and purity. The cliff, or what lies below it, represents the tainted, impure "game" of life, in which so many people have fallen. These people, the phonies, are what Holden despises most. Holden demonstrates his desire to save innocence when he finds that someone's written "f*** you" on a schoolhouse wall. "I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them- all cockeyed, naturally- what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days." Holden rubbed the mark off, and felt extreme hatred toward the person who wrote it.

Holden hated everything. Everything he held sacred turned out to be a disappointment. A girl in which he thought was innocent and pure turned out to be "given the time" by a suave roommate of his. Another girl whom he dated was such a phony it almost made him vomit. He gets roughed up when a disgruntled pimp comes around to collect more than Holden owed for a prostitute whom he didn't even have sex with. An old teacher that finally understood where Holden was coming from turns out to be a pervert when he's found patting Holden's head in the middle of the night. Nothing sacred and nothing pure, and the worse part was that Holden was, self-admittedly, too "yellow-belly" to do anything about these things. A boy lost in a sick world, helpless to its evil, and yet Holden's the crazy one? Holden speaks the brutal truth, and admires others who do. For example, Holden said that he really admired this kid, James, that Holden knew, who said that another kid, Phil, was a conceited jerk. Phil was much bigger, and he and six other jerks went into scrawny James' room and beat him up, wanting him to take back his comments. James never took it back, but instead, decided to jump out a window to his death.

A key factor that made this book enjoyable was the style in which its monologue was written. This book is definitely not an English teacher's dream when it comes to grammar, sentence structure, etc. But the dialect, risqué even by today's standards, conveys a feeling of reality that is not obtainable by any other literary device I know of. Holden's sarcasm, humorous attitude, and flat out bluntness had me laughing page after page. This line, chosen at random, demonstrates Holden's attitude and dialect, "You should've seen the way they said hello. You'd have thought they hadn't seen each other in twenty years. You'd have thought they'd taken baths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids. Old buddyroos. It was nauseating. The funny part was, they probably met each other just once, at some phony party. Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced me."

So why is A Catcher in the Rye a great book? I think what makes a great book great is its ability to communicate with the reader. Every teenager I know can easily relate to Holden Caulfield's situation. The book is a comfort if you're a teen feeling the same things as Holden, criticizing the world and its occupants. Holden Caulfield is a hero that wasn't afraid to speak his mind. He taught me that your criticisms of the world are not invalid, and that there is nothing that you can say that is so bad that you have to repress it. Holden made me feel a little less alone. He made me feel like there were others in this predicament that we call adolescence.

Rating:
Summary: catcher
Review: Have you ever read a book, and halfway through realized you were a different person than when you started it? Salinger converses with the reader as if he is a close friend and that he, an individual, is understood by the author. Everyone should be forced to read this book, especially at such a low cover price.

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Summary: Apathy is the worse characteritic an individual can have.
Review: Have you ever read something about teenagers that reminds you of what life was about growing up in your teens? Well this book is exactly that. This book read's like teenager's act and speak in today's schools and in society. Salinger made me wonder if the life of a teenager has changed any from the 50's to now. This book has a lot of profanity, but as I look at it, using profanity helps me express my anger. Although it may not be the best way to deal with anger, I understand the need for it at times. Salinger tries to make this book realistic, which he does a good job doing. It's a book that all teenagers can relate to.

Rating:
Summary: The Catcher in the Rye
Review: Have you ever thought to yourself : "I am in the mood to go shopping", and then by time you get to the mall, all of a sudden you find yourself thinking: "Why am I here? I really don't want to be, I'm just not in the mood."
I think this perfectly describes Holden Cuafield's life in the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. During this book you are constantly introduced to things that Holden, the main character, wants to do but by time he gets there or does it he is already bored.
Holden is also the most indecisive character I have ever read about. The great part about that is because it describes everyone perfectly, because everyone is indecisive when it comes to making decisions in life. Mostly because when you make a decision it affects your life forever and no one really enjoys it.
The biggest reason why I liked this book so much is because Salinger allows you to get into the mind of Holden Caufield for a few days. Have you ever looked at someone sitting on a bench and thought to yourself "I wonder what they are thinking?". In this book you get to be in the mind of someone and know their deepest thoughts. Holden may have been indecisive but he is also human, so his actions in life are just like anyone else's. He was struggling with what he was going to do with his life which is what we all do at a young age.
The only part about this book that I found disappointing was the end. I feel as if it wasn't complete because Salinger leaves the reader hanging. You never get to see what lies before Holden to understand what he does with the rest of his life. Other than that, I would recommend this book to anyone!