Catcher in the Rye

Rating:
Summary: why is it baned?
Review: I read this book, and i want to know why it is banded form school reading, its a percetly good book and everone should read it.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe I Just Didn't Get It??
Review: I read this for the first time this summer. I never had the chance in high school or college, and figured since I am in my 40s it was something I should read, if for no other reason than to find out what all the fuss was about. I found it repetative, plotless, and well, boring. I really don't consider this to be a great book, or even a particularly good book. Maybe I'm to old.....

Rating:
Summary: Taught me not to be so up tight.
Review: I read this in my Jr Year in 1995. I am a Dyslexic and LD student. Reading has and dose come hard for me. I wolden't then or now speak the way that J.D. wrote in this book, but because as a young person I hear the language all the time, it really didn't affect me. (Plus young people today say wors) I read it because it was required and I also choose it because of its controvery. I wanted to know what my parents read when they were in school and what all the comotion was about. It really is a great book. And my opion is that if someone dosen't want there kid to read it or teachers don't want to teacher it in their class room, then that individual has a very large problem they need to sort out within them self. Young people today (as did the young people of the time the book was first releasd) have lots of things they deal with and J.D. brings these issuse out in away that gets people to understand that its ok to have problems and it's ok to be a little "flawed". I was sorting out books to give away, and I decided to keep this book because I will remember all the heated conversations I had in class and with my peers. This book really got me to reason and taught me that I was not the only one with an opion.

Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: I read this in one day, and I'm not a speed reader. It's a great novel. Salinger submitted it to the NEW YORKER hoping they would run the whole novel in their magazine. The NEW YORKER rejected it! What morons. That Holden. He's a mad man. Swear to God.

Rating:
Summary: adolescent classic
Review: I read this novel when I was slightly younger than Holden and found that I had a lot in common with the main character. We both lived in NYC, went to prep-school and had dysfunctional families. It is because I identified so closely to the main character that I would not want to revisit this text at my age. I know that I am far more cynical than Holden ever was, and don't hold the author (Salinger) in the highest esteem. I believe Salinger has been afraid to come out of his self-imposed exile because he knows he will never find another voice as authentic as Holden's. I had a friend in San Francisco who absolutely insisted that Salinger and Pynchon were the same person. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense in an Oliver Stone kind of way. I would urge a young reader to read this book as it truly is one of the best accounts of adolescent angst and mistrust of the older generation that has been produced in literature. And if there were such thing as a perrenial theme, wouldn't that be it? If I were still teaching English, however, I might get a bit fatigued in rehashing this work; for in hindisght, I find Salinger's dystopian viewpoint and Caulfield's negativity about as puerile as a latter day Ellis novel.

Rating:
Summary: "That Killed Me!"
Review: I read this story back in high school and I liked it because I could be as snotty and cynical as Holden Caulfield. The part about him winding up in a psychiatrist's office years later I really didn't pick up on until years later when I reread the story. It seems like wherever he goes he's running around in circles! He gets kicked out of school, chewed out by an ill teacher, acts obnoxious to his schoolmates, dumped by an old girlfriend (after sticking his foot in his mouth!), and gets ripped off by a hooker. With the exception of the last adventure mentioned (although may be typical for some), these are all situations familiar to every teenage kid. Like most teenagers, he sees the phoniness in others and yet is willing to be a phony to virtually anybody else- except his younger sister. She in turn sees right through his games and is his only friend!

Rating:
Summary: Maybe I don't get it...
Review: I read this twice, the first time expecting it to be the greatest book ever, the second without all the expectations and just for a good read. Both times I was disappointed. Don't understand why a kid with a bad attitude makes for such a popular book. By page 50, he had me mad at everything. Maybe I'm shallow, but I don't understand the world's love affair with Holden Caulifield, nor anything he represents. Sorry.

Rating:
Summary: An influential masterpiece!!
Review: I read this when I was twelve years old, because I heard it was pretty good, and you have no idea the affect it had on me. And just one year later, I've read it 6 times! If there is a book that you have to read, this is it!

Rating:
Summary: Impossible whining that'll make u CRINGE!!
Review: I read this years ago and all i remember was how self-indulgent the prose was and how it all amounted 2 a number of absurd clichés not even 6th graders would think of using. If it had been written by a 13 year old for 13 year old teens i would rethink upping it one star, but as it stands i can only send this out as a warning: if u want a fascin8ing account of adolescence please try "Less Than Zero". Whether u relate 2 it by metaphor or experience, it is a far better description of what teenage years can be like in their nihilism than this piece of literary formula.
Basically this is a consciously written "Bildungsroman Manqué" where the failure of Holden's growth 2wards "manhood" - he is 2 shy for sexual intercourse, the audience understands his pain @ not being a boy not yet a man, i puke, we all go home 2 watch porn online - is spread out like a twink's epidermic map of facial hair. Signs of an alien8ed adulthood looming...
Imagine Camus for pre-pubescent zit-faced intellectualoids w/ a martyr complex. Imagine a feminist oeuvre of victimhood for males.
Imagine a very annoying and dumb novel.

Rating:
Summary: Can't your friend talk? He ain't my friend. He's my brudda.
Review: I read this, I think, as a teenager and I don't remember being all that impressed then. But now that I'm 40-something upon re-read I can see why it's a classic. Catcher in the Rye is VERY funny, cynical, honest, and, well, alot like I felt when I was a teenager. Yes, the main character (Holden Caulfield) tends to repeat himself but that's intentional. The book is written as an on-going narrative and it works--flowing naturally. It's as if someone is sharing his thoughts, with their attendant depth and idiosincrasies, only more articulate and easier to digest. Holden describes in fine detail his relationship with various teachers, his parents, his sister, other kids at school, girls, New York city, and society at large. Unfortunately, all the phonies Holden mentions are still alive and proliferating. So don't just chuck this book away. Give it a read. Enjoy.