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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9834 in Books
• Published on: 1991-05
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.com
Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

Amazon.co.uk Review
Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent". Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his 16-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two haemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. --Amazon.com

Synopsis
In an effort to escape the hypocrisies of life at his boarding school, sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield seeks refuge in New York City.

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Customer Reviews

Not a Teenage boy - but i loved it.
I adored this book. I didn;t have to read it for School at any point, and no one ever told me i should read it to better myself, but still i found myself drawn to Catcher in the Rye as i was to the Bell Jar, and Girl Interupted, it is fascinating to view a persons internal nuerosis in the way that Holden shows his own.
Holdens contempt and indifference to everything is amazing, even Phoebe bugs him at times, here we have someon totally detatched from himself, he does not really care that he is wandering around New York bruised and bloodied, and amazingly - no one mentions it to him??! I wonder how much of what Holden says happened for real and what was Gory self glorification of his own situation?
I read the modern American print and my only critism was the final extract, where he talks of D.B visiting occasionally and being Psychoanlaysed and we presume he is in some institution - i felt that was too obvious, it wasn't required really, we knew that when Phoebe finished on the Carasol that Holdens parents would find out, Mr Antolini would say how he had flitted out in the night, Pensey would tell how long he has been unaccountable for and the whole story would be unravelled to his parents and we know that his personality (split personality maybe?) will be uncovered - which is why the last scene is too obvious, i didn't need to read it, i had already concluded it, it was just a last attempt of the Author trying to 'own' the story over the reader & interpreter (which i hate it when Authers do that!!)
Apart from that it is a fantastically written, engaging piece, you could read it in a day!

Is it just me?
I know that this book is supposed to be one of the classics, and I understand how observation of human nature is very interesting etc. What I don't understand is why everyone raves about The Catcher in the Rye- I think maybe I am just missing the point.

I say each to their own- read it and make your own mind up.

It's a shame there are not six stars
Salinger's The catcher in the Rye is the perfect American Novel. Houlden is a bitter angry, confussed young man, of 16 years old. I read this book as a bitter, angry and confussed 16 year old young man and understood his point of view perfctly, he was telling the truth. I reread the book four year later and still saw his point of view but wanted to help him understand life. I read the book again at 24 and now i work with bitter angry confussed 16 year old and help the, try to come to terms with life, ad understand their world. I cant wait to read it again when i'm 28 and re-interperate this brilliant book again, Read it then later in life read it again and keep doing that every few years because it is a six star book