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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112 in Books
• Published on: 1994-08-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
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

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
"The Catcher in Rye" is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth, but it's relevant to all ages. The story is told by Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Throughout, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.Lazy in style, full of slang and swear words, it's a novel whose interest and appeal comes from its observations rather than its plot intrigues (in conventional terms, there is hardly any plot at all). Salinger's style creates an effect of conversation, it is as though Holden is speaking to you personally, as though you too have seen through the pretences of the American Dream and are growing up unable to see the point of living in, or contributing to, the society around you. Written with the clarity of a boy leaving childhood, it deals with society, love, loss, and expectations without ever falling into the clutch of a cliche.

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Customer Reviews

so so
I can't really understand why this book is so well credited. I thought it was a pleasant read, made me giggle on a couple of occasions but nothing special.

The worst book I have ever read.
I don't usually write reviews on Amazon as I think everyone views books differently and to force my views on other readers is unfair... and then I read this book.
Quite simply this is the worst book I have ever read. I am currently studying for a degree in English Literature so am used to searching for, and finding, the hidden depths in prose.
This book is the reason you're not allowed to dive in the shallow end of pools; the light refraction makes the water look deeper than it is, if you try you'll end up very cross with a banging headache. That, in a nutshell, is the effect of this book.
You may be told that its a classic, that its an important book; but consider the source: these people justify paying four figures for a dress with the excuse that 'the quality is better' when its made in the same sweatshop as George@ Asda clothing.
I have heard several myths about Salinger, all of which made the book seem more and more interesting: don't, whatever you do, fall for this. If he does have a hidden manuscript locked in a safe somewhere for God's sake I hope its left there, preferably burned in a house fire.
The entire book, for start to finish, is a justification to any bigoted idiot who says kids are worthless, idiotic, selfish, lazy morons because that is exactly what Holden in. Except we forget THIS WAS WRITTEN BY AN ADULT!! An adult who obviously has no faith in the young. The entire book can be reduced to one sentece: 'Bloody kids today. Not like in was in my day.'
This is a dangerous pessmistic book that shouts a lot but actually says nothing. Simmilar to the famous 'rivers of blood' speech. At best you will be left empty and a little ill after reading it, at worst you will like it (in which case you should be kept away from a keyboard until you see sense); for my part I was furious after reading it, that such a worthless, lazily written, self absorbed book has been allowed to creep into our classics list by adults who think they know what kids want. This book is the equivelant of a 'cool' Geography teacher who attempts to ingratiate himself with the 'cool kids' by swearing and 'getting down wiv da yoof!', when in actual fact he is a sad old man.

I didn't like it (if you hadn't worked that out already).

Good enough to make you puke
What a goddamn book. I must have read it about one thousand times at least. It really separates the wheat from the chaf, or the phoneys and the flits from the real deal, if you know what I mean. I can't stand phoneys, you know the sort of writers who go blah blah blah isn't life hard and all, when really, all you've got to do is get on with it. Writing, nowadays, it is all moaning and whining by some phoney or another, and the publishers, well, they love all that stuff, they go crazy for it, it strikes me they wouldn't know a good book if it came and bit them on the rear end. This book though, well, it's so good, it's enough to make you want to go out and shoot a Beatle, it really is. I only hope they never make a movie of this damn thing, that would be the worst thing ever I shouldn't guess, if they did that I think I would puke up all over myself, I really would