The Catcher in the Rye

Title: The Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger
Published: 1951, this edition is pretty new but has the original cover which is pret-ty!
Genre: Alienated angst
Pages: 214



Holden Caulfield is sixteen, and he's just been kicked out of yet another school for not applying himself. Such a phony phrase. He has a row with his roommate and decides to leave on Christmas break a few days ahead. There's no way he's going to go home and listen to his parents rant and rave over his latest failure, so he checks in at a cheap hotel in New York City, and narrates his way through the next few days and all the people he meets. 

As happened with Slaughterhouse 5, I only intended to take a peek at the first few pages and see about this classic, and then realised I'd read the first 30 or so pages. I mean, I was reading four other books as well at the time (down to three, now). But yeah. It wasn't as earth-shattering as I had expected. I feel like I might've gotten more out of it if I'd read it when I was younger, but I could still identify with Holden's feelings of alienation from most of the human race. Insert the smiley which is poking its tongue out in a way that you can't really tell whether the user is trying to be funny or... not.

I just read that Salinger wrote the book for adults originally, but over the years it has become popular with teenagers, and also 'challenged' over ... what? Really? Swearing? Saying goddam a lot? And sexual content? Right. The alienation and Holden going slightly off his rocker were far more important and bigger issues.


"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."