The Catcher in the Rye

"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.

Product Description
Ever since it was first published in 1951, this novel has been the coming-of-age story against which all others are judged. Read and cherished by generations, the story of Holden Caulfield is truly one of America's literary treasures.

Salinger, whose characters are among the best and most developed in all of literature has captured the eternal angst of growing into adulthood in the person of Holden Caulfield. Anyone who has reached the age of sixteen will be able to identify with this unique and yet universal character, for Holden contains bits and pieces of all of us. It is for this very reason that The Catcher in the Rye has become one of the most beloved and enduring works in world literature.

As always, Salinger's writing is so brilliant, his characters so real, that he need not employ artifice of any kind. This is a study of the complex problems haunting all adolescents as they mature into adulthood and Salinger wisely chooses to keep his narrative and prose straightforward and simple.

This is not to say that The Catcher in the Rye is a straightforward and simple book. It is anything but. In it we are privy to Salinger's genius and originality in portraying universal problems in a unique manner. The Catcher in the Rye is a book that can be loved and understood on many different levels of comprehension and each reader who experiences it will come away with a fresh view of the world in which they live.

A work of true genius, images of a catcher in the rye are abundantly apparent throughout this book.

While analyzing the city raging about him, Holden's attention is captured by a child walking in the street "singing and humming." Realizing that the child is singing the familiar refrain, "If a body meet a body, comin' through the rye," Holden, himself, says that he feels "not so depressed."

The title's words, however, are more than just a pretty ditty that Holden happens to like. In the stroke of pure genius that is Salinger, himself, he wisely sums up the book's theme in its title.

When Holden, whose past has been traumatic, to say the least, is questioned by his younger sister, Phoebe, regarding what he would like to do when he gets older, Holden replies, "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around--nobody big, I mean--except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going. I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."

In this short bit of dialogue Salinger brilliantly exposes Holden's deepest desire and expounds the book's theme. Holden wishes to preserve something of childhood innocence that gets hopelessly lost as we grow into the crazy and phony world of adulthood.

The theme of lost innocence is deftly explored by Salinger throughout the book. Holden is appalled when he encounters profanity scrawled on the walls of Phoebe's school, a school that he envisions protecting and shielding children from the evils of society.

When Holden gives his red hunting cap to Phoebe to wear, he gives it to her as a shield, an emblem of the eternal love and protectiveness he feels for her.

Near the beginning of the book, Holden remembers a girl he once knew, Jane Gallagher, with whom he played checkers. Jane, he remembers, "wouldn't move any of her kings," and action Holden realizes to be a metaphor of her naivete. When Holden hears that his sexually experienced prep school roommate had a date with Jane, he immediately starts a fight with him, symbolically protecting Jane's innocence.

More sophisticated readers might question the reasons behind Holden's plight. While Holden's feelings are universal, this character does seem to be a rather extreme example. The catalyst for Holden's desires is no doubt the death of his younger brother, Allie, a bright and loving boy who died of leukemia at the age of thirteen. Holden still feels the sting of Allie's death acutely, as well as his own, albeit undeserved, guilt, in being able to do nothing to prevent Allie's suffering.

The only reminder Holden has of Allie's shining but all-too-short life, is Allie's baseball mitt which is covered with poems Allie read while standing in the outfield. In a particularly poignant moment, Holden tells us that this is the glove he would want to use to catch children when they fall from the cliff of innocence.

In an interesting, but trademark, Salinger twist, Holden distorts the Robert Burns poem that provides the book's title. Originally, it read, "If a body meet a body, comin' through the rye." Holden distorts the word "meet" into "catch." This is certainly not the first time Holden is guilty of distortion; indeed he is a master at it.

This distortion, however, shows us how much Allie's death has affected Holden and also how much he fears his own fall from innocence, the theme that threads its way throughout the whole of the book.

By this amazing book's end, we must reach the conclusion that there are times when we all need a "catcher in the rye." We are, indeed, blessed if we have one.


Universal Tale   May 5, 2000
 316 out of 388 found this review helpful

I've read The Catcher in the Rye many times--when I was 11, 13, 15, and 17 years old. Seriously. I loved it from the first time I read it, but it didn't hit home until I was a junior and senior in high school.

I AM HOLDEN CAULFIELD. Well, not literally and exactly. But almost. Holden is an extraordinary character. His absolute terror of leaving the wonderful, innocent, carefree world of youth is something everyone can relate to. I'm about to graduate from high school, and even though I'm excited to be a free, independent adult, I can't help but be terrified of the corruption and hard reality that lays ahead, which I have been blind to, as a young person. I mean--who wouldn't miss being a kid?--living at home for free, not having to do anything or be responsible for yourself or anyone. Holden embodies this. To me, that's what I related to most from the book.

Most kids I know don't like the book cuz they're forced to read it for class, which is understandable. I wish they could see the beauty, and heartbreaking universality of Holden's story, though. It is something J.D. Salinger had the talent to grasp, and share it with the rest of the world.

And it's so freakin' inspirational I have to go on Amazon.com and tell some people!


A masterpiece   April 9, 2000
 65 out of 71 found this review helpful

I read Catcher in the Rye while on break from school. I'd heard many allusions to the book, and many people said they liked it, yet I didn't really know what it was about. It is fascinating, a true inspiration. Holden is so complex that you can't stop thinking about him when you're not reading. Salinger's amazing insights into human nature and his clever style of cynicism is unique to much of literature and better than all contemporary literature. As Holden starts to spiral down, you can't help but feel incredibly sad thinking about his situation. A boy, on the brink of breakdown, speaking of things that make so much sense. It makes you wonder if he's the one going crazy or if it's the way society is that is truly crazy. I will always love this book and I plan on going over it again to underline all the lines that I adored. For the people giving bad reviews, and as I've analyzed their comments, I must say that you missed the boat. I'm sure that you are the people that Holden is making his social critiques on. No symbolism, a boring character that is whining? Come again? Salinger's phrasing of his words is simplistic, but his message is not. Read it again, try and be more perceptive, and think harder about what is really being said. There is enlightenment waiting for you.


An American Classic   July 5, 2001
 61 out of 65 found this review helpful

It is difficult to remember what it was like to read this book for the first time. It is also difficult to imagine a book where each new reading provides so much more illumination into the main character and his personality. I can remember finding Catcher to be funny the first time I read it. I now alternately find Holden to be walking a fine line between witty sarcasm and dangerous cynicism. He is funny, there is no way around that, but his belittling nature also causes him to dismiss much from his life that may not be perfect, but should be included. There is nothing that he, in the end, does not dismiss as being phony, whether it is the nuns with whom he shares a cup of coffee, the teacher at the end who most likely was just trying to help, the Egyptian wing of the museum, Pheobe's school...everything. As soon as one little detail slips in which is not completely on track with what he is thinking whatever it is he is contemplating becomes useless, phony, not worth dealing with. His humor is sharp and witty and I often laugh out loud while reading, but it is also an easy way for him to detach himself from a world which he no longer feels he belongs in, or wants to belong in. I can remember finding the ending ambiguous the first time I read it. I now see it as the only way it could end, with Holden finding happiness watching his sister Pheobe going forever in circles, and being able to pretend that that is never going to change. She is the one thing in his life which he still deems worthy of existence, and placing her on a merry-go-round is his best attempt to keep her there. Things change and grow and move on, but Holden refuses to accept this and is yearning to stop things forever where they are, to go back to when D.B. was a writer full of dreams and Allie was still alive. He mentions once how he used to take field trips to the museum, but how it was never the same and that takes something away from it. Even if the exhibit was the same, YOU would be different, simply by having traveled a bit farther in life, and this is what Holden is incapable of dealing with. The ending is Holden trying to keep the one thing in his life he still truly loves exactly the way she is. I can remember finding Holden's journey to be a bit all over the place. I now can see that there is not a single detail which Salinger does not use to illuminate Holden. On Holden's last night at school everything is covered with snow. He stands there holding a snowball looking for something to throw it at, but he can not bring himself to throw his snowball and disturb a fire hydrant or a park bench. Everything is peaceful under the snow and Holden can not bring himself to alter this just as he can not handle a world that keeps changing. Or there is Holden's history class, which he is failing. The only topic he is remotely interested in is the Egyptians and their process of mummification. The only thing he cares about is how to preserve things just as they are. I can remember enjoying this book the first time I read it. But I had no idea that with each subsequent reading I would find more and more to enjoy, and more and more evidence of Salinger's genius.


This is Beaver Cleaver with a Hangover, it Really is.   January 21, 2006
 45 out of 61 found this review helpful

Hi, I'm Holden Caulfield, but I come off more like the great lost episode from the last year of Leave it to Beaver. They cancelled my crumby show, even if it was phony, and now I'm forced to write this god*** book about the aftermath because I went from a cute kid to an ugly monster who still bats my eyes. I have to go to school with all these people who never listen to my pesty whining, and I'm sexy even though I'm a virgin, I really am. Of course, I would never admit that to any of those phony, crumby jocks I don't like but still force my company on and all.

I get kicked out of school because I'm a rich preppy spoiled brat, and I lose all my money as I hide out in a hotel, chicken out with a hooker, and get beat up by her pimp. Who can blame him? I'm a total loser, I really am.

From there, I call up everyone I know to hang around with me because beggars can't be choosers, and everyone gets mad at me because I'm annoying, they really do. I can handle my liquor, I really can (I guess that makes me William Holden Caulfield.), and any girl who doesn't like me is stupid, so I feel sorry for them. Even my little sister can't take anymore, and all I seem to do is hate everyone except little kids and dead people like my brother Wally--er, Allie.

Okay, that's enough; you get the drift. This book is so overrated, I just can't appreciate its mass appeal as classic literature. There is no point to it at all, except for this kid to prove what a rich brat he is, whine and smart off to people he doesn't even like although he insists on hanging around with them, and brag constantly about virtues he doesn't have, making him one of the biggest hypocrites and phonies of them all. Repetitive, whiny, and a total waste of time. And where are his parents through the entire thing while he's out getting into trouble? They must be the ones from the Charlie Brown specials--off to the side going "wha-wha-wha-wha-wha." This is my first and last Salinger book.