Name: Vojtech's review of The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Item: The Catcher in the Rye
Rating: 5
Author: Vojtech

J. D. Salinger

Anyone who has read J.D. Salinger's New Yorker stories--particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man, and For Esme With Love and Squalor--will not be surprised by the fact that his first novel is full of children. The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield.

Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it.
There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices-but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.

The Catcher in the Rye

lelayna

People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I’d play it in the goddam closet.

Srijita Sarkar 

Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.

Sex is something I just don't understand. I swear to God I don't.

She knocked me out. I mean it. I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.

I held hands with her all the time, for instance. That doesn't sound like much, I realize, but she was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we wouldn't quit till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a big deal out of it. You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.

Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell.

I knew it wasn't too important, but it made me sad anyway.

I felt like marrying her the minute I saw her. I'm crazy. I didn't even like her much, and yet all of a sudden I felt like I was in love with her and wanted to marry her. I swear to God I'm crazy.

But you're wrong about that hating business. I mean about hating football players and all. You really are. I don't hate too many guys.

"This fall I think you're riding for--it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started

Talking to imaginary or dead people when depressed or lonely! Us bro Us

Boy, I felt miserable. I felt so depressed, you can't imagine. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed. I keep telling him to go home and get his bike and meet me in front of Bobby Fallon's house.

At Pencey, you either froze to death or died of the heat.

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

Daizo 

“Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” 

“I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't.”

“Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake- especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all."

“I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of fiowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”

“You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart. I'm not kidding.”

“The terrible part, though, is that I meant it when I asked her. That's the terrible part. I swear to God I'm a madman.”

“Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all.”

“I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too, if I'd been sure somebody'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.”

“I held hands with her all the time, for instance. That doesn't sound like much, I realize, but she was terrific to hold hands with.”

“Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.” 

“I didn't answer him. AllI did was, I got up and went over and looked out the window. I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.”

Vojtech

It was sort of repetitive and vague, but towards the end it go really good ! It does capture being a teenager without glorifying it.

Indi

A 16-year old American boy relates in his own words the experiences he goes through at school and after, and reveals with unusual candour the workings of his own mind. What does a boy in his teens think and feel about his teachers, parents, friends and acquaintances?

Bella Baxter

If I could have, I would have given it a 3.5/5, might even consider it a 3, but JD Salinger was definitely ahead of his time. He ate toward the end.

Holden is one annoying ass teenager, but it was really nice to see how much he softened and became playful around his sister. Nice slice of life read. Also quite hilarious. I’m also curious how many days this took place because wow what an adventure, lol. A whole movie, really. IYKYK.

I think I read somewhere that this was a difficult read? Maybe because the language usage is a bit archaic, but I understood it fine. Interesting, actually.

OH. I know why I gave it the fourth star— the character descriptions? Setting descriptions? 10/10. Absolutely fantastic. Just excellent. Like, now I know why they tell you to read if you wanna be able to write, lol.

The catcher in the rye

Sarah Sammis

"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." (p. 198). That quote is why I finally decided I wanted to read the book. It shows up in The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series. My husband had read the book and said I should read it too so when the opportunity presented itself to me, I had to. Now having read the book I see much more of the of it in the series than just this short quote used by the Laughing Man.

Beyond inspiring an arc plot in an animae series, Catcher in the Rye seems to be the book that so many recent first person rambling books with teenage male protagonists spring from. The book reminds me a great deal of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time though better written. There's also a bit of Everything is Illuminated as well but again, much better written.

El Guardian Entre el Centeno/ The Catcher in the Rye

manuel

trezaa

exactly captures an insufferable teenage boy

I heard this book is a red flag so I knew it was a must read hahshsh and i’m sorry but I enjoyed it a lot and i can tell you that Holden is just like me. No but really this was really enjoyable and I found him to be a complex and misunderstood character, the way he expressed and pushes away his feelings and concerns makes me really emotional.

I  cried and laughed a lot, i’m happy and sad tbh.

I heard this book is a red flag so I knew it was a must read hahshsh and i’m sorry but I enjoyed it a lot and i can tell you that Holden is just like me. No but really this was really enjoyable and I found him to be a complex and misunderstood character, the way he expressed and pushes away his feelings and concerns makes me really emotional.

I  cried and laughed a lot, i’m happy and sad tbh.

Dani

My experience with this book has been quite singular. I read it for the first time during my angsty early teenage years -and felt utterly disappointed. I thought it wasn't anywhere near what I had heard it to be. There is my first mistake: I stupidly built up expectations in a complete wrong direction, because I believed what others told of it (which I later discovered to be utterly wrong, they just didn't pay any attention). My second mistake I guess, was that I read it in my native language, Spanish. I don't think there's a way to convert Holden's personality correctly by means of a translation. I'm simply not sure there's a way to do it. 

Anyway, after all these years I begin to comprehend the fuzz. After all these years, much older, much more mature, I can relate a whole lot more to Caulfield than I did when I was supposed to. It brought me back to the times when I was still absolutely clueless about myself, but shedding light to it. I thought, 'now I get it'. And indeed I do. Both the book and myself.

D D D 

Ok goodreads app crashed as I was in the midst of writing my glowing review for this book… so i’m keeping it short this time. 4.5 stars

This book is about grief! I laughed and I cried. absolutely perfect depiction of what it feels like to grow up, and it all happens in the subtext. masterful 

I am 100% a Holden Caulfield Defender. He is the perfect adolescent. One of the best written characters of all time tbh. he’s so annoying, I love him

Kendall McClain

It was fine! I’ve heard so much about how this man sucks and all that so I was expecting a true villain and he was really just some dude. Something in me loves reading about evil evil people so my hopes were high! Idk I get it’s from a teenage boy perspective so ya makes sense why it was written like this but I assumed it was written like a pretentious classic, and me who loves a pretentious classic was highly thrown off by all the goddams and such! 

But I did enjoy her, she is interesting and I love a character study, I feel like it’s bad to say I wish he was more evil but I wish he was more evil, commit!!!

Annika Arguemore

despite Holden's frequent profanities, his point of view is quite fascinating. both angry and analytic, he never fails to amaze me with his thinking alongside his rebellious ways. his analysis of things in general, to a non-understanding person's perspective, may be seen as queer but if you have an eye for such things he describes, he may be considered more than observant. perhaps a wallflower but he's more than that. I just loved this adventure of a book. Holden Caulfield is now my homeboy.

désirée

Kritika Narula

It will take me much more than a review to tell you what this book is

Jun Angelo Cabuguas

Holden deez nuts (easy to read, dated as expected, it's very hard to root for angsty tall boy)

Mo'men Alhoot

Some books you just don't like at the beginning but they grow on you.. Most people might not appreciate that about a book but I do. I understand now why it's considered a modern classic.

The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "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." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.

neli

Il giovane Holden

silvia

«Io mi immagino sempre tutti questi bambini che giocano a qualcosa in un grande campo di segale e via dicendo. Migliaia di bambini, e in giro non c'è nessun altro - nessuno di grande, intendo - tranne me, che me ne sto fermo sull'orlo di un precipizio pazzesco. Il mio compito è acchiapparli al volo se si avvicinano troppo, nel senso che se loro si mettono a correre senza guardare dove vanno, io a un certo punto devo saltar fuori e acchiapparli. Non farei altro tutto il giorno. Sarei l'acchiappabambini del campo di segale. So che è da pazzi, ma è l'unica cosa che mi piacerebbe fare davvero. Lo so che è da pazzi.»

Holdens character was very relatable I’d say, in the sense of seeing how he chose to deal with grief, and the literary satire was just top notch.

Jooryk

maddie

i reread this book so often— holden caulfield my favorite closeted queer

One of the first books l ever connected with. 

Tara

5 stars for nostalgia. read the book and learned a different meaning compared to others bahahaha. 

holden sneaking to phoebe’s room to say goodbye and the carousell bit was my fave. So bittersweet. i think this is a novel about sibling love idgafff

Jiji Meralpis

5 stars for nostalgia. read the book and learned a different meaning compared to others bahahaha. 

holden sneaking to phoebe’s room to say goodbye and the carousell bit was my fave. So bittersweet. i think this is a novel about sibling love idgafff

jess

One might conclude that this is so YA, boring, overwhelmingly negative, to the extent that it was concluded banned or "psychopath" book. But for me, it was Normal People all over again, but with more evident inexorable self-critical destructive behavior. Like it? In some circumstances, I do vibe with it, the literalness and innocence of Holden's point of view in the face of tremendously complicated and often depraved facts of life; his view is both tragic and touching, and relatable, which some wont be experiencing (boldly assuming the privileged). I can pretentiously conclude that it is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth, yet also relevant to all ages. And a vouch of mine elucidates that I wont ever reread this again.

holden is quite a character and an unreliable narrator. a "banned" book, as it was published in the 50s where mental health, especially men's, was seen as taboo/controversial, and other taboo topics. (e.g. sexual harassment) holden's character is obnoxious & annoying (especially his seemingly VERY limited vocabulary because he repeats damn and hell so much throughout the book 😭) although i think it's still worth a read despite his extremely critical and angsty teenager attitude, especially if you're around holden's age. if you really look at it through his perspective, you'll see why he grew up to be the way he is. 

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The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

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