The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger
Desc: 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. J.D. Salinger's classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.