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 fully 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.
I first read “The Catcher in the Rye” some time in either 1964 or more likely early 1965. That is over 54 years ago now. There are some similarities between my 17-year-old self then and the 16 year old Holden Caulfield. Both of us were naïve and having trouble transitioning into adulthood. The frustration of not understanding what was happening to us resulted in the same sort of anger within me as it did in Caulfield. He directed his anger outward and blamed the world. I took my anger inward and blamed myself.
I entered university only a few months after having read the novel. The main thing that I recall about that reading of the novel is being given a lift by a philosophy professor who was curious as to how someone who was so young (I was 17 but looked more like 12) was getting along in university. A philosophy course was mandatory in first year. There were four choices - Philosophy 100 to Philosophy 103. I chose Philosophy 100 because it was first on the list. I was so naïve that I didn’t understand that the 100 course was designed as the first course for those majoring in the subject. The others were much easier and intended for everybody else.
Read more reviews Written by Ryan Dare
The Cather in the Rye is a goddam great book, if you want to know the truth. That J.D. Salinger is a goddam Prince. Not like one of those phony moron actors from Hollywood who think they are better then you. This book is a treasure, It honestly is. Unlike one of those putrid books they make you read down at Pency that would make you throw up right there on the floor. Just because it's so stupid and all. I have to say it depressed me a little bit at times but overall was really good. Honestly, you're going to enjoy it, I really think you will. H.C.
