J.D. Salinger, “The Catcher In The Rye”,  Little Brown (1951) 214 pp.

The Catcher In The Rye is set around the 1950s and is narrated by sixteen year old adolescent Holden Caulfield, undergoing treatment in a mental hospital or sanatorium.  The events he narrates take place in the few days between the end of the fall school term and Christmas. 

I read this book some 50 years ago.  I remember not liking the profanity at the time—now I hardly noticed, things sure change in 50 years. My interest in re-reading it was precipitated by a PBS documentary about Salinger.  The documentary told a lot about him in WWII and its effect for the balance of his life—he was in many battles from D-Day until the end.  I found it intriguing that he wrote parts of Catcher In The Rye between battles and carried the manuscript with him throughout. 

Back to my impression on the book’s usefulness:  Don’t bother reading it unless you are in to “Whining on Steroids”.  How this book became such a classic and is required reading in most colleges and some high schools is a mystery to me.  I had Linda, my psychologist wife, read it and she found it as bad as I did.  (She also read it some fifty years ago but did not remember much of it from that time—she did, however, vouch for the authenticity of the character as crazy)

Some Excerpts of note:

Discussing his red hat, ““This is a people shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat. ”The books theme displays Holden’s desire for independence because he feels that the world is an inhospitable, ugly place that, he feels, deserves only contempt. 

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.

 Holden’s story begins on the Saturday following the end of classes at the Pencey prep school in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. Pencey is Holden’s fourth school; he has already failed out of three others. At Pencey, he has failed four out of five of his classes and has received notice that he is being expelled, but he is not scheduled to return home to Manhattan until Wednesday. He visits his elderly history teacher, Spencer, to say goodbye, but when Spencer tries to reprimand him for his poor academic performance, Holden becomes annoyed.