Catcher in the Rye

[whitehall]

I saw a documentary about J.D. (Jerome) Salinger on a cable show and they raved about "Catcher" being one of the most definitive books of the 20th century. When you add the factor that maniac killers like Hinckely and Chapman had copies of the book on them when they were captured I figured that I would pick up a copy. I'm about a 3rd of the way through and about ready to put it down. Maybe I'm too old to identify with (50's) adolescent angst but I don't get it. So far the principal character, Holden Caulfield, seems like an angry little prick who blames everyone else for his problems like flunking out of prep school.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

I saw a documentary about J.D. (Jerome) Salinger on a cable show and they raved about "Catcher" being one of the most definitive books of the 20th century. When you add the factor that maniac killers like Hinckely and Chapman had copies of the book on them when they were captured I figured that I would pick up a copy. I'm about a 3rd of the way through and about ready to put it down. Maybe I'm too old to identify with (50's) adolescent angst but I don't get it. So far the principal character, Holden Caulfield, seems like an angry little prick who blames everyone else for his problems like flunking out of prep school.

Poster Child of Entitled Posers

The ruling-class's literary critics successfully hid the fact that HC was a spoiled-putrid richkid who could get away with his neurotic childishness, all caused by that unAmerican class's permissive subservience to its brats. He had nothing to say to teenagers from Middle America, yet was forced on us as a typical adolescent going through healthy growing pains.

 

[OldLady]

I saw a documentary about J.D. (Jerome) Salinger on a cable show and they raved about "Catcher" being one of the most definitive books of the 20th century. When you add the factor that maniac killers like Hinckely and Chapman had copies of the book on them when they were captured I figured that I would pick up a copy. I'm about a 3rd of the way through and about ready to put it down. Maybe I'm too old to identify with (50's) adolescent angst but I don't get it. So far the principal character, Holden Caulfield, seems like an angry little prick who blames everyone else for his problems like flunking out of prep school.

He's falling to pieces over the death of his brother, you faggot.

 

[whitehall]

I saw a documentary about J.D. (Jerome) Salinger on a cable show and they raved about "Catcher" being one of the most definitive books of the 20th century. When you add the factor that maniac killers like Hinckely and Chapman had copies of the book on them when they were captured I figured that I would pick up a copy. I'm about a 3rd of the way through and about ready to put it down. Maybe I'm too old to identify with (50's) adolescent angst but I don't get it. So far the principal character, Holden Caulfield, seems like an angry little prick who blames everyone else for his problems like flunking out of prep school.

He's falling to pieces over the death of his brother, you faggot.

Faggot? Damn, a guy carries a copy of the book when he goes out to to murder John Lennon and then another maniac claims that "Catcher" ordered him to shoot President Reagan. When I criticize the main character a self described "old lady" gets so caught up in the book that she calls me a "faggot". Now I'm afraid to finish the damn thing.

 

[hjmick]

I saw a documentary about J.D. (Jerome) Salinger on a cable show and they raved about "Catcher" being one of the most definitive books of the 20th century. When you add the factor that maniac killers like Hinckely and Chapman had copies of the book on them when they were captured I figured that I would pick up a copy. I'm about a 3rd of the way through and about ready to put it down. Maybe I'm too old to identify with (50's) adolescent angst but I don't get it. So far the principal character, Holden Caulfield, seems like an angry little prick who blames everyone else for his problems like flunking out of prep school.

He's falling to pieces over the death of his brother, you faggot.

Faggot? Damn, a guy carries a copy of the book when he goes out to to murder John Lennon and then another maniac claims that "Catcher" ordered him to shoot President Reagan. When I criticize the main character a self described "old lady" gets so caught up in the book that she calls me a "faggot". Now I'm afraid to finish the damn thing.

It's good, but overrated.

 

[whitehall]

Maybe it's just me but I get the feeling the dialog from the movie "the Graduate" is kind of similar in cadence to "Catcher". So far ho-hum for the self centered little prick about a 3rd of the way through.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Faggot? Damn, a guy carries a copy of the book when he goes out to to murder John Lennon and then another maniac claims that "Catcher" ordered him to shoot President Reagan. When I criticize the main character a self described "old lady" gets so caught up in the book that she calls me a "faggot". Now I'm afraid to finish the damn thing.

Pay no attention to the open window with bugs flying in and out...

 

[Zander]

Over-rated coming of age tale by a one-hit wonder.

 

[OldLady]

I saw a documentary about J.D. (Jerome) Salinger on a cable show and they raved about "Catcher" being one of the most definitive books of the 20th century. When you add the factor that maniac killers like Hinckely and Chapman had copies of the book on them when they were captured I figured that I would pick up a copy. I'm about a 3rd of the way through and about ready to put it down. Maybe I'm too old to identify with (50's) adolescent angst but I don't get it. So far the principal character, Holden Caulfield, seems like an angry little prick who blames everyone else for his problems like flunking out of prep school.

He's falling to pieces over the death of his brother, you faggot.

Faggot? Damn, a guy carries a copy of the book when he goes out to to murder John Lennon and then another maniac claims that "Catcher" ordered him to shoot President Reagan. When I criticize the main character a self described "old lady" gets so caught up in the book that she calls me a "faggot". Now I'm afraid to finish the damn thing.

It's obviously way over your head, anyway, so that's not a bad idea.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Maybe it's just me but I get the feeling the dialog from the movie "the Graduate" is kind of similar in cadence to "Catcher". So far ho-hum for the self centered little prick about a 3rd of the way through.

"Plastics"

The Graduate was also about a confused upper-class brat. The problems of those immature and self-centered young adults are totally irrelevant to American youth who have to compete in the real world.

 

[OldLady]

Maybe it's just me but I get the feeling the dialog from the movie "the Graduate" is kind of similar in cadence to "Catcher". So far ho-hum for the self centered little prick about a 3rd of the way through.

"Plastics"

The Graduate was also about a confused upper-class brat. The problems of those immature and self-centered young adults are totally irrelevant to American youth who have to compete in the real world.

Holden is 16. The rightwingers here cried and called the poor little 16 year old a "child," who got his hat stolen by the black guy. But because Holden went to prep school (we don't choose our parents, guys) he's suddenly supposed to be a mature young adult ready to cope with the work world?
What is wrong with you people?
It has been years since I read Catcher, but I remember this: Holden's observations were on a few different levels simultaneously. He was seeing the world through the fresh eyes of a young person who hasn't spent decades getting used to the banality and cruel indifference in the world. He was, at the same time, depressed, so he was looking through a glass darkly. He was also a teenager who felt rootless and lost, and he was also a daft adolescent male doing typical daft adolescent male stuff. It was pretty complex, both as an observation of a certain slice of society and of an individual character.

 

[whitehall]

Around page 100 and the spoiled insufferable rich kid is hiding out in a nice hotel in NYC not far from his parent's nice home near Central Park and he managed to insult some female tourists from Seattle in the hotel bar by calling them ugly and morons while playing a cruel trick on the celebrity fixated babes by faking a sighting of Cary Grant. Does the freaking book get any better?

 

[OldLady]

Around page 100 and the spoiled insufferable rich kid is hiding out in a nice hotel in NYC not far from his parent's nice home near Central Park and he managed to insult some female tourists from Seattle in the hotel bar by calling them ugly and morons while playing a cruel trick on the celebrity fixated babes by faking a sighting of Cary Grant. Does the freaking book get any better?

There have been novels I just couldn't enjoy because I really disliked the character(s). If that's the case, just close the book and shut up about it, you judgmental snob.

 

[Disir]

I didn't like Catcher in the Rye. At all. I didn't have to read him. It was a classic and I felt obligated to do so. Like a lot of classics that I choked down, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I read it some 20 years ago.

But, J.D. Salinger is very intriguing. He wrote other stuff. He was such a private individual that people didn't know anything about it him until after he died. The mystery of J,D. Salinger is way more interesting than Catcher in the Rye.

 

[fncceo]

I saw a documentary about J.D. (Jerome) Salinger on a cable show and they raved about "Catcher" being one of the most definitive books of the 20th century. When you add the factor that maniac killers like Hinckely and Chapman had copies of the book on them when they were captured I figured that I would pick up a copy. I'm about a 3rd of the way through and about ready to put it down. Maybe I'm too old to identify with (50's) adolescent angst but I don't get it. So far the principal character, Holden Caulfield, seems like an angry little prick who blames everyone else for his problems like flunking out of prep school.

Poster Child of Entitled Posers

The ruling-class's literary critics successfully hid the fact that HC was a spoiled-putrid richkid who could get away with his neurotic childishness, all caused by that unAmerican class's permissive subservience to its brats. He had nothing to say to teenagers from Middle America, yet was forced on us as a typical adolescent going through healthy growing pains.

Beat me to it.

 

[Disir]

I have a crazy question. It isn't my intention to hijack the thread. It appears that many of us do not value it in the way we are told we should. This came out in 1951, I wonder if this acceptance is not a response to the beat generation.

 

[whitehall]

Apparently the book wasn't well received by the publishers at the time but somehow achieved legendary status. It's possible that teachers who assigned the book to students didn't like it either but were pressured into pretending it was a masterpiece. I'm 3/4 the way through the book and so far the little prick hasn't done much except take some taxi rides, smoke cigarettes and criticize every woman he met including nuns. The dialog is tiring and the plot is so thin it almost disappears. Here's a thought, young Holden describes his (male) roommate's physique and then finds a reason to pick a fight and get pinned to the shower floor. Later in the book young Holden has a problem with a (female) prostitute and only wants to talk. He picks a fight with her pimp and gets beaten up again. He dances with a couple of women in a bar and then criticizes their looks. Is Salinger trying to tell us something about Caufield's sexuality?

 

[whitehall]

Finished the book. It might have been titled "two days in the life of a spoiled rich kid". Would that catchy (accurate) title have prevented the maniac from murdering John Lennon? I still don't get it.

 

[whitehall]

According to the bio it seems that Jerome Salinger was a sheltered Jewish kid who was drafted into the horrors of WW2 and came back with a case of PTSD and the notion that he was a writer. He struggled with a series he managed to sell to a magazine that turned out to be "Catcher" but no book publisher wanted to use it. I ain't going to even attempt "Frannie and Zooey so it's no wonder that Salinger retired after two lame novels.

 

[OldLady]

I have a crazy question. It isn't my intention to hijack the thread. It appears that many of us do not value it in the way we are told we should. This came out in 1951, I wonder if this acceptance is not a response to the beat generation.

I don't really remember it being about The Beat Generation. Just a messed up kid journeying through adolescence. That's pretty eternal.