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The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger


KAY

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by J.D Salinger

 

 

This is a book i tried reading at collage and after the first few pages just thought what the hell have i just read? and didn't like the character. I tried it twice, with it being a classic but couldn't get my head around this character. However, took the book to portugal with me and couldn't put it down. Considering nothing much happened in the story due to it being set in one day, it was absolutely gripping. Holden Caulfield was the most annoying character but you can't help but like him and feel for him. I hated reaching the end of the book because it meant leaving him. It was so well written that you felt he was real and that you really knew him. I haven't managed to find another book that's similar since. I want to read it again but i'm frightened it will take away the impact the book had on me the first time it was read.

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I read this book last year... and I absolutely loathed it!

 

In fact, here is my review from Amazon...

 

I decided to read this book, as it is classed as a modern classic, and has a lot of hype surrounding it. Unfortunately, the hype seems unjustified. I hate giving up on a book - I consider it a waste of words, which is why I struggled on to the end.

 

I would suggest reading this if you suffer from insomnia. There is no story to it, and I'm sure it would aid a drift off into the land of nod.

 

Buy it secondhand if you can, but don't waste your money.

:)

 

Of course, to use a terrible clich

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It seems to be a book that brings an enormous number of posts in other forums from people who absolutely hated it. And it may yet do that here too.

I read it a long time ago, however, and happened to like it very much.

I especially liked the reverie that gives the book its title but, then again, I like sentimental stories and that one has always stayed with me.

I would suggest that people at least read the book through to its very end before putting it away, even though I appreciate that advice must be very difficult for many to follow.

Perhaps it all depends on the frame of mind you catch it in. :)

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It's nice to see that I am not the only person who couldn't stand this book. It's one of the few books that I've stopped reading before I reach the end. Maybe if I give it another try now that I'm a bit older I might appreciate it more. But, I doubt I will ever again want to pick that book up.

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I started reading Salinger with Franny and Zooey and fell in love with the Glass family. He wrote several other books about them. They're a very bright group of kids who appeared on a radio quiz show called Wise Child or something.

 

My daughter had to read Catcher in the Rye and liked it but loved the others.

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It's nice to see that I am not the only person who couldn't stand this book. It's one of the few books that I've stopped reading before I reach the end. Maybe if I give it another try now that I'm a bit older I might appreciate it more. But, I doubt I will ever again want to pick that book up.

KiwiMellon,

You are definitely not alone in your opinion! You have safety in numbers -- great numbers. Never doubt it! :roll:

In fact, now I am curious to go back and read the book to see what I think of it and why. :)

This could turn into a very lively discussion if we all shared our reasons!

Gotta go get a copy.

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Pontalba,

it's short as I recall.

Won't add much height at all. :roll:

I'm off!

/whoosh/

 

LOL good! But in listening to Sinatra now, I am very mellow anyhow, so the height wouldn't matter at this point. :)

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/whoosh/ That was quick!

 

 

:) (p1)

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 chilldhood 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. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

. . . .

I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me about last Christmas just before I got pretty run down and had to come out here and take it easy.

 

 

-
"The Catcher in the Rye" - J.D. Salinger

:roll:

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It's nice to see that I am not the only person who couldn't stand this book. It's one of the few books that I've stopped reading before I reach the end. Maybe if I give it another try now that I'm a bit older I might appreciate it more. But, I doubt I will ever again want to pick that book up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what i did, i stopped reading it a couple of times and couldn't believe how strange it was and hated it but then went back when i was older and thought copletely differently about it. I loved it.

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I first read it when I was about 14/15 years olds. I'd reach parts of the book and completely start agreeing with what Holden was saying. And then there were parts which I couldn't stand and thought he was a right plonker. I thinks that's why I enjoy the book so much - one minute I love Holden and his ideas about the world, and then the next minute he's talking rubbish and acting like a complete fool.

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I think part of the reason I've not read it has to do with in high school, we were told we had to read it. Never a plus in my eyes. :roll:

 

But as I type, Amazon is hurling it in this direction, and I will know tomorrow at some point whether or not I like it. :)

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I think part of the reason I've not read it has to do with in high school, we were told we had to read it. Never a plus in my eyes. :roll:

 

But as I type, Amazon is hurling it in this direction, and I will know tomorrow at some point whether or not I like it. :)

Pontalba,

I think your first point has quite a bit to do with prevailing opinions about the book because, in general, this book about a high-school student really does seem to turn off high-school students. Although far from all, as we are seeing in this thread, it still puzzles me.

 

Your second comment, about having a second look at it, is just great IMO! The more the merrier for the discussion! YAY. And, as it turns out, I am noticing things on my re-read, now, which passed clear over my head when I read it the first time. So, the re-read is definitely worth it.

 

I'm now on p34 and it is clear that Holden's in-your-face and smart-alecky attitude is probably going to continue for another couple hundred pages. /groan/ On the other hand, there are some early indications that not all is lost and that the book can develop quite nicely and show Holden as an appealing character (almost despite himself, perhaps). More about that later.

 

Hope your book arrives soon, instead of midnight. :lol:

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I thinks that's why I enjoy the book so much - one minute I love Holden and his ideas about the world, and then the next minute he's talking rubbish and acting like a complete fool.

Liz,

That's the Holden I'm reading about, and you have him just right!

Sounds like me and my friends from high-school, knocking about and goofing off, while trying to grow up at the same time (and faking even large parts of that!) :)

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This is what i did, i stopped reading it a couple of times and couldn't believe how strange it was and hated it but then went back when i was older and thought copletely differently about it. I loved it.

That is the experience I hope for, the latter part at least. :)

 

And Paul, what you say about high school kids is true, but I didn't like the kids my age when I was in school, probably part of the problem :roll:

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That's great! I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way about Holden.

Liz,

He is all that -- sensible, goofy and screwed up, all at the same time IMO -- yet I ended up liking him, and this reading of the book is going to be to try to figure out why I do. It's good to be not alone in a discussion. :)

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I've only read the first 2 chapters, but Holden is so busy railing at the hypocrites he's been surrounded by at the previous schools he's been kicked out of, but the first few lines of Chapter 3 kind of put him in a similar light.....

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.

Now I suppose that could be viewed in the light that he just figures it is no one's business where he goes, but it's still not a very attractive trait.

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I think it will be a good read, I like the style. Salinger certainly does capture the manner of speech of a 16 y.o. boy, and even though it was written in 1945...it is not dated at all. Don't get me wrong, it's true to the period, but not dated.

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I'll offer a random thought.

The first page of the book has Holden telling us:

I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me about last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy.

It is pretty blurry exactly what "come out here" means, but it sounds as if he is in some sort of rehab center or truancy detention center, possibly even a mental institution for "this madman stuff."

 

Against that background, one might read the opening narrative sentences of the book in a somewhat different light than simply telling a story.

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 . . . . .

That first person narrative can now sound for all the world like an answer to a general get-acquainted-question "Tell me about yourself" that an admitting officer or a counselor or a psychologist/psychiatrist might ask a patient during an interview at such a center or hospital. (Guessing wildly from my not-so-vast reading on such subjects :) ).

 

Which means that Holden is not necessarily addressing us as readers outside of the covers of the book, but rather may be addressing us as if we were a part of his story, sitting across a desk from him listening to him answer that question we asked.

 

And that further means, that we ourselves might think of ourselves as looking at Holden -- not so much for whether the events of his life appeal to us, or are interesting (I think they are) -- but rather more as if actively engaged in trying to evaluate this cynical young man sitting in front of us, to see what we make of him as a person and what makes him tick. Do we believe him?

 

Whether anything at all like that point-of-view was intended by Salinger is far from clear, but the possibility may not be accidental, given that he deliberately places the setting "out here" and mentions "madman" behavior. At any rate, it offers a way of looking at Holden as more than simply a character involved in a sequence of events in a novel.

 

Whether such a perspective will hold up throughout the book will of course remain to be seen. But so far I'm cheering for Holden.

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