which is not saying a whole lot because there is a ton of pretentious bullshit out there and i bet mrs. i think this is my favorite novel of all time. things i didn't even realize i felt were right there on the page! I LOVED IT. it is like the author was reading my thoughts and put it all down in this book. blown away! i don't know how a book written decades ago could say exactly what i would say. There is one good thing in my life though. everything is so goddamn bright and shiny and sunny and meaningless. i cannot wait to leave orange county! this place makes me fucking sick. i can't talk to any of my so-called friends, i can't talk to jamie, i can't talk to my parents. i can't believe how fucked everything is around me. Think of it as a brick in the foundation of the revolution to come. This book was just one sign of the impending cultural revolution. I imagine that in 1951, when this was published, there were those who said "Yes! It's about time someone was honest!" and there were those who exclaimed "What is this world coming to?" There was change coming, that's for sure. He is a tragic victim of the crappy world in which he has no control and where no one understands him. Holden is not intended to be a hero in the conventional sense of the word. If you don't go along, if you don't play the game, then the vast machine that is society will knock you down and even lock you away. He personified all that was wrong with society. Not in the conventional sense of the word, but because people related to him and they sympathized with the way he felt. These two factors were shocking and dismaying to some, refreshing and delightful to others.Īnd so Holden became a hero to some. In those days you were expected to (as I was told) "Do as I say, not as I do." That may sound outrageous and unreasonable but it was, in fact, exactly what was accepted as good parenting.Īnd here we have 1) a main character who curses constantly, and unashamedly rejects the values of his parents and society in general and 2) a narrative style that is casual and conversational.
#The catcher in the rye by j.d salinger free#
Today being a free spirit and expressing your individuality is celebrated and encouraged. Readers who were born and brought up after the 1960s don't realize what a revolution occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. We had just defeated two evil empires, and our soldiers were coming Home Sweet Home to their happy-to-be-housewives and their 2.5 kids who were to be seen and not heard. We have to consider it in the context of the era in which this book was released. 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.more It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. Salinger's classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters - shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and t It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school. It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school.
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