Catcher in the Rye - it's all bollocks?

[MrsWembley]

Just a quick one, as have to go wash and dress DD, but they've been talking about this on the Today programme like it's the second coming and I'm getting a bit agitated. Am I really the only one who died of boredom whilst reading this book? The only thing I got out of it was a deep desire to slap both the protagonist and the author.

I first read it at 34 and think it is brilliant. I'm actually unconvinced that you can properly appreciate it as a teenager (but that's true of most classic literature- when I re-read my A-level thesis on Arthur Miller now I cringe to the core- I thought I was soooo on it, but now I realise I didnt have the life experience to properly understand the subtleties).

On that basis I would say there are better books to teach in school- CiTR doesnt really have the plot to engage a teenager.

I think one of the issues with Catcher in the Rye is that a lot of people dont like books written in the first person because they are by nature so unflinching.

I think it's possible to say you don't like it but not to say that it's badly written. It is, objectively, still probably one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator in literature.

I read it at 14 and loved it. You lot who don't like it are a bunch of phonies

re the books written in the first person argument - I give you as evidence A Curious Incident...

PMSL at lightbulb - thank-you. At least now I've read it I can get comments like that!

I only read it after John Lennon got shot and hearing all the hype, so was also underwhelmed.

Well, maybe not P, but I did LOL..

YANBU I really didn't get the fuss. Now if it was To Kill a Mockingbird...

why thankyou lightbulb

(P)MSL back at you MrsW

of course yabu

As a youngster, I totally got Holden, his depression and jaded outlook on life, which in a teenager is truly heartbreaking

Read it again last year and just wanted to give him a hug

YANBU

apparently you have to read it as a teenager and then it's, like, soo meaningful.

bollocks, is it.

i read it when i was at uni and (actually a miserable cow) and thought it was the most boring drivel i'd ever read.
and i didn't even bother reading halfway: couldn't engage with any of the characters and thought the lead was just a twat. building a rod or his own back.
didn't have any sympathy for him and his back story bored me.

I haven't read it for years and years, but certainly as a teenager I thought it was amazing. It had been written just for me!

I must re-read and see what I think now.

YABU

I read it as a teenager and loved it, mostly because I too was a rather lonely, disaffected teenager who wished they could be expelled from their school and go wondering around NY

YABU. Think of the time in which it was written. "Teenagers" as a concept barely existed - the book was ahead of it's time. It is a fascinating work just for that.

YABU - Although I suspect I wouldn't hold Catcher in the Rye in such high regard if I had read it as an adult. But as a teenager it didn't only strike chords it sang symphonies in my head. Nothing else at the time so eloquently conveyed my absolute terror of becoming a adult/phonie whilst struggling being a child in the adult world.

*remembers had decided to never post in AIBU and is a bit scared.

I hated it when I read it at about 19. But I read on Mumsnet that I'd appreciate it more if I read it as an adult. But can't be arsed. It's so phoney.

Sadly JD Salinger seems to be defined by one book rather than the whole body of work. I really love 'Franny and Zooey' and think it's a fantastic book.

I agree that F&Z is soooo much better. One of my favourites....

I read it as a teenager and found it very boring. I might give it another go someday.

I bought it at the airport last time I went abroad, got half way through and then forgot about it till now.

Always thought it was me not getting a "classic". Glad I'm not the only one,re-read more than once since being an angsty teen and always thought it terrible.

Emperor's new clothes - spot on.

I like this book very much. I've never understood why it gets such a hard time in so many MN threads. I first read it when I was a lot younger than the protagonist, but even then I yearned to comfort him. He is so earnest, so much wanting to be stopped and held. I tried to reread it as an adult but couldn't get very far as the character's voice was so heartbreaking.

I read it last year and hated it - it was an effort to finish it