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Original poster

Catcher in the Rye - it's all bollocks?

90 replies

MrsWembley · 29/01/2010 09:09

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.

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsWembley · 29/01/2010 12:32

Thank-you everyone who has agreed with me. Ya boo sucks to everyone who hasn't. I have to leave now to drive two hundred miles across the country. If the conversation about the definition of 'literature' and what exactly deserves the title (which this book does not) carries on without me, then my work here is done.

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsWembley · 29/01/2010 12:34

raspberry

really should use the preview at all times...

OP posts:
jasper · 29/01/2010 12:36

I loved it then and am reading it now and still do

Miggsie · 29/01/2010 12:37

It is a known fact that teenagers are self indulgent and self obsessed. Nothing shows it like this book...in that way, it is a work of genius.

However, reading it is torture...

BalloonSlayer · 29/01/2010 12:39

In the Times today it has printed the first paragraph. I read it and thought "Oh do Fuck OFF you tedious little tosser!" so I don't think I would appreciate it any more as an adult after all.

sungirltan · 29/01/2010 12:48

I loved it and I still loved it..even down to the last page 'don't ever tell anybody anything - if you do you start missing everybody'. I think I was maybe 20 when I read it and again I still have the same copy on my bookshelf.

My dh read it lately and just didn't get it at all but he's 38 so maybe thats the problem. Unfortunately in exchange for him giving that a go I have to read one of his Flashman books :-( (which i have always called mills and boon for boys)

Iklboo · 29/01/2010 12:52

Couldn't get into it at all - just wanted to slap Caulfield 'boo-hoo-poor-me' arse. DH loves it. Horses for courses. He can't stand To Kill A Mockingbird

MayorNaze · 29/01/2010 12:52

i love catcher in the rye.

franny and zooey left me a bit though.

FutureMum · 29/01/2010 13:19

I loved this book, esp. the bits about the brother and sister. Haven't read it for years, I'll pick it up again soon.

Pikelit · 29/01/2010 13:26

I read it when I was about 14 and whilst I didn't hate the book, I wasn't overly taken either. It came across as a stream of American teenage consciousness and Holden Caulfield wasn't a character I could empathise with. So I'd never say the book had much impact on me. Unlike the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists which I read at the same age and was, without wanting to come across as utterly precious, a life changer for me.

diddl · 29/01/2010 15:56

Oh Iklboo-how can you bear to be married to someone who can´t stand To Kill A Mockingbird?

Blanchet · 29/01/2010 16:17

I read it a year or two ago and it seemed to me that the author intended Holden to be a bit of a loser... not an unsympathetic character as such, but not some kind of rebel god with all the answers either. Someone who hadn't grown up yet. I think maybe a large part of why so many people hate it is that there's the impression that we're meant to think Holden is really cool? Personally I didn't love it, didn't hate it. I think I prefer Franny and Zooey.

StewieGriffinsMom · 29/01/2010 16:21

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StewieGriffinsMom · 29/01/2010 16:22

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OrmRenewed · 29/01/2010 16:23

Me too OP. I couldn't get to grips with this at all. I normally have a mental picture of the character and the setting - this was just a blur. Didn't enjoy it at all.

nickytwotimes · 29/01/2010 16:26

It is a FANTASTIC book.

I read it as a teenager, which does make a difference.

ALso you have to put it in historical context - it was the first huge teen-angst novel.

CarrieHeffernan · 29/01/2010 16:28

Haven't read it since I was a teenager, but absolutely hated it.

GettinTrimmer · 29/01/2010 16:45

I read this over 20 years ago, I don't remember being blown away by it.

It did convey the alienation felt by Holden, he said everyone was 'phoney' the only person he had any time for was his younger sister, if I've remembered correctly.

MorrisZapp · 29/01/2010 16:53

Thought it was ok when I read it as a teenager, haven't bothered rereading it since.

I've often wondered who gets to announce which books are classic and which aren't.

Maybe if Salinger had written a series of increasingly poor follow ups which he tried to flog on the talk show circuit he'd be forgotten by now. I think his 'recluse' status fed his reputation.

LadyintheRadiator · 29/01/2010 16:59

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echt · 29/01/2010 17:34

God, read this at uni. What a pile.

Had to teach it lately, which involves putting all this aside, especially as so many of the students who'd bothered to read it first also loathed.. well, Holden, though not the novel.

Completely changed my mind; a really interesting text. Holden is as he would say, a royal pain in the ass, but technically, Salinger never puts foot wrong in this writing. Such intense adolescent self-consciousness.

What I did find hard was teaching it having read his daughter's memoir of her father, and seeing how autobiographical "Catcher" was. Salinger was Holden, and never grew out of it - a petulant, overbearing, up his own arse solipsist.

ChutesTooNarrow · 29/01/2010 19:00

LadyintheRadiator Yes, massive fan

I'm a bit saddened by how many people hated Catcher In The Rye. I had no idea it inspired such a range of emotion.

Amapoleon · 29/01/2010 19:04

I have read it about four times, first when I was about 14. I kept rereading it as I thought I must have missed something. I have now given up, the book is not for me and I don't think I have missed anything. I can't understand all the fuss.

Wereworm · 29/01/2010 21:08

echt, there's some line in The Catcher, isn't there, to the effect of 'Never meet the author of a book you like. He will always turn out to be some cheesy godamn sonofabitch phoney'

scottishmummy · 29/01/2010 21:23

depends age you read it at.i read in teens and really liked it.seminal classic

perhaps reading older one might not get the angst etc and indeed find holden a pain in the chops

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