Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140237504
Edition: Revised edition
ISBN: 014023750X
Label: Penguin
Manufacturer: Penguin
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: August 04, 1994
Publisher: Penguin
Studio: Penguin

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Editorial Review:

From Amazon.co.uk:
Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent". Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his 16-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins:

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, 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 haemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. --Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent". Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his 16-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins:

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, 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 haemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. --Amazon.com




Rating: - One of the best books I have read
This book has it all, humour, anger and brilliant observations of life and people, that all of us can identify with.
The book is written in such an amateur style (but salinger knows what he is doing)that one has to warm to the character immediately.
Great Book.

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Rating: - It's just so real
On a personal note, I only read this book a few months ago and I felt I could relate to a lot of what the young adolescent narrator is going through. Anyone who has been a teenager can.

Catcher in the Rye isn't a plot filled story; I wouldn't say a whole lot happens as such, but it's the way in which it's written and how the centeral character describes what he is feeling that makes this book so beautiful.

It's like you know this boy, Holden Caulfield becomes your friend ... Read More

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Rating: - Its such a goddamn phony world!
This book is great because Holden Caulfield is such an authentic voice and it is so funny and so sad too. Its hard to deny that most of what he says is true and hilarious for that fact. But in the end its just a bit depressing, even if his conclusions, which make you sad, are a bit wrong. Hey, Holden, (you wanna say) children are phonies too. His love for his little sister is pure (I always think she must look like Zuzu in Capra's Its a Wonderful Life), and is as touching as any in literature. And, ... Read More

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Rating: - Overated
Boring, over rated book.

I, like many others, was handed this book and told that it was a life changing read. It was an utter load of rubbish.

I think the people who recommend this book are suffering with a bad case of the Emperors New Clothes.

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Rating: - I honestly didn't understand the praise....
So I read it again. As such it's the only book I didn't enjoy first time round (as a sixteen year old) which I have ever reread. Rereading as a thirty year old did not change my opinion.

The book has nothing of interest to say. The inane ramblings and tirades of a cynical and bitter little rich kid do not a good novel make. Holden doesn't appear to learn anything over the course of his journey and all I learnt over the course of 200 nauseating pages was that not all "classics" of literature ... Read More

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