Let me start by explaining that this is one of those books that has been on my "to read" list pretty much forever. It's on the American Classics list and we never read it in high school.
Like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", I had no idea what it was about, other than the main character's name - which, btw, is Holden Caulfield. I only knew that tidbit from the movie "The Good Girl", where Jake Gyllenhaal plays a young guy obsessed with the book and makes everyone call him Holden. "The Good Girl", for the record, is ten times better than "The Catcher in the Rye".
It's safe to say that I was pretty pumped going into this book. I don't know what I was expecting, but being an "American Classic", I guess I was hoping for some kind of deep plot, character development... something. The name led me to believe it would be Steinbeck-esque. Nope!
The book is essentially about a couple days in the life of an angsty teen flunkie back in the 50's or one of those similar post-prohibition pre-hippy decades. He flunks out of school and mopes around, drinking and trying to get laid while avoiding going home. He contemplates suicide a few times, along with some other random flights of fancy, until eventually, his little sister talks some sense into him. The end.
It's basically the literally version of Nirvana and Salinger is the Kurt Kobain of the written word.
While discussing my disappointment with a fellow bibliophile, I was told that when you're an angsty teen, you really connect with the book. It resonates with that lost rebellious part of you. I suppose, but if that's true, and "The Catcher in the Rye" makes the American Classics list for it, then I'm petitioning the addition of "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret." and everything else Judy Blume ever wrote.
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