50 books to read before you die discussion

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is the 13th book from our list of 50 Books to Read Before You Die, and our group read for March 2018. We previously discussed it in January of 2015, here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I'm just going to hide this whole thing, I don't want to spoil the book for anybody.

(view spoiler)[
I didn't like Holden at all-- he made me feel very irritated and impatient with him, but I did feel very sorry for him. He is obviously very depressed over the loss of his brother, and he acts up like a child desperate for attention. Maybe his parents kind of shut down after Allie died. His negative outlook got very grating after a while.

I read that Salinger started writing the book when he was a soldier in WWII, and he was hospitalized for depression when he got home. Holden may be a manifestation of his PTSD.

Near the end of the book, we learn the meaning of the title, where Holden wants to be "the catcher in the rye" who saves all those little kids from falling over the cliff to their deaths. I'm no psychiatrist, but I would think that this reveals some anxiety, maybe even survivor's guilt, over his brother's death. It is also the only time in the whole novel that I find him to be truly likeable. It's as if we are given a peek under his cloud of gloom and see the real person.

The really strange thing about Catcher in the Rye is its association with a number of serial killers and conspiracy theories, such as parts of the book being written to trigger murderous sleeper agents. (The fact that chapters 3-7 were originally a short story called 'The Boy in the People Shooting Hat' probably doesn't help much.) This is a link to one of the articles, it's pretty bizarre:
https://morcanbooksandfilms.com/2014/...

(hide spoiler)]

Thank you Suki for that excellent expression of your thoughts. (I really didn't think it was a spoiler). I had quite a different take on this book.
If yours needs a spoiler, I guess mine does too. This is what I wrote about The Catcher in the Rye three years ago:
(view spoiler)[So, I just read The Catcher in the Rye again. I guess a lot of people read this book in high school, as a reading assignment. I did, and I liked it. It has stayed with me, in more than just a vague way the way so many books do, for all my life. There were a few scenes that I remembered in some detail. It is this affect it has on its readers, who read it in high school, that makes it such a classic, I expect. I guess it's still on assigned reading lists.

Now that I have read it again, in my geezerhood, I think I see the appeal. It's a young adult novel, written from a high school junior's point of view. The first time I read it, I was Holden Caulfield's age; I identified with him. The language may be a bit dated, (there weren't any lol's or OMGs) but from my aged point of view, Salinger nailed it. Holden's manner of speaking, his expressive inarticulation, is what gives The Catcher in the Rye its appeal. I think it is not such an easy thing to do, to write that way. I've read my share of first person YA novels; none, that I can think of, comes close to catching the adolescent attitude, angst and nonchalance, as Salinger did. (hide spoiler)]

I wonder if The Catcher in the Rye is still on high school assigned reading lists? I know that it has been banned in a number of places. I guess that makes it controversial.

Buck wrote: "Thank you Suki for that excellent expression of your thoughts. (I really didn't think it was a spoiler). I had quite a different take on this book.
If yours needs a spoiler, I guess mine does too. ..."

I love the phrase "expressive inarticulation". I think that a lot of my frustration with Holden is that I see a lot of my young, embarassing self there. :) I believe that my feeling for the book would be a lot different if I had read it then; this is my first time reading it at age 54.

Taken as a YA novel, Catcher is excellent by comparison. I have read a number of YA novels that sounded really intriguing, but were ultimately a let-down because the characters were as expressive as cardboard.

After reading The Catcher in the Rye in high school, I read another book by J. D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey. I disliked it and never read any more Salinger. A couple of days ago, in a facebook challenge, a friend listed Franny and Zooey as one of her 7 all-time favorite books. Different strokes...

Buck wrote: "After reading The Catcher in the Rye in high school, I read another book by J. D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey. I disliked it and never read any more Salinger. A couple of days ago, in a..."

Yes, sometimes you read a review of a book that is so different from your experience of it that you almost wonder if you've both read the same book.

Buck wrote: "After reading The Catcher in the Rye in high school, I read another book by J. D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey. I disliked it and never read any more Salinger. A couple of days ago, in a..."

I read "Catcher in the Rye" as a young woman and my overall reaction was He's got a lot to say about other people and fairly bold in expressing himself. Holden was 'coming of age,' I guess and it could be expected. "Franny and Zooey" ended up being a DNF for me. I was much older and at that point in my life I usually finished everything I read out of a sense of Bookworm Duty. These days, there's absolutely none of that. I'm too old for it. I have to save my energy for things like climbing stairs, brushing my hair and eating dinner. ;>)

I like that phrase, "Bookworm Duty." As reluctant assistant moderator of this group, I suffer from that affliction.

Read this and realized that for once I was reading something that the group was reading. It was super good and I like how it portrays Holden’s emotions. Real good book

Buck wrote: "I like that phrase, "Bookworm Duty." As reluctant assistant moderator of this group, I suffer from that affliction."

Buck, if there's a 12-step group for Bookworms, I never found it. Ha!

Here's the review I wrote ages ago on The Catcher in the Rye: http://jeffreycscott.com/the-catcher-.... And here's some of my "extra" thoughts...

I don't think Salinger meant it as a YA novel; I think of The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton when I think of YA novels from the same era. The Outsiders focuses on teenage rebellion, too, but it's actually meant for kids. I think Salinger wrote this as a way of explaining the isolated mind of a teenager to adults, not to other teenagers.

That's how I approached it. I read it after college, and if I had been reading it in high school English I think I would have related more to Holden. As it is, he's not likable. If I met him in real life we wouldn't be pals. But to study him as a character is something different - I really enjoyed watching him on his journey and hoped he could find something to believe in or dedicate himself to, which could break up his isolation. I was able to relate to the position he was in by the end of the story - his internal need to save younger children from the dangers of the world hit me very personally.

It makes me think of my younger brother, who lost a friend to suicide when he was in middle school; he never stops thinking about it, even 7 years later, and while he can be very isolated, angry, judgmental, and distrustful, he is also very gentle with children and babies and is incredibly compassionate toward people who are different. I think of him whenever I think of Holden's journey.

I could take or leave the violence. The People Hunting Hat and the swearing...that's gloss. That's Salinger painting a portrait of the rebellious teenager, necessary only for getting his message across and nothing more.

On one final note, I realized that Holden's journey is based closely on The Odyssey, and even more closely on Ulysses by James Joyce (also on the list). I believe most of the people here can't stand Ulysses, but it happens to be one of my absolute favorites, so Catcher won some brownie points in my book just for that!

Thank you for your cogent thoughts, Jeffrey.
I read Ulysses after having read The Catcher in the Rye and didn't put the two together. I admire you for loving Ulysses. I wish I had.

Buck wrote: "Thank you for your cogent thoughts, Jeffrey.
I read Ulysses after having read The Catcher in the Rye and didn't put the two together. I admire you for loving Ulysses. I wish I had."

I don't hold it against you! For all it's praise I rarely meet people that like it. :)

When i first read this book i was hugely disappointed. How could this be a "classic". I nearly chunked it in the garbage.
(view spoiler)[

I changed my mind when a teenager i asked said he would read it again. I thought i must have missed something. I slogged through the book again. Right at the end there is a carousel that is playing the song"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". If you are not familiar with this song i invite you to listen to it. It is not a happy song.

In fact it was recorded at Abby Road during the war to play to the Germans at the end of the war.

Salinger had a rough assignment during the war! I think that The Catcher in the Rye is an allegory to tell us about War and Power.

Their is so much in The Catcher that it took Salinger 10 years to write it.

Hint, the first paragraph mentionsDavid Copperfield David Copperfield. Read the first page of that book and you will learn something about Holden Caulfield!

Now investigate little further. Read about the history of Holden. A car factory in Australia. Why were they tooling up to make war machines in 1931, way before Hitler came to power.

Oh yeah, who bought the Holden factory. Interesting that every car mentioned in The Catcher is by this car manufacturer, except one. Can you remember which one and what country that car was from.

There are references to books and movies in The Catcher. You must read and watch them all if you are going to piece the "code" together. Why did Salinger have to write a book about ww1 and WW2 (and there is even some references to the civil war) in code?

Because it was a popular war and the victors get to write the history, but Salinger saw a different side to war. Truth is short change in war.

What is also interesting is that Salinger went to Poland for his family business interest before the war. What was he doing?

Read The 39 Steps
Pheobe watched the movie 10 times. Both the movie and the book are reference in The Catcher (like how he got a good goodbye)

Or just for fun read Romeo and Juliet from Holden's point of view. Reason everything through the filter of WW1 and WW2.

But the most frustrating thing was the amount of time he spent talking about ducks. Give me a break. Went through the whole book looking for an explanation....
Then i Google ed

WW2 ducks

Go ahead read about it....who made them. Starting to see the point of the book? Brilliant!

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/... (hide spoiler)]

Jeffrey wrote: "could take or leave the violence. The People Hunting Hat and the swearing...that's gloss. That's Salinger painting a portrait of the rebellious teenager, necessary only for getting his message across and nothing more...."

The People Hunting Hat ...
That section made sense to me. After seeing this book in light of the two wars and references to classics or classic films, music etc. The literary reference here is Bambi

If you have only seen the movie and never read the book you have no idea what Bambi is about.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi...
"With World War II looming, Max Schuster aided the Jewish Salten's flight from Nazi Germany and helped introduce him, and Bambi, to Walt Disney Productions.[4] Sidney Franklin, a producer and director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, purchased the film rights in 1933, initially desiring to make a live-action adaptation of the work.[5] Deciding such a film would be too difficult to make, he sold the rights to Walt Disney in April 1937 in hopes of it being adapted into an animated film instead. Disney began working on the film immediately, intending it to be the company's second feature-length animated film and his first to be based on a specific, recent work.[32]

The original novel, written for an adult audience, was considered too "grim" and "somber" for the young audience Disney was targeting, and with the work required to adapt the novel, Disney put production on hold while it worked on several other works."

Bambi was "hugely popular" after its publication (1923 in English in 1929.),[17] becoming a "book-of-the-month" selection and selling 650,000 copies in the United States by 1942.[18] However, it was subsequently banned in Nazi Germany in 1936 as "political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe."[17] Many copies of the novel were burned, making original first editions rare and difficult to find.

How did Felix Salten know how the Jews were going to be treated when he wrote the book? Does it foreshadow the exodus to Palestine?

So why does Holden wear this hat and claim that it is a people shooting hat. Also all through the book he has the hat one way, as a catcher for baseball and the other way as a people shooting hat.

Hmm...
In light of WW2...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden

"Holden, formally known as General Motors Holden, is an Australian automobile importer and a former automobile manufacturer "

Every car except one mentioned in The Catcher is a GM car.

The one his brother, DB.

http://eoddata.com/stocklist/NYSE/D.htm

Who drove a Jaguar. A little English job. LOL.

Churchill, Hitler and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World

Think i am reading to much into this book don't you?
But Salinger sets this up in the first sentence, when he says this isn't a David Copperfield kind of story. (Which is why i can't understand why everyone interprets it as an teenage angst. He tells you he is not writing a biography.) But if you read the first page in David Copperfield you find out about Holden Caulfield. And you may believe, as i do that the whole angst that everyone always talks about, (which to me has always reminded me of the Emperor's New Clothes fairytale) is really a veil to hide what Salinger knew about the orchestration of WW2.

"Ducks"<\b>

one GM machine you may not have seen the first time you read The Catcher :

https://www.military.com/veteran-jobs...

Got to love this quote by Salinger:

J.D. Salinger > Quotes > Quotable Quote
Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused
“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”

― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

I think Salinger knew the value of "education." The school that Pheobe went to didn't afford her to jump over fences. Or get ahead.

So where is the literary reference for Pheobe?

I believe it is a reference to a short story by Theodore Dreiser called The Lost Pheobe. And this represents:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_...