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The Catcher in the Rye Mass market paperbound - 1991
by J. D. Salinger
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About this book
Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye has become a common part of high school and college curricula throughout the English-speaking world and has been translated into all major languages. Since its publication with a $3.00 sticker, it has reportedly sold more than 65 million copies. The novel's antihero, Holden Caulfield, has become a cultural icon for teenage rebellion. Due to its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and teenage angst, it has frequently been met with censorship challenges in the United States making it one of the most challenged books of the 20th century.
Summary
Anyone who has read J.D. Salinger's New Yorker stories, particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man, and For Esme--With Love and Squalor, will not be surprised by the fact that his first novel is full of children. The hero-narrator of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices--but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.
Reader reviews for The Catcher in the Rye
Review summary
Reactions to the novel are sharply divided. Admirers praise its nuanced, funny, and poignant portrait of adolescent grief, loneliness, and resistance to adult phoniness, noting subtle craft, cultural resonance, and even readings that highlight trauma and predation. Detractors condemn the aimless plot, repetitive slang, and what they see as an insufferable, hypocritical narrator, while some call out dated sexist and homophobic elements and label the book overrated. Many report that their view shifts with age or rereading—swinging from teenage devotion to adult skepticism, or the reverse. Its stature endures, but enjoyment hinges on one’s tolerance for Holden and appetite for character-driven introspection.
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From the publisher
First edition identification
Catcher in the Rye was published in simple black cloth with gilt spine lettering and decorative devices. As is the custom for Little, Brown, first editions are so stated on the copyright page. The most important point of issue regards the jacket, for which the first state has a photographer credit for Lotte Jacobi under the picture of Salinger and lacks any statement about book of the month club on the front jacket flap.
Details
- Title The Catcher in the Rye
- Author J. D. Salinger
- Binding Mass Market Paperbound
- Edition [ Edition: Repri
- Pages 240
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Little Brown and Company, Boston, Massachusetts, U.s.a.
- Publication date 1991-05-01
- ISBN 9780316769488 / 0316769487
- Weight 0.25 lbs (0.11 kg)
- Dimensions 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.8 in (17.02 x 10.41 x 2.03 cm)
- Reading level 790
-
Themes
- Catalog Heading: Classics
- Cultural Region: Mid-Atlantic
- Cultural Region: Northeast U.S.
- Curriculum Strand: Language Arts/Literature
- Geographic Orientation: New York
- Locality: New York, N.Y.
- Topical: Coming of Age
- Category Literature - Classics / Criticism
- Library of Congress subjects New York (N.Y.), Bildungsromans
- Library of Congress Catalogue Number 51004713
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
Media reviews
Citations
- Booklist, 02/15/1992, Page 1101
- Entertainment Weekly, 02/12/2010, Page 29
- New York Times Book Review, 03/08/2009, Page 23
- Newsweek, 09/17/2007, Page 18
- People Weekly, 02/15/2010, Page 59
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