حالا ببینید ناتور(ناطور) دشت چگونه نام‌گذاری شده، عمق معنای آن کجاست؟ به این خاطر گفتگویی انجام دادم با افشین رفاعت داستان نویس جوان‌مان که در واشنگتن به دنیا آمده و آنجا آرشیتکت شده و در فضا و هوای نیویورک به فارسی داستان می‌نویسد. ناتور دشت یعنی نگهبان دشت. از افشین رفاعت می‌خواهم کمی راجع به ناتور دشت حرف بزند و بگوید چه دریافتی از این نام دارد:
با سلام خدمت شنوندگان رادیو زمانه. من به طور خیلی خلاصه در این مدت کوتاه خدمت‌تان عرض می‌کنم کتابی رسید به دستم به نام "ناتور دشت" که توسط آقای احمد کریمی قبل از انقلاب ترجمه شده و مجددا توسط انتشارات ققنوس تجدید چاپ شده است. وقتی به مشخصات کتاب نگاه کردم متوجه شدم که کتاب در حقیقت ترجمه کتاب "کچر این د رای" به انگلیسی اثر مشهور سلینجر است، اما هیچ ارتباطی نتوانستم بین عنوان کتاب و ترجمه کتاب به فارسی پیدا کنم. وقتی که کتاب را همزمان به فارسی و انگلیسی می‌خواندم برایم سوال بود که "کچر این د رای" به انگلیسی یعنی چی و به چه صورت می‌توان عنوان کتاب را ترجمه کرد. با توجه به این که شخصیت داستان در متن داستان اشاره می‌کند که می‌خواهد مراقب مزرعه چاودار باشد {که در حقیقت منظور از مزرعه همان دشت است} و یا حتی اسم کتاب به صورت اشتباه خواندن از سطر یکی از شعرهای رابرت برنز گرفته شده است اما باز هم نامفهوم باقی می‌ماند. تا اینکه در یکی از جلسه‌های ادبی که با چند تن از دوستان و استادان دانشگاه نیویورک داریم این بحث را به میان کشیدم که "کچر این د رای" یعنی چه؟ برای یک آمریکایی چه مفهومی دارد و یا حتی برای یک خواننده‌ی خارجی که کتاب را به زبان دیگری می‌خواند؟ چون در انگلیسی هم اگر لغت به لغت، عنوان کتاب را ترجمه کنیم واقعا معنی‌اش همان "گیرنده در چاودار" است و همانطور که عرض کردم این چه معنی و مفهومی می‌تواند داشته باشد؟
یکی از اساتید که از مطرح کردن این مسئله بسیار خوشحال شده بود و در این مورد تحقیق کرده بود بحث را خیلی استادانه باز کرد و شکافت و گفت: "سلینجر از عنوان کتاب استفاده متافوریکال یا استعاره‌ای کرده و در حقیقت "کچر این د رای" یک استعاره است. چرا که در زمان قدیم وقتی "رای" یا همان گندم سیاه یا چاودار را برداشت و پراسس می‌کردند دستگاه‌ها آنقدر مدرن و پیشرفته نبود و همیشه شخصی می‌ایستاد با سبد یا با دستاری دور کمرش که دانه‌هایی را که از ماشین به بیرون پرتاب می‌شود، بگیرد و دوباره به ماشین برگرداند که دوباره پراسس بشود و برای تهیه فراورده‌ مورد استفاده قرار بگیرد. فراورده‌ای که می‌تواند نان، سریال، آبجو، ودکا و یا ویسکی باشد پس "کچر" یا "گیرنده" از هدر رفتن دانه‌ها جلوگیری می‌کرده و دو مرتبه دانه‌های رها شده را به ماشین بر می‌گردانده و در حقیقت این استعاره‌ای است برای نگهبانی کردن از این دانه‌ها، دانه‌هایی که می‌توانند بچه‌هایی باشند که دارند هر لحظه به لبه‌ی پرتگاه یا صخره نزدیک می‌شوند، بچه‌هایی که در دشت مشغول بازی هستند. این همان نگهبان دشت است." استاد نتیجه گیری کرد که ترجمه کتاب با خلاقیت و مهارت بسیار زیادی انجام گرفته و باید به این مترجم با این انتخاب درست و صحیحش آفرین گفت. صفحات 142 و 143 کتاب این سو و آن سوی متن. کارگاه داستان نویسی عباس معروفی در رادیو زمانه. گردآوری و تنظیم حمیدرضا سلیمانی. 166 صفحه

Holden Caulfield is a character many, many people hate. And trust me, I get it. He's a posturing hypocrite. He's a dick. I wanted to hit him in the face for at least a hundred pages. We know this. But he's a character that, for some strange reason, resonates with thousands of people.

Why?

Well, simply put, it's because he's written like this on purpose. But I think that doesn't quite get to the heart of it. Holden is a fifteen-year-old kid on the verge of an emotional breakdown. He's an asshole. He's a liar. He's a hypocrite.

And he's also... really relatable.

See, as a preteen, I struggled with severe emotional issues. I had depression and anxiety, although I didn't know it yet. I was going through major emotional issues with my parents, ones far worse than teen angst. I was on the lowest rung of the social pole at school.

And God, I was an asshole. I was whiny and I was a hypocrite. I knew it, too, and I cried myself to sleep thinking about it. In the daylight, I told myself everyone else was terrible and that's why my world was falling apart. I was just as hypocritical and torn up inside as Holden is.

Holden is an asshole, granted. But he is an asshole that it's hard not to relate to.

So all this is to say that I completely understand why so many hated this book. But it resonates with me, and with so many people I know, for the exact reason that it will be polarizing.

This is the kind of book that's going to be incredibly divisive. This is the kind of book that should maybe be taught by a teacher who loves it (thanks, 9th grade English teacher who hated me.) And this is the kind of book that sticks in my head, a year after I first read it.

VERDICT: I really do recommend this, even knowing at least half its readership will despise it. It's truly worth the read.

In my hand I hold $5.
I will give it to anyone who can explain the plot of this book (or why there is no plot) and make me understand why the hell people think it's so amazing.

There’s been so much goddam bullshit written about this book, you can’t cut through it with a chainsaw. I’m not kidding. I expected not to like this book and all, because I’d heard so many phonies go on and on about it. It made me feel like jumping through a window on the 81st floor, if you want to know the truth. But it killed me. It really did.
tt
Well, that’s enough of that.
tt
Really, after putting down The Catcher in the Rye, I can’t help but think there has been some sort of terrible misunderstanding. The level of discussion surrounding this book (apart from conspiracy theories) too often amounts to a petty popularity contest for Holden Caulfield, where people argue about whether he was or wasn’t a swell guy.
tt
But here’s what we’re missing. When a character is so lifelike, so round, and so memorable that the question of your liking him is so pressing, the author has already succeeded. Salinger has performed that minor miracle that so often passes under our noses, unnoticed. A miracle that only the greatest fiction writers are able to accomplish: creating a fully fledged human being from pen, ink, and paper.
tt
Like him or not, Holden sticks with you. He has a definite personality, a unique perspective. Are we to be so narrow-minded that we will put down a book just because we wouldn’t want to be friends with the main character? I hope not. In fact, you know who judges books by that very standard? Holden Caulfield:

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

I think it's great that this has become one of the book's most popular quotes. The irony is delicious. So, if you don’t like The Catcher in the Rye because you don’t like Holden, you should take a good hard look at yourself. But on the other hand, if you think Holden totally ‘gets’ you, that you aspire to his intellectual depth and philosophy of life, stay the hell away from me. I mean it.
tt
Both sides completely miss the point of this book. Holden is a deeply flawed person, whose search for authenticity makes him more of a phony than any of the people he criticizes. Although he constantly voices his strong opinions about the world, he is incurably ignorant. More than that, he is completely unable to please himself. He misses the people who piss him off, and when he calls up the people he misses, they piss him off. It’s an endless cycle. All of his criticisms of the outside world are bitter and thoughtless, and all of his criticisms of himself are superficial.
tt
And, boy, is this book American. This book is more American than getting drone-striked with a giant, flaming apple pie. It almost felt like I was bleeding red, white, and blue blood from my eyeballs.

By way of illustration, allow me go through some American literature, just so you can hear the echoes of our accent through the ages. I’ll start with the great leviathan at the beginning, Moby Dick:

Call me Ismael. Some years ago—never mind how long—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

And now for Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby:

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my head ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had."

Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises:

Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn:

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he strectched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing.

And finally Salinger’s book:

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.

First of all, I find it interesting that so many of our classic books are first-person narratives. But let us explore the themes.
tt
I think that The Catcher in the Rye is the direct descendent of Huckleberry Finn. Huck and Holden are about the same age. Both are disaffected youths that go on an adventure. Both are, like Ismael, orphans, adrift on a piece of rubbish. But in terms of personality, the two couldn’t be more different. Though Huck is poor and lowly, he is constitutionally jolly, incapable of being depressed or angry. Holden, of course, is the reverse, even though Holden is from a wealthy family. Huck does not judge. Even when he sees the most transparent, despicable swindlers, he does not condemn. Holden will damn you to hell just for clipping your nails.
tt
That’s where the second ingredient comes in, Hemmingway’s Jake Barnes. Although the two books are in many ways different, The Catcher in the Rye and The Sun also Rises explore almost identical thematic territory: disaffection, identity crisis, self-conciousness, alienation, impotence, hopelessness. Jake Barnes got his bits blown off in the war; Holden invites a prostitute to his room and chickens out. Both characters drift from person to person, getting sick of one, and then substituting another, just to repeat the process. Both idealize the pure and genuine. For Barnes (and Hemmingway) it was nature; for Holden it was childhood. But the impulse is the same—something opposed to the bullshit of normal life.
tt
So, there you have it. Marry the naiveté of Huck Finn with the despair of Jake Burnes, and you get Holden Caulfield—the adolescent in all of us. The juvenile impulse that allows us to take ourselves seriously enough to identify with war veterans in Hemmingway’s novels when we're little boys. The melodramatic sense that we are the protagonists in the world’s story, and everyone else is just an extra. The unshakable conviction that, deep down, we know what’s wrong with the world, and are above it. I hope we grow out of it.
tt
That’s why I don’t think this book should be assigned to high school students. At Holden’s age, you can’t understand it. You’re in it. If you like or dislike Holden, it’s for all the wrong reasons, and you end up with the palaver that currently surrounds this book.
tt
My opinion? It’s a marvelous novel, and Salinger is a master of the craft. It is a piece of art, not a religious text. So treat it like one. Read, and enjoy. And perhaps even reflect. But maybe the best thing we can do is to internalize the advice in the beginning of The Great Gatsby, and hold off on our judgments—either of Holden or anyone else. Or else you might end up as miserable as he is.

A SPOILER ALERT TO SOME DEGREE.
It’s somewhat difficult to comment on a book that it’s so well-known and analysed, not only for its content but also for its controversy.
Flipping through the GRs reviews, both favourable and unfavourable, it’s clear it remains controversial to this day. That intrigues me.
Firstly, I thank my buddy reader, Marge Moen, for suggesting this novel. It’s been on my radar for decades. I’m one of a few who never got to read it in school. From comments, it sounds like it was standard reading in America, despite flipping from best-seller to periodic censorship.
I’m grateful to read it as an adult. I’m not sure I would have survived it as a teenager, although it’s from a teenager’s perspective – or is it?
It took me a while to warm to the first-person narrative of Holden Caulfield, the troubled teenager relaying his angst, his disjointed thoughts, contradictions, his constant grumbling and criticism of the phonies and others he meets in various New York settings. This is all wrapped up in his psychological decline. A potential dreadful ending to all his dejection, annoyance and desperation had me worried.
When my buddy reader messaged that Holden was an ‘unreliable narrator’, everything seemed to fit into place, made more sense. His narration also became more rhythmic.
It's reported Salinger suffered post-WWII PTSD and that he was writing ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ whilst enlisted. Is it a war novel disguised as a coming-of-age story? This has been theorised.
I’ve learned some New York vernacular of the times, for example ‘snowing’, which means to deceive or win over someone by flattery. There’s a passage of Holden carrying around a snowball. What does the reader make of this?
Although incorrectly quoted from Robert Burn’s ‘Comin’ Through the Rye’, Holden sees himself as saving children before they fall off a cliff. Is that him saying he’s saving them (and himself) from phony adulthood? Can be as simple as that?
This novel raises questions and the protagonist stays with you long after finishing it. Signs of a successful novel!
There are many insightful and intelligent reviews on GRs, really good stuff, so I’ll leave mine there.

Worst, Book, Ever.

For reals. I read this short "book" twice and wrote a couple of papers on it, even comparing it unfavorably to Little Women. I hated Little Women and I would still rate it higher than J.D. Salinger's crap-fest.

My reasoning for such a poor rating is simple: Catcher in the Rye has no beginning, middle, or end. Instead of a story it is a clumsy glimpse into the worthless life of the apathetic main character Holden Caulfield who leaves no mark and accomplishes nothing of value.

I can't believe it when anyone says that they sympathize with Caulfield. That he "speaks the things which they can't". Every time I hear someone gushing about Catcher in the Rye and it's nonsensical ramblings a little part of me dies.

Every time someone finishes this book and puts it down thoughtfully, tilting their head in mock understanding as they furrow their childish brows, Satan laughs and high fives J.D. Salinger amidst Hell's furious flames.

When Catcher in the Rye is read aloud backwards from finish to start, it opens up an extra-dimensional portal where Lovecraftian horrors spew endlessly into our peaceful world. When it's read aloud forwards from start to finish, people fall asleep from boredom.

Your evil twin loves Catcher in the Rye and twirls his or her's nefarious pencil thin mustache while reading it. They laugh their evil doppleganger laugh while thinking of evil ways to ruin your life thanks to J.D. Salinger.

In his early days, Salinger pulled a thorn out of a witch's foot who granted him a wish, which was to write the great American novel. Unfortunately, the witch's foul magicks were encapsulated in the book, Catcher in the Rye and Salinger hung himself in shame immediately after it's publishing.

I could literally go on and on for days like this. This book is awful and if you like it you're a putz.

I'm sorry... it's just... I'm sorry.

(I learned to swear after reading the book, please excuse my words).

So there comes the day when you feel everything around you is a big shit, when you feel fucking fed up and everyone sounds so flashy and phony, and all you want to do is to go away to somewhere so far away, where you build a small cottage for yourself and live simply till the end of your life. That's when you should read The Catcher in the Rye. This teenage chap named Holden will sit with you for a while, smoke a cigarette and drink a shot, and talk about how the society is so much into fame and money, and how everyone just forget the values of life, and share with you the desire to run away.

And then you hear his little stories about his younger brother Allie's baseball glove, and his smart and thoughtful sister Phoebe, and his dream to be a catcher in the rye to save children from falling down the cliff. And then you know that you're not alone, that life still has beautiful things to listen to, that you still have the reasons to live, and fight for what you believe.

Nếu có một ngày nào đó bạn chán đời bỏ mẹ, và bạn thấy mọi người xung quanh bạn giả tạo và bộ tịch bỏ mẹ, từ lão đồng nghiệp, đến mấy đứa nhân viên bán hàng, đến cái thằng cha dẫn chương trình trên ti vi. Và tất cả những gì bạn muốn làm là bỏ đi đâu đó thật xa, trong rừng sâu hay trên núi cao, xây một cái chòi và sống một mình trên đó suốt đời. Thì đó là lúc bạn nên đọc Bắt trẻ đồng xanh. Cái gã thanh niên mười bảy tuổi tên Holden này sẽ ngồi với bạn, hút với bạn một điếu thuốc và uống với bạn một ly. Rồi chửi cái xã hội hiện tại đã quá coi trọng đồng tiền và danh tiếng ra sao. Rồi kể cho bạn nghe những câu chuyện nhỏ nhặt về chiếc găng tay bóng chày của em Allie, hay về cô bé Phoebe thông minh và nhạy cảm em út của gã. Rồi gã kể về những chuyện mà hắn thích nhất đời, những chuyện nhảm nhí chẳng ra đâu vào đâu, mà đột nhiên làm bạn thấy cảm động ghê gớm. Vì bạn nhận ra chính mình trong hắn, trong nỗi chán chường rầu rĩ về cuộc đời, về một thời hoang mang chẳng biết mình sẽ đi đâu làm gì, và tâm trạng lạc loài cô độc giữa biển người ồn ã chẳng ai hiểu mình.

Và rồi bạn biết mình không cô đơn, bạn biết mình không chỉ có một mình với những suy nghĩ điên khùng và lạ lùng. Và bạn biết rằng đằng sau cái vẻ ngoài chửi tục thành thần, nốc rượu rít thuốc như điên và cách cư xử bốc đồng của hắn, là một trái tim nhạy cảm và một cái đầu thông minh, một kẻ đã nhận ra chân giá trị của cuộc sống. Và từ cuộc trò chuyện với Holden, bạn lại thấy mình muốn sống, sống khiêm nhường vì một sự nghiệp, vì điều bạn tin tưởng, vì những gì tốt đẹp vẫn tồn tại trên thế gian này.

a lot of people say this book sucks because holden is annoying and complains all the time, but that's actually why it's good.

nothing could be more relatable.

and also it's the story of a heartbreakingly empathetic CHILD coping with coming of age and the death of his brother while being betrayed by every authority figure and person he trusts, and his main takeaway is still loving his sister and appreciating the world around him and missing everyone he's met.

what book did these people read???

part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago

----------------
reread updates

reading this on the train so no one talks to me

One of the most overrated, hyper drivel YA classics ever

See, it was published in 1951 by a young (one trick pony?) author
who wrote his higher rated (better?, see ratings) works after The Catcher. And who was, as so many authors of the time, first primarily specialized in short stories and, gosh, The Catcher exactly is a short story collection with

A protagonist staggering from one boring episode to the next
Because there is no real freaking action, antagonists except everything the protagonist is interacting with, and no real sense except a teenager rebelling against everything. This all would be fine and entertaining, if there

Would be any wit, more complex characters, and less introspective fringe philosophy of a first person narrator
Who has some controversial thoughts and feelings about life and sexuality. It did a good job at fighting conservative intolerance to get some more open, progressive thinking out into the world, but it just hasn´t the quality and depth needed to be a universal milestone of literature. For young readers of the 20th century, it might have been a mind opening, controversial read that understood them, but

It didn´t age well
Except for the important message of not trying to proselytize kids and teens for outdated ideologies and faith stigmatizing anything kinky, what´s left? Well, depressingly long periods of boredom, because the novel just doesn´t deliver and Salinger is so egocentric to absolutely not care about the millennia old rules of good storytelling and creative writing. One has to suffer with the protagonist who exactly delivers nothing except of some outrageous actions. Other authors like Roald Dahl, Mark Twain, etc. wrote funny and deep novels with real plots that subtly and ironically integrated different topics, issues, and controversies in their work and were loved by audiences of all ages because they were well written. Or the even bigger load of modern YA authors who write dystopian novels in the Orwellian and Huxleyian tradition. But not funny, boring, first person drivel about the stereotypical teenage rebellion against a restrictive, bigoted system? Not so much,

Because it bores the heck out of the readers
I forced myself to finish this overhyped story idea collection and couldn´t even detect some sophisticated message behind the seemingly superficial plot. And what always annoys me the most is that each country around the world has similar patriotic tendencies to pick average and bad books and declare them the gold standard because the author is a proud author citizen. As good as the intentions were and as important the works might have been in creating a more open and tolerant society, today they are the main reason why many young people, tortured with the modified, individualized trash of each big culture and country, hate reading after school. Because they think that reading is associated with boredom and having to find deeper meanings where there are none.

Subjectivity overkill
And it seems that, because of the weaknesses, The Catcher has become a completely subjective, absolutely not universally acclaimed great, experience, depending on the question of if one likes or dislikes the protagonist. Good literature shouldn´t depend on that single factor.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

5.0 stars. I LOVE IT when I go into a book with low expectations and it ends up knocking me on my ass. Admittedly, this is tougher to do with "classics" but it certainly happened in this case. I remember first reading this in school (like many of us) and not thinking it was anything special. However, having first read it almost 25 years ago, I knew I had to read it again before I could feel justified in actually reviewing it. Of course, I didn’t hold out much hope that my feelings would change and was expecting a fairly painful reading experiece.

In fact, as I started reading, I was already thinking about what my amazingly insightful, completely “isn’t it cool to bash on the classics” 1 star review was going to focus on. I thought maybe I could bag on the less than spectacular prose used by Salinger (making myself feel really smart in the process). Or maybe I could take some jabs at the less than exciting narrative pacing (and throw in a few references to "watching paint dry").

In the end, I thought my most likely avenue for attacking reviewing this anthem of teen angst was that it was utterly yawn inspiringno longer relevant today because of the GLUT of teen angst that the recent generations have been exposed to ad nauseam growing up. I mean we live in a time in which teen angst is EVERYWHERE and even has its own sub-genre label now. You can find it in:

MUSIC.........
n  n
.
.
.
MOVIES........
n  n
.
.
.
AND EVEN THE SHITTY POPULAR LITERATURE*** OF OUR TIMES...
n  n
*** Literature is a serious stretch, but I must admit that these books do IN FACT fill me with ANGST!!!
.
.
.
So what happened to all of the preconceived notions I had before I starting reading this book?
n  n

Instead, I found myself completely drawn into the rich, nuanced story of Holden Caulfield. I found myself empathizing with Caulfield almost from the beginning (something I did not expect to do). His "annoying", "pseudo rebellious" and "just don't care" exterior were so obviously manufactured and so patently hiding a seriously sad and lost boy that I was transfixed on finding the real Holden Caulfield.

Despite the book being written "in Holden's own words" the reader was still able to discern that Holden's surface response to a situation was hiding a much deeper, emotional resposne. For Salinger to be able to infuse that kind of nuance into the sparse prose of Caulfield’s narrative was nothing short of brilliant in my opinion.

Caulfied is lazy. He is stubborn. He is immature. He is unfocused. He is untruthful. He is dangerously short-sighted and he is lost in his own world or unrealistic expectations. Sounds like that could certainly be a not unsubstantial portion of the male 16 year old population.

However, after reading this book, I learned a few other things about Holden that I though were fascinating and that are not as often discussed:

1.tHe is desperately lonely (he even goes so far as ask his cab drivers to join him for a drink);
2.tHe is generous with his time and his things (he writes an essay for his roommate despite being upset with him and even lets him borrow his jacket);
3.tHe is extremely sensitive and longs for an emotional (rather than just a physical) commitment (he mentions several times his need to “be in love” in order to be physical and his experience with the prostitute certainly bears this out);
4.tHe is intelligent (despite being lazy and unfocused, Holden displays great insight and intelligence regarding books he has read and displays at the museum); and
5.tDespite being unable to process it correctly, he is full of compassion and has a deep capacity for love, which he shows most notably for his sister (this was one of the most powerful parts of the story for me as it was Holden’s desire to avoid hurting Phoebe that keeps him from running away at the end of the book).

Taking all of the good and the bad together, I was left with the feeling that Holden is an adolescent on the cusp of adulthood who is achingly afraid of the loss of his childhood and the responsibility and commitment that he sees as required to make it in the “adult” world. He is compassionate, intelligent and deeply emotional and yet is unable (or unwilling) to focus that energy on those steps that he sees as leading him away from his “happy memories of childhood” and closer to the “scary world of the adult.”

I think this is superbly shown in Holden's expressed dream of wanting to being the “Catcher in the Rye.” Quick side note: I had no idea what the title to the book referred to until I just read the book. Here is a person so afraid of growing up and so averse to giving into the pain and sadness that he sees as the result of becoming an adult that he wants nothing more than to spend his life protecting others from losing the innocence of childhood. Big, crazy, “I want to save the world” dreams are a wonderful part of childhood and it is a shame that such ideas and beliefs are too often destroyed under the barrage of “you really need to grow up” rather than having such dreams transitioned and re-focused into daring the improbable within the world of the possible.

A great and moving reading experience and one that I give my HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!

I read this book for the first time in the 8th grade. I had to get my mom to sign a permission slip because of the cursing. Before I began reading, I had so many expectations. Back then, I read Seventeen Magazine, and back then, Seventeen Magazine ran brainy features about books and poetry. There was one feature where they asked people what book changed their lives, and something like more than half said Catcher in the Rye. I think there might have been some celebrity comments in there, too. At any rate, it was a ringing endorsement.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I hated it. Not only did I hate Holden, but I hated everything about the novel. There was nothing I enjoyed. I did my book report where I confessed my hatred (which led my teacher to confess that she did, too), but I couldn't let it go. I honestly felt that my loathing of a novel that so many others found "life-changing" indicated some deep and horrible flaw. I felt like hating Catcher in the Rye was my dirty little secret.

Time passed, and my self-loathing mellowed. I began to think that perhaps I'd come at it too young, so after my first year of college, I decided to re-read it, go at it with fresh eyes, and see if my opinion had changed.

Here's the thing: it hasn't. I get it. I get that Holden is supposed to be loathsome. I get that he is the hypocrite he hates. I get that almost all teenagers go through the kind of thinking he experiences. I get it. I do. I just don't like it.

Oh, and I'm not ashamed anymore.

My theory as to this book's unusually polarizing nature: either you identify with Holden Caulfield or you don't.

Those who see themselves (either as they were or, God help them, as they are) in Holden see a misunderstood warrior-poet, fighting the good fight against a hypocritical and unfeeling world; they see in Salinger a genius because he gets it, and he gets them.

Those of us who don't relate to Holden see in him a self-absorbed whiner, and in Salinger, a one-trick-pony who lucked into performing his trick at a time when some large fraction of America happened to be in the right collective frame of mind to perceive this boring twaddle as subversive and meaningful.