Holden is the teenage mind in all its confusion, rebellion and irrationality, and in all its undefined hope for individual heroism.

If you work with teenagers, you eventually always end up asking yourself:

"WHY does s/he do that? It's not even helpful, realistic, smart, beneficial ..."

The answer is that the teenager is in a state of transition, moving from the relatively defined environment of childhood to the jungle of the adult world, and completely without tools to handle that journey. Using swearwords, trying different ways to tune out reality, not doing what one is supposed to do, those are all different methods of practicing the BIG SCARE. Growing up. Facing responsibility. Soon, soon, soon ... the teenager will have to earn money, make decisions, take care of others. And the weight is heavy on the young shoulders. Roaming the streets relaxes nerves. But still. There is an element of idealism in most teenagers' hearts. They don't usually want to fall into the traps of conventional evil. They want to change the world, make a difference. They are just struggling to come up with ideas how to do that, as their experience is limited. And they can't put their ideas into a wider context either. So being a catcher in the rye may make sense. It isn't necessarily the teenager's fault if nobody turns up where they wait to save lives, right? Teenage intentions are more often than not good. The results vary though.

And their verbal skills are developing in conjunction with their minds as well:

"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."

Teenage minds are indeed more poetry than prose: fractured, fragmented, emotional, in the moment, beautiful and fleeting. Luckily, some of them remember later and share, - for us teachers to enjoy when we think it is impossible to understand the monsters that all of a sudden show up at the end of Grade 7, replacing lovely and enthusiastic children over night!

I hope some of my students use the long summer to enter the beautiful arrangement Holden suggests and read this classic. Hope's that thing with feathers...

(Book 529 from 1001 Books) - The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye is a story by J. D. Salinger, first published in serial form in 1945-6 and as a novel in 1951. Story of Holden Caulfield with his idiosyncrasies, penetrating insight, confusion, sensitivity and negativism.

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.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران : «ناطور دشت»؛ «ناتور دشت»؛ نویسنده: جروم دیوید (جی.د.) سالینجر؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه آگوست سال 1982میلادی، بار دوم سال 2001میلادی و بار سوم ماه ژوئن سال 2005میلادی

عنوان: ناطور دشت؛ نویسنده: جروم دیوید (جی.د.) سالینجر؛ مترجم: احمد کریمی؛ تهران، فرانکلین، 1345؛ در 354ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، اشرفی، 1371؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، ققنوس، 1381؛ در 326ص؛ شابک 9643112543؛ چاپ چهارم 1385؛ چاپ پنجم تهران، علمی، فرهنگی، 1386؛ در 326ص؛ شابک 9789643112547؛ چاپ ششم 1387؛ چاپ هفتم 1388، هشتم 1389؛ سال 1393 ؛ چاپ دیگر: 1393؛ در 256ص؛ شابک 9786001215930؛ موضوع نوجوانان فراری - داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - سده 20م

عنوان: ناتور دشت؛ مترجم: محمد نجفی؛ تهران، نیلا، 1378، در 296ص؛ چاپ چهارم 1381؛ چاپ پنجم 1384 در 207ص؛ هفتم 1388؛ هشتم 1389؛ چاپ نهم 1393؛

داستان جوانی جسور و جستجوگر، در پی مفهوم زندگی، «هولدن کالفیلد» نوجوانی هفده ساله، که در آغاز رمان، در یک مرکز درمانی بستری است، و ظاهراً قصد دارد آن‌چه که پیش از رسیدن به مرکز درمانی را از سر گذرانده، برای کسی بازگو کند، همین ‌کار را هم می‌کند؛ رمان بر همین پایه شکل می‌گیرد؛ در زمان رخداد ماجراهای داستان، «هولدن» یک پسر بچه ی شانزده‌ ساله‌ است، که در مدرسه ی شبانه‌ روزی «پنسی» درس می‌خواند، و در آستانه ی کریسمس، به علت ضعف تحصیلی از دبیرستان اخراج میشود، و باید به خانه‌ شان در «نیویورک» برگردد.؛ ماجراهای داستان طی سه روز که «هولدن» از مدرسه برای رفتن به خانه خارج می‌شود، رخ می‌دهند؛ او می‌خواهد: تا نامه ی مدیر، مبنی بر اخراجش، به دست پدر و مادرش برسد، و آب‌ها از آسیاب بیفتد، به خانه ی خویش پا نگذارد، به همین ‌خاطر از زمانی که از مدرسه خارج ‌میشود، دو روز را به سرگردانی سپری می‌کند؛ این دو روز نمادی است از سفر «هولدن»، از کودکی به دنیای نوجوانی؛ رمان در سال 1951میلادی منتشر شده، برگردان ف��رسی رمان یعنی همین کتاب، با عنوان: «ناطور دشت» با ترجمه ی جناب «احمد کریمی» در دهه ی پنجاه هجری خورشیدی منتشر گردیده است؛ سپس برگردان دیگری با عنوان «ناتور دشت» با ترجمه جناب «محمد نجفی» در دهه هفتاد هجری خورشیدی نیز منتشر شده است؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 03/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 09/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

**Included on Time’s List of 100 Best Fiction of the 20th Century**

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is what I thought about “The Catcher In the Rye”, and my reasons for liking it or disliking it, and possibly even how I felt about the work each of the four times I’ve wasted my time reading it, and all that 'Mein Kampf' kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. Also, I’d probably have to take the time to learn how to italicize things on GoodReads, which would probably be worthwhile, but my computer skills could easily be outshone by a resuscitated troglodyte fresh from an ice-block. Added to that, I don’t know how long I could go on trying to poorly mimic the book without wanting to puke, I mean, not only is it a crumby thing to do to, but it’s also phony as hell.

tSo what do I think about the madman exploits of old Holden Caufield, perhaps one of the most acclaimed protagonists in all of American literature? No terribly much, as a matter of fact: each time I’ve read this book I wanted to kill myself. Holden’s always saying things like that, I mean, if you were to wear one blue sock and one red sock, and maybe slowly skin your shrivelfig under the comforting cotton of a green sock, he’d say something like, “God how I hate how that guy messes around with his socks, it makes me want to kill myself.” In that case, you’d better hope you’re at least in possession of a decent valise, lest that bastard Caulfield spread some more wrath upon you for your clearly inferior luggage. That guy, he really cracks me up.

tI never really understood why this book is so universally adored; sure, Holden is a slacker, the type of clown that every distraught kid envisions themselves to be, some gem in the rough with all the talent, but lacking the ambition to make a notable mark on the world which holds them back. But you grow up, if only to acknowledge you have no talents and still have no ambition, and instead of grabbing for that golden ring, you waste your time writing shitty reviews on shitty books here on goodreads on a ball-dampeningly warm Sunday afternoon. Come to think of it, that’s probably why so many appreciate this bumbling tale; like Holden, they probably equate themselves to that misshapen hunk of precious metal hidden beneath a untilled mound of Nebraskan soil, laying in wait for someone to unearth their sparkling brilliance for all the world to admire. Of course, when you realize Tucker Max probably felt the same way you immediately bathe in bromine and shave what remains of your flesh completely bald to scour the scourge as thoroughly as humanly possible. Perhaps it may be slightly more promising to delude yourself than resigning your life to the contemplation of just how lame you actually are.

tSo here’s a quick glimpse of what’s inspired so many lifelong laughingstocks. Here’s Holden fruitlessly swimming against the current, a complete nincompoop (let’s remember he’s Irish) who gets kicked out of school for being a moron and talks hard yet winds up getting the shit mercilessly beaten out of him by a crumby snob named Stradlater (a book about Studly Strad would have been far better) and a pimp named Maurice. Holden also feels the need to denounce everyone as a phony, though I find myself at a loss to imagine anything phonier than a wimpy, big-mouthed mick mollycoddled by daddy’s fat bankroll while attending prep school along with his stunning array of hand-crafted, Italian leather luggage. Let’s not gloss over the fact that Holden is probably impotent, as evidenced by his inability to lay the wood to Sally, Jane, or even a prostitute, perhaps his crowning disgrace. Either that or he’s queer, seeing as he duped poor Antolini by presenting his former mentor with the ultimate fantasy of a drunken, sexually-inexperienced youth with ‘no place to go’ and then, afraid that further action might expose his impotence, he felt the need to flee into the night, acting all startled about what just transpired. Let’s face it, Holden himself claims that similar ‘perverty’ stuff happened to him a lot as a kid, and then feigns shock when Antolini comes in to take a juicy bite of the bare bottom he so masterfully baited. All this weirdness coming from an awkward geek with a fondness for children ought to be enough to sway any who remain unconvinced thus far. You’re STILL not seeing the light?!? Seriously? Ok, last clue Caulfield is a deviant: the kid aspires to be a “catcher”. And this ‘catcher’ fantasy involves children. If you need further explanation I’ll be required to rent a jackhammer to pound the obvious into your skull.

tThis will hopefully be the last time that I read “The Catcher in the Rye”, as I’ve given it too many chances and always walked away completely disappointed. I will give Salinger's opus two stars, however, simply for the entertainment of laughing at it.

so sorry, guess im a phony

اوّلش خیلی مهیّج بود. ولی راستشو بخواین، از یه‌جایی به‌بعد خیلی حوصله سر بر می‌شد. خصوصاً خاطره تعریف کردناش. بعد می‌دیدی هولدن تغییر خاصّی نمی‌کنه و هی بدبخت و بدبخت‌ترم می‌شه. ولی نویسنده خیلـــی دیر این‌تغییرو نشونمون می‌ده؛ جایی‌که دیگه حرفای هولدن جذّابیّت سابقـو ندارن. دیگه لحنش صادقانه نمی‌آد و خصوصاً کنایه‌هاش، دیگه فک می‌کنی کلّ داستان کنایه‌س. حاشیه‌پردازی خیلـــی زیاد بود و واقعاً آدمو کلافه می‌کرد. دیگه هر چیز قشنگی زیادیش خراب می‌شه. امّا رویکرد انتقادی‌شو به‌شدّت دوس داشتم و همچنین پایانشو. اومدم سه بدم. ولی دیدم نه، چار بدم. گرچه من ترجمه‌ای رو خوندم که خیلی سعی می‌کرد لحن هولدنـو حفظ کنه و درین امر هم موفّق بود. امّا معادل‌هایی که برای حرفای نه‌چندان قشنگ و باادبانه‌ش به‌کار برده بودن، واقعاً بد بودن. ینی من چن‌تاشونو به‌فرهنگ لغت هم مراجعه می‌کردم، نمی‌فهمیدم. :| و بعضیا رَم سعی کرده بود با کنایه، منظورو برسونه.

This book is perfection. The unreliable narrator is one of my favorite aspects of literature and Holden Caulfield takes the gold medal in this category. It's also an excellent representation of what depression can do to a person--you feel loneliest when you're around people, you don't feel excited about anything, you self-sabotage, you ramble about feelings you can't articulate.

I always love revisiting Holden every so often. It reminds me of why we need to put an end to the stigma that surrounds mental health.

I need to warn you that this is not a book you read casually. It’s completely character-driven. If you’re looking for plot, then I’m sorry to say you’re about to read a book where a teenage boy walks around NYC for a few days and does nothing. The end. It’s really, truly not about the plot (which is why I think many find this book frustrating or boring). Take your time with Holden. He needs you to listen. Really listen. That’s the point of the entire thing. He wants someone to be there with him intentionally. The passive vague interest of those around him is part of what’s making him nosedive.

Just…take your time. Read it with a friend. A book club. Your Grandma. Idgaf. There’s a lot to unpack in it if you give Holden a chance. Don’t be fooled by his apathetic exposition. It’s a mask. A very good one, in fact. He’s a master at hiding behind it, which is partially why none of the characters recognize his cool guy remarks as cries for help. I’d also imagine this is why so many readers refer to him as spoiled, whiny, angsty, etc.

A lot of those who struggle with mental health wear a similar mask. Take your time with them, too. Be present. They need it.

And so does Holden. <3




(Eventually I’m going to list a bunch of spoiler reasons below that detail exactly why he’s not just some typical angsty emo kid who needs to get over himself. SOMEDAY.

Often touted as a coming-of-age book, I beg to differ. This book is about struggling with grief and loss.

After suffering two tragedies, Holden is disoriented and searching for purchase. While Holden is desperately crying out for help, the adults in his life consistently fail him. Holden wants to preserve the innocence of children—something no one has done for him. And his kid sister Phoebe seems to provide the foundation which Holden so urgently needs.

While The Catcher in the Rye is too character driven for my taste, as a more sophisticated reader, I have a deeper appreciation for some of its subtleties—the glory is in the details. For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald heavily influenced Salinger. There are numerous nods to Fitzgerald throughout the work—The Great Gatsby is even mentioned by name, and some of Fitzgerald’s vocabulary has slipped into this novel. In Chapter 10, Holden goes to The Lavendar Room. As a parallel, Mrytle selects a lavender taxicab in The Great Gatsby. When was the last time you used the word “lavender”? It isn’t a word that is used particularly often, or should I “snobbishly” say “frequently” or would that cause me to be a “bore”? (Yes, all of these “words” were used in both The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye)

Further, when Holden talks about going to the museum, he notes that everything is the same, “the only thing that would be different would be you.” This is an original take on an old transcendentalist idea. In the conclusion of Walden, my good friend, Henry David Thoreau states, “Things do not change; we change.”

When I am a professor at Yale, I will allow my students to write papers on transcendentalism in The Catcher in the Rye.

Another quote from Walden: “The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed like his contemporaries.”

In The Catcher in the Rye, while Holden is contemplating the universe, he is living a countercultural experience, rejecting the norms of his peers. He certainly isn’t eating his sack lunch at his desk.

The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $89.40 for a 2010 Boxed Set of Hardcover Salinger Books on Mercari
Softcover Text - Origin Unknown, have had this book for quite a long time

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3+ out of 5 stars to The Catcher in the Rye, a coming-of-age novel published in 1951 by J.D. Salinger. I am so glad I read this book as a teenager and not as an adult. I would absolutely hate it today, not because it's poorly written or has no value, but because I'd hate Holden more than anything in the world. I was certainly not a perfect teenager, but I never had that angst as a kid, nor do I have it now. I have maybe 10 days a year where I complain a little bit about something, but for the most part, my mouth is shut and I do what I'm supposed to do. Supposed to, as in my own perception, not because someone else tells me to do it. Arguing and railing and running away and getting angry don't come naturally to me, so I couldn't identify with him. That said, I've seen this in others and it was well captured, a bit ahead of its time. For those reasons, it's a good book. I'm a little concerned this is the type of book that will no longer be read... and teens reading it today wouldn't understand it. I'm curious to see reviews by the under 25 crowd, just purely to see if the current generation has any different feelings towards it than I had when I read it in high school in the 90s.

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For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by.

Every few years I reread this book...one of the first books I ever read that made me think 'how did the author know I was feeling that same way?' This book has become entwined with my youth and all the possibilities that existed at the beginning of my 'life road'. Highest recommendation.

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.

Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.

Somehow I was never assigned to read The Catcher in the Rye when I was in school. So I went into the book basically knowing only that it’s regularly listed as one of the best American novels and that it’s one of the most challenged or banned books in schools.

Addressing that second part first, I have no idea why The Catcher in the Rye is still one of the most challenged or banned books in schools. I’m sure it was very controversial … back in 1951, what with 16-year-old narrator Holden Caulfield swearing and talking about sex and atheism and stuff. Released today, the novel would be standard YA. I strongly suspect this novel is so much more widely challenged simply because it is so much more widely known.

As to the book’s reputation for greatness, just reread the Goodreads description. Whoever wrote that plainly thinks The Catcher in the Rye is extraordinary, because one person’s “[t]he boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story” is another person’s “this novel presents no coherent comment on how the reader is supposed to view Holden.”

Holden Caulfield is an exceptionally unlikely hero. He tells the reader in the opening chapter that he has been institutionalized, making him the most unreliable of narrators. Indeed, he mentions some form of the word “depressed” fifty-two times in the story. He is certainly alienated, pining for a girl who he never actually connects with in the novel, and obsessed with sex yet strangely ambivalent about it. He spends most of the novel wandering-while-bored (or depressed), dissatisfied with everything. He’s so convinced of his own correctness about the world and hates “phonies” (just ask him) without ever seeming to realize that his snap judgments and harsh, fact-free opinions on an endless series of topics are at least as phony as the subjects of his criticism. He talks a big game throughout, projecting that he feels he’s wise beyond his years, when he actually seems immature.

A cynical but possibly true argument would be that The Catcher in the Rye is considered great because it benefits from the mystique surrounding the author, was original when published, is timeless in its theme of teenage rebellion, and is therefore an evergreen novel for high schools that has made it is so much more widely known than other would-be similar great novels. But that argument would leave out that there is something special about Holden’s narrative voice and tale. It may be full of contradictions, and unintentionally funny at times, but it is a captivating portrait of a classic angsty teen rebel who is ultimately terrified of leaving childhood behind and entering adulthood. Recommended if, like me, you never read it in school and/or if you love the word “really” (used 232 times) and/or if you are wondering whether Holden would call you a phony (spoiler alert: he almost certainly will).

Beautiful!

I had been somewhat hesitant to read "The Catcher in the Rye" after snoozing through Salinger's "Nine Stories," but I'm glad I finally came around. This book is a work of genius.

The book is a "coming of age" tale, but it certainly transcends the adolescent garbage that fills up most of the genre. The protagonist is 16 year old Holden Caulfield - depressed, aimless, and disillusioned. The entire story covers just one December weekend in which he seeks to find direction in his life after flunking out of another prep school. As Caulfield contemplates his transition from adolescence to adulthood, he becomes disgusted with the utter "phoniness" of society and longs for the innocence of youth.

Where Salinger's masterpieces surpasses other notable coming of age novels such as "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" and "This Side of Paradise" is in the treatment of social mores. Where these other novels offer a one-dimensional treatment of sexuality and religious apostasy as the sum-all of maturation, Salinger offers a more complicated, more realistic picture.

Caulfield's narrative certainly deals with sexuality, but he goes beyond the stock material of young man bucking sexual conventions. After first boasting about past sexual encounters, Caulfield admits he's actually a virgin. At an age in which sexual experience is a badge of honor for most young men, Caulfied decides that sex should be as much spiritual as physical and ought to be shared only with someone he really cares about. When his sexually experienced roommate goes out with an innocent childhood friend, Caulfield throws it down with the young man in protest against the perceived assault on innocence. Later, Caulfield accepts a prostitute into his room only to become depressed, pay the girl, and turn her out without accepting her services. The following day, Caulfield donates $10 to two humble nuns, the same amount paid to the whore the night before.

Salinger's treatment of religion is equally nuanced and equally honest. While claiming to be "practically an atheist," Caulfield also admits that he has a desire to pray. While disclaiming a belief in God, he occasionally asks what Christ would think about people's actions. In Caulfield's conflict, the reader sees a certain disgust with the phoniness of organized religion set against a sincere acceptance of Christ's actual message.

So while this book shares with other novels a contempt for societal mores, it is not a simple repudiation of religion in favor of unrestrained sexuality. Caulfield does reject most of the adult world he encounters as utterly "phony," but he does not follow the stock pattern laid down by earlier modernists. Caulfield questions it all, perhaps despising Hollywood above everything else.

So what does Caulfield accept after rejecting all of adult society? Childhood innocence. The only thing that makes this young man happy is spending time with children, his young sister most of all. Indeed, the section giving rise to the title of the work is a poignant plea for saving innocent children from the phoniness and corruption of the world.

So for all the past scandal about the profanity and sexuality in this work, there is much to be admired by the secularist and the Christian alike. That's difficult to do, but Salinger pulls it off marvelously. Though we can't all agree what influences in society are corrupting, I think most everyone can agree that there is initially some purity that is corrupted.