Holden Caulfield is a mixed- up cynical teenager, getting kicked out of another prestigious school, Pencey Prep, in Pennsylvania, the irony is that this obviously intelligent, privileged, 16 year- old, is somehow flunking out, why? He doesn't care about anything, especially education, bored and feeling neglected by his wealthy, New York City family . At least Caulfield passed English class, he's always reading, his big problem, he's so unmotivated, nothing seems important to this kid (set in 1949). Holden has no real friends in school, or liking anyone there, and the sentiment is very mutual, everything is "phony", his favorite word, which he speaks and thinks constantly. When Holden's younger brother Allie, died three years ago, it marked him forever, afterwards, the boy was changed and stops believing . Getting into a fight with a much stronger opponent, his roommate Stradlater, and losing naturally no surprise to Holden, ( punishment he craved) just before sneaking out of Pencey, an institution he hates, with a fervent passion. Taking the train to New York City, his hometown, but Holden doesn't go back to his uncaring family, his father, a well- to- do lawyer, too busy for Holden, nervous mother, she wants quiet, please, older brother D.B. a Hollywood writer, younger sister Phoebe, his only confidant, and the person he loves. Checking into the Edmont Hotel in the "Big Apple", a rather shabby, rundown place, (I wouldn't recommend staying there) and then the elevator operator the sleazy Maurice , gets him a prostitute, Sunny, she's Holden's age and he kind of feels sorry for her. Gives the lady of the night, five dollars just for talking, sends her away, good deeds are always rewarded, Maurice, comes back with Sunny for more money, a dispute arises, but they leave with an extra five, and a sock in the stomach of the poorer, but wiser Holden. Chain smoking with gusto and delight, drinking in bars, (dives) like a man, where people aren't too concerned about a customers age just the color of his dough, going to a Broadway play with a very accommodating girlfriend, attending the loathsome movies and seeing all those phonies, the actors, fighting with unsmiling cab drivers , the kid is having a good time, living like a grown-up, as long as the cash lasts. But what will he do, runaway or go back and face the music...his remote parents? The bible for disgruntled teenagers, and a must read for every new generation.......P.S. the title comes from a Robert Burns poem

20th book of 2022.

2nd reading. I could say all this phony stuff about how brilliant this novel is and how brilliant Salinger is and how Holden Caulfield still knocks me out, but I won’t. It would probably make you puke all over yourself, honestly. It would also make you puke all over yourself if I whined about how much Holden whines as a teenage boy and pretended that there isn’t at least something relatable in the whole goddam story. That would be a really gorgeous thing to do. So I won’t do either. This book kills me though and I’d like to give old Salinger a buzz and chat to him for a while. Even Nabokov liked him and Nabokov, great as he is, said phony stuff about loads of knockout writers. I could even be like one of those phony Ivy League guys and give examples of why Holden is great and why Salinger is great, rather than just telling you, but that would make you puke too, if I started citing things. Then you’d know I’d gone through the effort of underlining stuff or worse yet, that I’d committed them to memory, for Chrissake. I’d start listing all the bits that show Holden as a really great guy, a mad guy, but a great guy, who just wants to connect with people, wants to feel less alienated and lonely, and feels mostly misunderstood as we all do in our juvenile years, and other phony commentaries like that. That he’s been a victim of child abuse, that needs help and actually, in a way, tries to get it through the whole novel and only his little sister, really, does. I would bore the hell out of you, I really would. The worst thing I could possibly do, honestly, is start comparing this to other Great American Novels. That would kill you. If I started saying, Well, for me this could honestly be on par with novels like The Great Gatsby, a novel which kills me, and kills Holden too, old sport. You’d say, ‘On par! For Chrissake!’ I’d put my hands out in front of me, all yellow-like, and say, ‘Honestly, on par. No kidding. I really do.’ Then we’d get all intellectual and talk about all sorts of writers like Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, and we’d get all excited as hell, talking to each other about it. It kills me when you get to have a good chat about books with someone who isn’t a phony and really knows what’s what, not some witty bastard who knows goddam nothing but pretends to. I hate that—I really do. But then we’d get sore with each other and I’d want to beat because it just ends up in a goddam argument rather than a good discussion. In the end we’d both walk away thinking, ‘That sonuvabitch, didn’t even listen to my side!’ That’s why you can never talk to someone intellectual for too long because they just get all passionate. It makes you wanna cry, frankly. But most people are all right, they’re only like that because they care so much about goddam books and that’s how it should be. Boy, was it hard to find a good person to talk to about books though. Boy, was it. And this isn’t no lousy book, either. I was worried, being older and everything, that I wouldn’t like it as much or think that maybe Holden was just a lousy and annoying kid, but actually, I find him relatable as ever. There’s something about his hopefulness and his despair, that swings back and forth, that’s so goddam real. Still one of my favourite books, and one of the great American novels. It really is. I’m not even kidding.
__________________________

1st reading, 2018. Frankly I tend to distrust anyone who doesn’t like this novel in the same way I distrust anyone who doesn’t like late-middle period Beatles.

Nabokov on Salinger: “By far one of the finest artists in recent years.”

The carousel scene used to prick embarrassed tears in the corner of my eyes when I read it alone in my uni bedroom.

I've heard about this book for a good portion of my life but I'm not even sure what I read. Fast read, definitely but didn't do any impact whatsoever for me. As famous as it is I had hoped for at least some strong opinion. But this was more of a "meh" read. Perhaps I'll read this on a later day and get another result

J.D. Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’ was published on July 16, 1951. It was his first novel. It became very popular among young adolescents yet not so popular with older generations. I personally thoroughly enjoyed every part of this book. I felt very close to Holden Caulfield, the main character in the story, as I read it.
Holden Caulfield, a sixteen year old boy from New York, was quite unlike kids his age. He had no interest in being popular or social. From the very beginning he lets us into part of his personal life. His parents are very touchy and his mother is especially protective. It becomes clear very quickly where Holden’s interests lie and where they start to veer off. He tends to lean away from the fake in the world and is a teller of what is real.
Holden is not a fan of the movies at all. He saw his brother, D.B., throw away his natural writing talent all for a large Hollywood check. Any other boy Holden’s age would have been absolutely ecstatic to have a sibling working amongst the stats in Hollywood, but not Holden. It was all far too “phony” for him; and phony is his worst enemy.
Salinger’s use of sarcasm and irony is beautiful and hilarious. As I read through each chapter I found myself highlighting funny, sarcastic things Holden would say or think (and trust me, there are DOZENS of time where this occurs.) One specific time in Chapter 8 he is talking to a cab driver who is acting like a real fool. Holden says to the readers, “He certainly was good company. Terrific personality.”
Salinger’s character Holden is actually a lot like Salinger in his real life. Like Holden, Salinger was known for his reclusive nature. Uninterested with the fakeness of the world, Holden keeps his distance from phony people. After Salinger’s success of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, he slowed down his publishing and slowly but surely drifted out of the public eye. To this day Salinger refuses any offers to have ‘The Catcher’ put on the big Hollywood screen. Salinger’s ex lover, Joyce Maynard, even once said that, “The only person who might ever have played Holden Caulfield would have been J.D. Salinger.” It seems to me that it is no coincidence that Holden is no fan of Hollywood and that Salinger in real life and doesn’t want anything to do with turning his popular novel into a movie. Holden says, “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the movies, Don’t even mention them to me.”
Since I have learned more about Salinger’s personal life, I recognize a lot of Salinger’s personality in Holden. In the story, Holden has overbearing parents much like Salinger’s parents. Salinger said his mother was over protective. Salinger has one sibling, a sister, which is ironic because it is Holden’s sister Phoebe who has a profound influence on Holden. He often talks about her with very high regards.
Holden is not a character who tried to sugarcoat the way he sees the fakeness around him. Holden, making fun of the people around him, often says things like “you would’ve puked” and “it was very phony”. I think that is another one of the reasons I like his character so much. For example, he is quite upset with the fact that his brother D.B. is selling his work to Hollywood instead of using his talents for his own pleasure. Holden even says that his brother is his favorite author. Salinger himself is a man who wrote for his own pleasure and likeness.
I made a similar connection to a girl named Sally that Holden likes in the book, to a real life lover of Salinger’s named Oona. Oona O’Neil was self-absorbed and stuck up, according to Salinger, yet he still phoned and wrote her letters quite often. Holden’s “Oona” in the story was a girl named Sally Hayes. Though he found her extremely irritating he thought she was very attractive as well. After spending a day with her, he pointed out about a dozen instances where he thought she was being “phone as hell”. By the end of their only meeting in the book, Holden says to Sally, “You give me a royal pain in the ass if you want to know the truth.” The real life Oona O’Neil ended up breaking it off with Salinger and married the famous actor, Charlie Chaplin.
Despite Holden being a sixteen year old teenage boy he acts much older than his age. One time in the story he has the chance to be with a prostitute but instead of acting like a pig, he starts to feel sorry for her and instead tried to have a conversation with her. He even offers to pay her for good conversation instead of for sex. He also stays alone in hotels randomly, drinks at bars and clubs often, and even tells people he’s older than he really is. But the reason I find his character mature and intellectual is for other reasons.
Holden does not hold money or material things to be really important. He is more excited to hang out with his kid sister than he is any other time in the entire book. He is content with something that would probably be boring to other guys his age.
Like many teenagers, Holden is often depressed. The way he deals with it most times actually breaks my heart in a way. He likes to talk to his deceased kid brother, Allie. He will take a real event that he can remember where he was talking with him and pretend he is talking to him again. He says, “I started talking out loud to Allie. I do that sometimes when I get very depressed.” It is really very heart wrenching to hear Holden talk about his brother. One of my favorite moments in the book is when Holden and Phoebe are talking in Phoebe’s room and she points out that Holden doesn’t like anything. Holden responds quickly by saying, “I like Allie. And I like doing what I’m doing right now. Sitting here with you and talking and thinking about stuff…” Phoebe says to Holden, “Allie’s dead-you always say that! If somebody’s dead and everything, and in heaven then it isn’t really--”. Holden interrupts her with his final comeback, “I know he’s dead! Don’t you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can’t I? just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them, for God’s sake- especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all.”
One of the most beautiful things about ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is the way Salinger uses symbolism. From Holden’s red hunting hat, to Jane Gallagher’s checker playing technique, Salinger wrapped up more than meets the eye into things you never would have dreamed. The main thing that drew me into this story is the realness of Holden’s character. He is a teenage boy with a teenage boy’s mind but seems to have far more common sense than anyone else around him. He is not a jock. He is not a math whiz or a science whiz. He is not really interested in sports. He sort of makes up his own category; a category that I call ‘the genuine’. He is on his own a lot and loves it at first, but happiness and love are meant to be shared with others. It has a much less meaning when by itself and he realizes it by the end of the novel. He is growing intellectually little by little throughout the whole book. He realizes what really makes him happy. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone and everyone who would like to read a story that could possibly change the way they view the world. I have honestly laughed outloud to myself as I read this story. Yes, there is talk about drinking, sex, and lots of cussing, but if you are going to avoid reading this story because of that then your missing out on a beautiful masterpiece.

J.D. Salinger died in 2010. But from the perspective of the literary world that happened in 1963 after he published his last work. It really happened in 1951 after the phenomenal success of this novel, The Catcher in the Rye. He didn't like or want the publicity, the spotlight on him, brought about by the novels success. So he withdrew, becoming almost recluse in his later years. It's comparable to what happened to Harper Lee with her classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. Salinger did publish other works, very good ones.

In Holden Caulfield Salinger created, possibly, the single best character in American literature. The innocent, rambling, distorted view of New York, of life, as seen through his young eyes is as striking as Kerouac's view of his America, or of Joyce's view of his Dublin.

It's one of the iconic novels with one of the iconic characters in all of literature 4.5 stars.

Reread in November 2016.

"Me imagino a muchos niños pequeños jugando en un gran campo de centeno y todo. Miles de niños y nadie allí para cuidarlos, nadie grande, eso es, excepto yo. Y yo estoy al borde de un profundo precipicio. Mi misión es agarrar a todo niño que vaya a caer en el precipicio. Quiero decir, si algún niño echa a correr y no mira por dónde va, tengo que hacerme presente y agarrarlo. Eso es lo que haría todo el día. Sería el encargado de agarrar a los niños en el centeno. Sé que es una locura; pero es lo único que verdaderamente me gustaría ser. Reconozco que es una locura."

Luego del soberano aburrimiento al que me había sometido con su libro “Nueve Cuentos”, me había propuesto no leer nunca más a J.D. Salinger. Los cuentos me habían despertado muy poco interés, salvo dos y un tercero que rescato, pero en líneas generales el libro me pareció flojo y las historias contadas me daban la sensación de no ir para ningún lado.
De todos modos, recapacitando, me di cuenta que estaba equivocado en mi forma de pensar. No todos los libros que escriben los autores tienen el mismo tenor y suele pasar que a veces escriben libros que ni a ellos mismos terminan gustándoles (siempre me acuerdo de que Cortázar consideraba flojos a varios de sus libros); y otro motivo que me hizo reconsiderar leer a Salinger fue el hecho de que como lector no debo erigirme en juez de ningún libro o autor. Puedo decir que tal libro me gustó o no, pero esto siempre debe suceder después de haber hecho al menos el intento de leerlo.
Inmediatamente se me vino a la cabeza ese inoxidable axioma “Nunca juzgues un libro por su tapa”. De alguna manera extendí esa advertencia también al autor para no emitir prejuicios ni creer que toda su obra es igual.
Es que luego de haber leído un libro como el Ulises de James Joyce, con la complejidad que ese tipo de lecturas genera me dije: “Si pude atravesar ese enjambre de palabras que encierra el Ulises, ¿Cómo no voy a intentar leer “El guardián entre el centeno"?
Entonces, corrí rápidamente a una librería y me compré un ejemplar que me dispuse a leer durante mis vacaciones.
Le reconozco a Salinger la genialidad con la que trata a su personaje principal, Holden Caulfield y de cómo muestra el estado de ánimo de una generación adolescente de posguerra que se extiende aún hasta hoy en la mayoría de los jóvenes. Aclaro esto porque más allá de lo que plantea acerca de cómo mira Holden a la sociedad desde su juventud, no todos los adolescentes pensaron ni piensan igual que él.
Además de todo esto, se pueden observar en su conducta ciertos actitudes misóginas, tendencias a ser muy ácido e irónico con los homosexuales, las prostitutas e incluso las mujeres en general, pero esto surge a partir de merodear bares y lugares de dudosa reputación.
Todo esto contado a partir de un lenguaje bastante vulgar por momentos, para la época y la sociedad de 1951 y sobre todo porque lo cuenta un adolescente. Holden tiene dieciséis años, pero se mueve en ambientes de personas muchos mayores que él, fuma toneladas de cigarrillos y su bebida preferida es el whisky con soda, producto de deambular libremente por cualquier lado con el dato adicional de que posee mucho dinero en sus bolsillos.
Leer “El guardián entre el centeno” es como escuchar “I can’t get no Satisfaction” de los Rolling Stones pero en una versión que dura cuatro horas. Su inconformismo y su situación de constante depresión es total y lo acompaña durante todo el libro.
Hay dos cosas que a Holden le irritan terriblemente en su relación con los distintos personajes que se cruza en la novela desde que lo expulsan del colegio de Pencey hasta que llega a su casa paterna de New York: la falsedad y la hipocresía. Estas son dos características que observa y critica y que lo ponen de mal humor o lo deprimen. Por momentos hace cosas propias de los jóvenes pero también intenta pensar y repensar hacia dónde va su vida (su es que va hacia algún lado) y por qué su actitud es la de desconfiar de esas personas que considera nocivas para él.
El trato con sus compañero de escuela es bastante ríspido, sea con Ackley, Maurice, Stradlater y Spencer e incluso con sus profesores y familiares. Con las chicas (Sally Hayes, Jane Gallagher) no le va precisamente de maravillas. Las posibilidades de acercamiento sexual con ellas posee un recíproco alejamiento afectivo impuesto de antemano.
Pero no todo es negativo para Holden. Hay dos personas, una viva y una muerta que tienen una consideración especial para él. Su fallecido hermano Allie a quien admira profundamente y sobre el que siempre tiene recuerdos entrañables y afectuosos y la tierna debilidad por su pequeña hermanita de ocho años, Phoebe, que siempre está también presente en su vida y en sus pensamientos. Ella es todo para él y viceversa. Son muy unidos y esto se profundizará hacia el final del libro. Pareciera que a veces ella e da sentido a su vida, lo completa, lo tranquiliza.
Terminando esta reseña no puedo dejar de reflexionar acerca de un tema: nunca pudo entenderse cómo este libro pudo plantar ideas criminales en la mente de tres asesinos. El más famoso de ellos, Mark David Chapman, quien asesinara a Lennon el 8 diciembre de 1980 y al que la policía encontró en su habitación leyendo tranquilamente una copia de este ejemplar.
Dicen que los investigadores encontraron detrás de la tapa del libro una frase escrita por Chapman que decía “Esta es mi declaración” y para justificarse aclaró: "Estoy seguro de que la mayor parte de mí es Holden Caulfield, el personaje principal del libro. El resto de mí debe ser el Diablo". Insólito y macabro.
Otro caso fue el de John Hinckley Jr., quien un año más tarde del homicidio de Lennon a manos de Chapman intentó asesinar al presidente Ronald Reagan. El atacante aseguró estar completamente obsesionado con la novela de Salinger. Y un tercer asesino, Robert John Bardó, terminó con la vida de la actriz Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer fue encontrado por la policía del mismo modo que Chapman: con un ejemplar del libro en sus manos.
Finalmente y más allá de estos datos extra literarios, reivindico mi postura con respecto a Salinger y particularmente con este libro. Cuando un libro ingresa en el sitial de los "clásicos", esto no sucede porque sí. Podrá ser amado u odiado pero nunca ignorado y además debe ser leído o intentar ser leído.
Le agradezco haberme dado esa lección, Sr. Salinger.
Por favor tenga a bien aceptar mis disculpas.

One of my all time favourites.

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I read the end of The Catcher in the Rye the other day and found myself wanting to take Holden Caulfield by the collar and shake him really, really hard and shout at him to grow up. I suppose I've understood for some time now that The Catcher in the Rye -- a favorite of mine when I was sixteen -- was a favorite precisely because I was sixteen. At sixteen, I found Holden Caulfield's crisis profoundly moving; I admired his searing indictment of society, his acute understanding of human nature, his extraordinary sensitivity (I mean, come on, he had a nervous breakdown for God's sake, he had to be sensitive). At sixteen, I wanted to marry Holden Caulfield. At forty, I want to spank him. After all, Holden's indictment of society boils down to the "insight" that everybody is a phony. That's the kind of insight a sixteen year old considers deep. A forty year old of the grown-up variety recognizes Holden's insight as superficial and banal, indulging in the cheapest kind of adolescent posturing. It suggests a grasp of society and of human nature that's about as complex as an episode of Dawson's Creek. Holden and his adolescent peers typically behave as though the fate they have suffered (disillusionment and the end of innocence) is unique in human history. He can't see beyond the spectacle of his own disillusionment (and neither can J. D. Salinger); for all his painful self-consciousness, Holden Caulfield is not really self-aware. He can't see that he himself is a phony.

Compare Salinger's novel of arrested development, for instance, with a real bildungsroman, Great Expectations. Holden Caulfield is an adolescent reflecting on childhood and adolescence; Pip Pirrip is an adult reflecting on childhood and adolescence. Holden Caulfield has the tunnel vision of teendom, and he depicts events with an immediacy and absorption in the experience that blocks out the broader context, the larger view. Pip Pirrip has the wonderful double vision of a sensitive adult recollecting the sensitive child he used to be; he conveys at the same time the child's compelling perspective and the adult's thoughtful revision of events. While Holden Caulfield litters his narrative with indignant exposes of phonies and frauds, Pip Pirrip skillfully concentrates on "the spurious coin of his own make" -- that is, without letting the child Pip and the adolescent Pip in on the joke, he exposes himself as a phony. Pip Pirrip grows up. Holden Caulfield has a nervous breakdown.

I suppose the only reason I begrudge him his breakdown is that so many in our culture -- many more, unfortunately, than just the legitimate adolescents among us -- seem fixated on Holden as a symbol of honesty and socially-liberating rebellion. We view nervous collapse and dysfunction as a badge of honor, a sign -- to put it in Caulfieldian terms -- that we are discerning enough to see through all the crap. Our celebration of overwrought disaffection reminds me of the last sentence of Joyce’s Araby: “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” Here is the adolescent pose non-pareil. Equally self-accusing and self-aggrandizing, it captures the adolescent at the precise moment when his own disillusionment becomes the object of his grandiose and self-dramatizing vision. That’s the kind of crap that Holden Caulfield (and J. D. Salinger) cannot see through. And it is often the kind of crap that we “adults” like to slosh around in.

The Barney beating of several years ago is another symptom of our arrested adolescence, our inability to ride the wave of disillusion into the relatively calm harbor of adulthood -- as though flailing around in the storm and raging at the wind were in themselves marks of distinction and a superior sensibility. I remember a news story about a woman in a Barney costume being seriously injured when a rabid (and probably drunken) anti-Barney fanatic attacked the big purple dinosaur at some public event. Now, I don’t know the age of the Barney-beater, but the act itself is a supremely adolescent one, in which the impulsive response to disillusionment is to lash out at those symbols of childhood which made the biggest dupes of us. At the dawn of adolescence, when Barney begins to appear cloying and false, it seems natural to want to beat up on him, as though it was Barney himself who pulled one over on us instead of our own poignant and necessary misapprehension of the nature of things. I could see Holden Caulfield beating up on Barney (at least rhetorically), and I could see Holden Caulfield missing Barney (as he misses all the “phonies” at the end of the book), but I cannot see Holden Caulfield accepting the postlapsarian Barney on new terms, as a figure who is meant for children and not for him. For all his touching poses about wanting to be the “catcher in the rye,” what Holden really wants is not to save children but to be a child again.

The great C.S. Lewis had opined - "A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest" - and who, indeed, would dare contradict him?
I had kept myself away from the The Chronicles of Narnia for a long time, believing I had already outgrown that phase of my life that would've endeared me to this famed set of fantasy tales written for children.
Eventually, when I did read The Magician's Nephew, I realized how hopelessly wrong I was.
With The Catcher in the Rye, I'm faced with the same realization all over again.

Some books are written so well, so masterfully that you are bound to get the message the writer had slipped in, skilfully, somewhere between its pages for the perceptive reader to find and cherish like treasure, only if you care to lay off the preordained feelings and biases.

Sure, I agree, nothing ever happens in this book. The prose, in Holden's own overused words, can be described as 'boring' and insipid in my own. But that is what Salinger had wanted it to be.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have liked Holden had I read this as a teen. I would've considered him a whiny, nitpicking pain in the rear. A kid trying to sound and behave like an adult and, of course, failing at it miserably.
But now that I'm a full-fledged adult, capable of knowing what I want and what I don't, I can understand Holden much better. And I can't help but feel a sort of grudging respect for Holden's daring act of breaking away even if for a little while, from the compulsions and responsibilities that life threw his way, the expectations of peers and adults surrounding him.
His voice is so full of recalcitrance, loneliness, resentment and all the amorphous emotions of that age, that it's near impossible not to relate to it.
A sense of pure isolation, a feeling of being adrift in the big, bad world, sometimes with barely anything or anyone acting as an anchor. Faced with problems you previously did not even know existed, an ever-widening gap with the members of the opposite sex. A mass of confusing, blurry thoughts swirling inside your head that you would rather prefer to push away than disentangle one by one and analyze. Sometimes not being sure of what you want to do and what you are supposed to do. Stuck somewhere in a time-warp, on the brink of adulthood yet not quite so. Demanding to be treated with respect and dignity like an adult, yet to be loved as a child.
I'm sure we have all gone through the same motions at some point of time in our lives.
Holden reminds us of that period even if we may not see in him the teenager each one of us had been, individually. He is simply a personification of those confusing, bitter, hazy years that precede the surer, firmer, more secure years.
And if we maybe honest enough with ourselves we'll find a Holden, all holed up somewhere in the darkest recesses of our psyche, eternally disdainful and critical of the people and things around him. It's just that we've gotten better at keeping 'him' hidden and swallowing urges to lash out at the 'phoniness' of it all.
Holden's appeal is timeless. And I'm quite sure, I'll like this book when I read it again, years down the line.
And for this reason alone, The Catcher in the Rye rightly deserves a place in the halls of classic American literature.
This is THE YA novel. And, perhaps, will always be.

P.S:- My love for this book is not to be interpreted as an endorsement of teenage delinquency or rebellious/anti-social behavior.

Ustedes conocen el síndrome de Stendhal, pues Holden Caulfield, narrador y protagonista de esta historia, bien podría perfectamente prestar su nombre a ese sentimiento de emoción extrema que él mismo experimenta ante un acto de verdadera bondad, más si proviene de un niño, pues no se puede dudar de la sincera bondad de un niño bondadoso (Salinger subestima la mala baba de los niños tanto como sobrevalora su felicidad). Un síndrome que tiene su cruz en el sentimiento contrario que experimenta al ser testigo de la hipocresía, el fingimiento y la petulancia con la que actúan los adultos en su mundo insustancial y egoísta.

n   “Me paso el día imponiéndome límites que luego cruzo todo el tiempo.” n

Y entre esa niñez y esa adultez anda Holden, expulsado nuevamente de un colegio, cabreado con su hermano mayor por haberse vendido al cine de Hollywood y abatido por la muerte de su hermano Allie, “el muchacho más simpático, inteligente y entrañable del mundo”. Tampoco es que esté muy contento de sí mismo, condición más que suficiente para odiar a todos, aunque no soporte estar solo, y hasta para dudar de sus propias intenciones, por muy buenas que estas sean.

n   “… si de verdad te pones a defender a tíos inocentes, ¿cómo sabes que lo haces porque quieres salvarles la vida, o porque quieres que todos te consideren un abogado estupendo y te den palmaditas en la espalda y te feliciten los periodistas cuando acaba el juicio como pasa en toda esa imbecilidad de películas? ¿Cómo sabes tú mismo que no te estás mintiendo? Eso es lo malo, que nunca llegas a saberlo.” n

Holden encarna como nadie al adolescente que no sabe quién es ni dónde encaja, que descubre un mundo, el de los adultos, que no le gusta y, lo que es peor, que no tiene solución.

n   “Eso es lo malo. Que no hay forma de dar con un sitio tranquilo porque no existe. Cuando te crees que por fin lo has encontrado, te encuentras con que alguien ha escrito un joder en la pared… aunque dedicara uno a eso un millón de años, nunca sería capaz de borrar todos los joder del mundo. Sería imposible.” n

Holden es un Peter Pan que solo se siente a gusto entre niños, encarnados en su hermana Phoebe, a cuya protección frente a ese mundo horrible que está descubriendo dedicaría su vida.

n   “¿Sabes que me gustaría ser? (…) Muchas veces me imagino que hay un montón de niños jugando en un campo de centeno. Miles de niños. Y están solos. Quiero decir que no hay nadie mayor vigilándolos. Solo yo. Estoy al borde de un precipicio y mi trabajo consiste en evitar que caigan por él. En cuanto empiezan a correr sin mirar adónde van, yo salgo de donde esté y los cojo. Eso es lo que me gustaría hacer todo el tiempo. Yo sería el guardián entre el centeno” n

Holden puede ser muy dulce, divertido, considerado, pero también un tocapelotas capaz de llamarte por teléfono a cualquier hora, de despertarte en mitad de la noche, de rondar incesantemente a tu alrededor como una mosca cojonera o, sin conocerte, de abordarte abusivamente con un desparpajo impropio de su edad. Es cobarde, mentiroso, bebe mucho, fuma más, querría follar, no solo follar, no aguanta halagos, todo le suena a falso, todo y todos le deprimen, todo el mundo es hipócrita, todo le saca de quicio o le fastidia o le revienta, todos son cretinos que no saben apreciar lo bueno y que se vuelven locos por lo malo… y al mismo tiempo, puede sentir una lástima insoportable por toda esa gente o echar de menos al más cretino de sus amigos al poco de separarse de él.

n   “…había como un millón de chicas esperando a su pareja: chicas con las piernas cruzadas, chicas con piernas preciosas, chicas con piernas horrorosas, chicas que parecían estupendas, y chicas que debían ser unas brujas si de verdad se las llegaba a conocer bien. Era un bonito panorama, pero no sé si me entenderán lo que quiero decir. Aunque por otra parte era también bastante deprimente porque uno no podía dejar de preguntarse qué sería de todas ellas. Me refiero a cuando salieran del colegio y la universidad. La mayoría se casarían con cretinos, tipos de esos que se pasan el día hablando de cuántos kilómetros pueden sacarle a un litro de gasolina, tipos que se enfadan como niños cuando pierden al golf o a algún juego tan estúpido como el ping-pong, tipos mala gente de verdad, tipos que en su vida han leído un libro, tipos aburridos..." n

El libro es divertido, tanto como tierno y conmovedor, su lenguaje es muy fresco, directo y sencillo demostrando que la claridad de la prosa no está reñida con la complejidad de lo expuesto. Todos (casi) podemos recordar sentimientos parecidos, experimentar el síndrome Caulfield en algún momento, reconocernos en las peripecias de este inolvidable Holden Caulfield, que, por ello mismo, desde su aparición es el gran arquetipo del adolescente atormentado.

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.

The most overrated "classic" of all time

n  n

...and I don't give a F__K about your opinion.