It was a interesting novel but i didn't enjoy it well do i enjoy reading books anyway NOOOOO! I get all my english novels off the internet i don't bother reading books! I have better stuff then to read stupid books!

When I finished the book "The Catcher in the Rye," my initial thought was, "Did I like this book or not?" It was hard for me to figure out. Even though I felt like there wasn't a complexed or structural plot, I still couldn't put it down. Maybe it was the easy-to-relate-to memories of Holden Caulfield, or maybe it was the depth in character that was described. "The Catcher In the Rye" is based on innocence in childhood and a boy who is afraid of the corrupt world of adulthood. Throughout the novel, I got an understanding of what Holden Caulfield was like. The characterization is accurate and it could definately be a real person; Holden's thoughts were consistant with his personality. Holden uses defense mechanisms to get away from the real world in which he fears so much by having an extremely negative attitude and putting other people down by saying they are "phony". All Holden wants is security without change. This is demonstrated with the museum he like has liked ever since he was a little boy. He likes it because it is something that never changes over time and stays innocent. Also, throughout this novel, if you pay attention, you can see that everything is linked to everything else. Holden's red hunting hat relates to his brother's and sister's hair for example. This book is filled with symbolism, complexity, and a sense of human nature. My conclusion was that I definately do like this book. It was intriguing to read into someone else's life and see things from a different perspective. If you are someone who enjoys suspense and structural plots, this is not a book I would recommmend for your reading. If you are someone who likes to relate to characters and see out their eyes, this is the book for you.

All i can say is WOW! In the beginning i was like, "the catcher in the rye"? Sounds like a book about farming. Boy, was i wrong. Salinger caught my attention from the first page and kept it until the very last. Holden brings to the surface everything we(especially teenagers)think but never dare to say. I liked this book cause it's down to earth, not at all "phony" (as Holden would say), and teaches you a great deal about life. Now, the fact that it was found in the pocket of the guy who murdered John Lennon is another story....

After recently beginning Paul Alexander's biography, I was delighted to stumble upon Ian Hamilton's cautious, yet entertaining, meta-biography. He doesn't dwell and gets on with his story. Hamilton does a great job of exposing the split personality of the biographer: as both neophyte and leech upon the creative world. Hamilton questions the validity of the "simplest" details of his subject's secret life. His honesty and reverence for Salinger result in a well-executed piece of writing; the best I've read anyway.

We have missed so much as Salinger has gone to such lengths to keep his early short stories from mass distribution. This is a great, academic presentation of what is lacking in the context of what we (the public) have access to (i.e., Nine Stories, Franny & Zooey, etc).

To re-capture Salinger's real gift (the short story) and get some perspective about his contribution to American literature, this is a wonderful volume!

I've finished the first half of the whole book. Rise HIgh The Roof Beam Carpenters is a story about Seymour's attempts at marrige. I got some good laughs from how the family of the girl he is to marry reactes to Seymour. The journal entries were interesting to read as well. All is all, great story yet again JD!

I've just read three books on Salinger, one a biography by Paul Alexander and the others memoirs by Joyce Maynard and now Margaret Salinger. Paul Alexander suggests that Salinger's reclusiveness was nothing more than a ploy to get attention, but you clearly don't get that impression from Maynard and Margaret Salinger, two people who knew Salinger intimately.

I very much enjoyed Joyce Maynard's book, which I thought was insightful and brilliantly written. I expected more from Margaret's book, thinking she would offer even more insights. After all, I thought, Maynard knew Salinger for 18 months or so; Margaret Salinger has known him for a lifetime.

But Margaret's book is mostly about herself, and she offers us excrutiating details on that life. Did she think anyone would really care that her brother's first words were "Ba Ba"? Did she need to reprint in full the text of her childhood notes to friends and boyfriends? How about those trivial and distracting footnotes all over the place? And I thought much of her writing -- praised elsewhere on this message board -- was pretentious and contrived. (Charybdis this and Scylla that.)

Poor J.D. Salinger. Despite Paul Alexander's suggestions, what Salinger clearly wants and wanted (in his quirky way) was privacy. What he gets are a bunch of disgruntled family members and friends trading in on their connections to him. So why did I read the book if I seem to be suggesting we respect Salinger's privacy? Good question.

This is unlike any "memoir" I've ever read. Margaret Salinger has included so much information here, historical, personal, and literary, it may be more than the average "kiss and tell" reader can fathom. The serious reader won't be disappointed. Margaret gives a bittersweet, yet balanced account of her childhood. Her childhood accounts show a real memory for the details, sounds, smells, and especially the visual beauty of life in the woods. She frames her father's development as a writer and links his work to events in his life. She has researched and explained her father's discomfort with his Jewish heritage .She frames it in the context of America anti-Semitism in the first half of this century. She tells of his restless search for transcendence from the pain of life with a series of fads. He eventually settles on a hodge-podge of Zen and Christian Science. All of life is fiction. (Except his needs.) Given the lengths to which her father's more unbalanced admirer's will go, she very wisely avoids discussing her current partner and lifestyle. It's clear she has discovered the happiness of the small things in life and is the kind of chaplain I would like to have. She's self-effacing and a real straight shooter. This honesty probably has cost her, but after her illnesses, her emotional needs, and finally, she herself became just another "illusion," she had lost her father long ago.

This is unlike any "memoir" I've ever read. Margaret Salinger has included so much information here, historical, personal, and literary, it may be more than the average "kiss and tell" reader can fathom. The serious reader won't be disappointed. Margaret gives a bittersweet, yet balanced account of her childhood. Her childhood accounts show a real memory for the details, sounds, smells, and especially the visual beauty of life in the woods. She frames her father's development as a writer and links his work to events in his life. She has researched and explained her father's discomfort with his Jewish heritage .She frames it in the context of America anti-Semitism in the first half of this century. She tells of his restless search for transcendence from the pain of life with a series of fads. He eventually settles on a hodge-podge of Zen and Christian Science. All of life is fiction. (Except his needs!) Given the lengths to which her father's more unbalanced admirer's will go, she very wisely avoids discussing her current partner and lifestyle. It's clear she has discovered the happiness of the small things in life and is the kind of chaplain I would like to have. She's self-effacing and a real straight shooter. This honesty probably has cost her, but after her illnesses, her emotional needs, and finally, she herself became just another "illusion," she had lost her father long ago.

It was a pretty good book which I can relate to being that I am around the same age as the mian character. I understood what he was going through in a sense and I enjoyed the book. The language was a little unrealistic for a kid his age but it was supposed to be events which took place in the mid 1900's or so.

In the Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is a teen ager that goes to private schools. He gets kicked out of a lot of them since he flunked out. He doesn't have very many friends and people get upset with him. I thought the book was kinda different but it is a good way to tell how other teens act in these situations. I think that he doesn't do a good job at handling his problems that he has. He needs to see a therapist to help him out with his problems since he can't deal with them and brings them out on other people. His sister helps him out alot with his problems when he comes to her in the night and then asks her for some money. She is younger than Holden but acts older and more responsible then him. I don't think it helps his family any that his older brother is a prostitute. I like the part in the end where you realize that he was in the helping home. I think that teenagers should read this if they like to read because it makes them think a little bit.

I believe that in high school, teenagers should read many different types of books in class, not all the same kind of fairy tales, mysterys, whatever kind of genre they choose to read from, or are made to read. "Catcher in the Rye" is a book that has a different tone of reading style most people are not used to. But in order for teens to get a variety in their reading, they should read this book. It shows a teenage boy's life within a few days and throughout the book it has all his thoughts and feelings that are happening at that particular time. Many swear words that are not used in most books are used, plus many comments about the opposite sex. Alot of schools have banned this book in their school because of the profanity. But most teenagers feel this way throughout their lives inside of their mind, so it's not like teenagers have never heard this kind of profanity before. Now it's just being brought out in the open. I believe this is a good book and should be able to be kept on all book shelves through out the world.

This was a very interesting book. It starts off in the same way it finishes. There's only two catches though- it has no climax and it has rather heavy language throughout. In a way the main character,Holden Caulfield, is just writing another English report about what happened to him on Christmas vacation. I enjoyed it on the most part because it gave an insight in what he was thinking more so than what he did. Like he kept thinking about his old girlfriend Jane, but she never actually enters the story. I think the point I got out of the book is people aren't real. They try to put off that they're somebody else and unless you can read their mind, you'll never know who they really are. All in all, this was definitley a book worth reading, I guess that is why it made it pretty big. That or it's because the cussing.

If you're a fan of Salinger's work, do not read this poor written biography. The best you can do is just read his marvelous books, and forget about the writer to focus on the writing.

Take first the fact that you're reading a book about someone who did not want to be involved with this book at all. You could put that aside. After all, if a new Salinger book showed up without his permission, I guarantee I would snatch it up even as I complain about the publisher going against his wishes. Even if Hamilton's writing was the only thing lacking, you could probably get past that and seek out some interesting information on Salinger's life/work/etc., but it goes beyond just poor writing. There is nothing of real merit here as far as I can see. Why write a book that basically restates what you can find in an encyclopedia section on Salinger? When you simply restate that after a certain point not much is known over and over again or try to use the investigative journalism approach to gain readers' sympathy (think of all of the reporters who knock on the door and scream inside about the person avoiding the interview and although the clip is really a bore, it gets used because it backs up the viewpoint of that reporter). I am a huge Salinger fan, and I would have settled for a poorly written, unauthorized biography if I could have found something else of value underneath.

Yeah, this biography is kind of weak but the subject is JD Salinger, at least Hamilton gives explanations for gaps in the story, its not totallyincoherent. Its really a biography and "Making of" the biography at the same time. Hamilton takes us along like a sluething companion. Even if you have sympathy for Salinger's privacy don't worry, so does our author--but his nosy alter-ego is a little less gracious. Despite what other harsh... critics have said, I did learn a lot of info on J.D. such as about his army days during WWII and his numerous short stories published in magazines during 40s and 50s (it'd be nice to take a look at those.)

Because Salinger is such a recluse, this psuedo-bio only covers his writing years (which ended in the early 60s). I found much of the detail on how Hamilton obtains his information interesting. He actually manages to get his hands on original copies of some Salinger letters written during this time. The quoted material from these letters ends up as a legal battle with the man himself (J.D.) which is really kind of dull and uninformative. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth if only because it reminds you that Salinger doesn't want us reading this tripe at all; a conundrum since most of you are probably reading it because you're a fan.

Paul Alexander has accomplished a stunning feat of embodying the antithesis to Holden's ideals. The protagonist of _Salinger: A Biography_ - Paul Alexander himself - shows masterfully that not only can a fictional character exist who hates all phonies, but that the perfect journalistic phony can also strike back with a story about the creator of the phonies-hater. Quite fittingly,in its closing lines the "biography" introduces its phony neologism: "acturally" [sic].

Usually, when I am about to write a review here, and I see
that others have made points I intend to make, I just forget
it. But it seems most appropriate for the point to be repeated
that this book is horrendous, syllable by syllable. Another writer says it shouldn't have been published, and that's a shrewd and exacting assessment. If not for the fact that the sense of debasement that such a master as Salinger suffers if palpable, there's also the issue of editorial scruples: doesn't this publishing house employ editors? Yes, Alexander's prose is poor (why did someone give him an MFA?). But it also includes grammatical mistakes and basic flaws in thinking and logic. Some sentences are repeated, a clear editing snaffoo. He often draws inferences that are unfounded or remarks on some coincidence or set of circumstances that he deems titillating or telling when these can be so easily dismissed.
The main problem is Alexander's infantile way of setting up a
simple dichotomy: Salinger either is a recluse at heart or
is trying to maintain prestige and import by remaining hidden. Is there nothing in between? Are people sure of their own motivations. Ultimately, the idea of thirty years of isolation as publicity stunt is hopelessly naive and insipid. It doesn't make sense and it looks at a man with a mind as great as Salinger's in an untenable fashion.
Also, there's the story of a newspaper article a girl published in a daily paper after telling S. it was for a school paper. This is a rumor, and Alexander's source is simply another magazine feature. This is one cardinal example of the flaw in writing a biography without doing research. Yes, Salinger is a tough ticket, but why didn't Alexander check out this story with those who knew S. at the time, the girl in question (if possible), the daily paper, etc? Instead, he's content to pass off this simple story as gospel on the word of an apparently ill-researched magazine piece.
Finally, a word on the story "Teddy." (Incidentally, I think Alexander's butchering of "Just Before the War With the Eskimos" is the most egregious of the bunch, with fierce competition.) When I first read the story, I, as Alexander did, thought that Teddy had killed his sister, because of the female scream. Many feel it is ambiguous. Alexander is at fault, not as much for his interpretation, but not for entertaining any others. However, I do think it's clear enough Teddy killed himself. That's where the story is heading. Also, earlier in the story, Teddy writes in his journal "it could be today or..." and then he lists a date several years later when he'd be sixteen.Later,
in a conversation with his college-aged companion, he says that he has told professors certain dates on which they should be careful because they could be in danger of losing their lives. So it seems the "it" referred to in the journal, not explained elsewhere, could be his death.
Well, alas, Salinger could be partly to blame. If you try too hard to keep biographies from being published, the publishing world becomes so greedy that any incompetent can sell one. It's too bad such a fascinating man has been degraded in this way.

Paul Alexander pulls together what seems an accurate timeline of Salinger's life. Salinger is a legendary recluse and seriously uptight about leaking any personal information. A biography without his cooperation is inherently non-conclusive and hardly in-depth.

****A basic profile, however, still provides some interest. Alexander documents that Salinger was not a good student in his youth. His instructors evaluate him as having potential but no genius I.Q. or motivation. His ambition to write doesn't surface until he is almost in college.

****In World War II, Salinger serves in the Army, participating in D-Day and marching into Paris after Allied liberation. This is a particularly significant time for Salinger psychologically and in his writing. It's at this time that he develops "Catcher in the Rye". One can see where Holden's exhaustion, confusion, and melancholy come from. In large part, it's the war-weary Salinger channeled through.

****If Salinger is an autobiographical writer and we consider hints given in the Glass family chronicles like "Seymour: An Intro", then Salinger is a professor-figure who wants to cross the street whenever inquisitive, eager students approach. He believes there are no truly interesting questions anyone can ask him -- at least not so imperative as to justify disturbing his reclusivity.

****To be fair, answering all the fans (and fanatics) would be an overwhelming endeavor -- probably much like the circus that surrounds J.K. Rowling on book tours. Salinger is, in a sense, a lone Beatle. There's no confidante to understand what his celebrity is like.

****I'm guessing Salinger was himself a fan of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. It would be rather appropriate since its creator, Bill Waterson, also retreated from the public despite phenomenal success. And as much as Salinger refuses to publish anymore, you'd like to imagine that he has access to the internet and that he's given some thought (if not contributed) to the anonymous "instant publication" happening on the world wide web.

I was checking the comments on The Catcher in the Rye and saw that there were Cliff Notes on this book. I couldn't believe it! That someone would actually write notes on The Catcher in the Rye. This book should never be summarized into Cliff Notes. This book should be read in its entirety or not at all, regardless of how much time you have. This book can be read easily in a few hours, and it's the best book I've read in a while. It is a disgrace that this book was allowed to be put into Cliff Notes and these are for people who are too lazy or ignorant to pick up the actual book.

The only reason you would need cliff notes for this book is if you are lazy or short on time and theres a test the next day. Yet the cliff notes arent descriptive enough for you to get the whole book. I can understand needing cliff notes for the confusing dialect of "tale of two cities", or the background and analysis for "Brave new World", but going through the Catcher in the Rye is a breeze, and the book is enjoyable. Its one of my favorite books ever. Dont even bother with these cliff notes.

Despite the fact that CliffsNotes has helped me through one too many an English Lit quiz, I believe that this is taking it a little too far. Catcher in the Rye is, by far, one of my favorite books of all time, and to create CliffsNotes for it requires something less than academic foresight. Talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. The entire point of J.D. Salinger's one and only published novel is that though we do need to carry out our schooling, education isn't there to cloak the mind into believing that regurgitating facts onto meaningless scraps of wood pulp. It's there to take the free thought that we have and expand it, so that we can better express ourselves, and not bury who we are behind a pile of textbooks. The specifics of the life of Holden Caulfield are not important. The generalities of the life of Holden Caulfield are not important. What is important is the ideals expressed in the book--not where Holden went to school, not how many times he mentions the hunting hat, not where the ducks do actually go. Both teachers and students of today must learn that teaching others and yourselves that this is all that's important is like building a wall around yourself. So read the book. It'll bring you to something closer to happiness than an A ever will. And hell, if you actually read the thing, you might ace it anyway.