/lit/ - Literature

So I just finished this book and thought it was pretty okay. How did you guys feel?

aswell Anyone have any reccomendations for books similar to catcher in the rye ie: coming of the age. Preferably cynical ones. I checked the wiki already aswell and nabbed a few from the depressing section, having it up is appreciated.

Holden was a fucking asshole and a faggot but god damn did I love him. Call me narcissistic but he reminded me of all the stupid shit I do and did. Was comforting.

Hey /lit/, what do you think of this shitty fucking book?

Challenge:
Tell me something I don't already know about this fucking book.
Hint: You can't.

I had to re-read this again for my english final and wanted to see what you guys thought about it. Thoughts?

Goddam Holden is the biggest phony of them all. At least other people (phonies) are sincerely phony.

Holden is all the malicious genius of mankind, and he's the void where God should be. He's something more and less than human - a superman, and a demon.

But he's just a man, and that's the point. If he is the devil, that implies that there are angels somewhere out there. The world of The Catcher in the Rye isn't that world. It's just people doing fucking horrifying things to each other in a world that doesn't give a shit about them. The whole book is a savage inversion of the city mythology in which city living brings out the best in people - in The Catcher in the Rye, it relentlessly brings out the worst, and nobody is worse than Holden. He epitomises human reason, learning, eloquence and resourcefulness all corrupted and degraded just as everything in the book is corrupted and degraded.

The clue's in the name - he is a mockery of the very idea of morality. There is no true judgement, no redemption, no heaven and no hell. Just Holden, holding, holding.

By the way I'm fucking serious.

>phony
>whine whine whine
>teenage angst
>phony
>self-pity
SO DEEP AND INTERESTING

why does everyone consider Holden to be "whiny"?

I just read the book and I never got that vibe from him at any point. He just has his own view on things and is venting his thoughts to the reader, can't the protagonist express whats on his mind? Dismissing him as "whiny" is a pretty shallow way to look at the character. I think everyone is ignoring the fact that he is a compulsive liar with many sociopath traits and focus on him being "whiny" instead.

>tfw no 10 year old sister to pinch on the butt-cheeks.

Holden was not molested.

"The Catcher in the Rye" appreciation thread.

I like how good Salinger captured slang of the 40s youth.

Can someone explain this to me? I either don't understand it.

>holden is a narcissist that hates phonies even though he's a phony himself

So it's all his dead brothers fault?

Why was this book so damn good? I started reading it because I figured it's a classic that I should know about and when I finished it I would be able to rag on it intelligently. But holy shit it blew me away with its elegant simplicity.

Can someone who dislikes CITR tell me why they dislike it, because I'm just so surprised at how good it was. I was really expecting it to be a whiny and boring piece of angsty teenage bullshit.

*dolphin noises*

Looking for another novel with depressive/social outcast protagonists. I've read The Catcher in the Rye & The Bell Jar.

>edition comes with a gun
>spine is made with bullets so John Lennon himself can be shot

The Catcher in the Rye is an interesting novel.

So I just finished reading The Catcher in The Rye, I have to say I found it to be a bit of a bore, yet apparently it's a masterpiece am I a pleb /lit/?

I thought this book was super deep after we studied it in high school, and got really into writing. Before then I only read the minimum needed to get by on my assignments. Now I'm doing my PhD and it's still pretty similar but at least now I'm into it.

What are your thoughts on this book? Most people categorize it as an angsty coming of age novel but I can't get my head around that. In my opinion Holden is one of the characters with the most common sense but he speaks with disdain all of the time because he is not able to connect to anyone. Even when he is asked what he likes by his sister she dismisses his attitude. The fact that no one ever empathizes with him does not allow this to be a coming of age novel. He never realizes he is wrong; everything that happens to him reinforces his stance. I sincerely do not know what to think about it.

Is Holden right or wrong? How do the symbols and the ending connect with his stance? General thoughts?

A question for the people that have read J.D. Saligners - Catchers in the Rye

Rye-field in the novel Catchers in the Rye symbolizes:
a.) USA of the history, unpolluted by factories and by ferocity for money
b.) the possibility of making money, securing a fulfilling life
c.) loneliness of the individual in modern society
d.) whole crowd of people with a similar fate that the main hero goes through