[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 126 KB, 256x376, The-Catcher-in-the-Rye.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1731080 No.1731080 [Reply] [Original]

so i just finished catcher in the rye.
is this some kind of world wide troll where every one pretends to like it and get some hidden meaning behind every fucking sentence.
i literally hated holden and the slang.
why is this book so overrated?

>> No.1731095

Yeah that book is entirely shit and an hour that I wish I could get back.

>> No.1731098

It's just like anything else that is overrated, it has to do with the particular way in which it entered our cultural horizons--specifically through controversy..the book was b&, etc. and so, it's defenders became that much more adamant and so began an overestimation of an understated book..i don't know why people underrate it either..but it is what it is..people know Salinger, but they don't listen to Iggy Pop for the same messages better told--they know Camus but they don't read Daniil Kharms..Lolita by Nabokov but not the Petty Demon by Sologub, etc. Not saying my tastes>their tastes..but yes that is what i'm saying.

>> No.1731116

After reading it in High School( by force)
I disliked it. Later on I discovered that J D Salinger was a recluse and felt, good...you bastard...for all the unholy arrogant youth you cursed the earth with.

>> No.1731162

I actually kind of liked it, I'd say it's simply a good book and I have never pretended to have found a deep esoteric meaning within it's pages.

>> No.1731163

The Catcher in the Rye means a lot to me.

At the start of the novel Holden talks about how the type of books he likes the most is the books that make him feel like he's friends with the people it's about, and who he afterwards almost feels like he could call up and ask to hang out with. Later the teacher he has the misunderstanding with when sleeping at his home, talks about how Caulfield will one day grow up, and maybe write books like that himself, share what it felt like to be living at a time, dealing with his problems, and resonate with someone else who in the future will feel like he once did. Help them.

Sure. There isn't really any direct, intended message in the novel; like, this is what the world should be like, or this is what the world shouldn't be like; or this is what the world might be like; it's just communication, an attempt at creating a feeling of personal connection in an impersonal world; and as for example David Foster Wallace and more and more contemporary writers say, that's what literature is all about. Especially when things like movies and the Internet can now tell stories and share information in much more effective and flashy ways than a book ever can. You might disagree. You might never have felt like Holden Caulfield, and probably never will; and you might thus not be able to identify with Holden Caulfield. But it's not far from the case of me not being able to identify with characters in true existentialist novels at all. I've tried everything from A Personal Matter to The Stranger, and though I understand what is attempted to be said rationally, it's a completely cerebral thing for me. So I don't like them.

>> No.1731165

>>1731163

The Catcher in the Rye, on the other hand, had me teary-eyed several times. You might not get what's touching about someone lying to a mother on a train or a whiny kid arguing with his sister, but the same way I'm not familiar with Sartre's nausea, you're not with this. That's one of the things that make The Catcher in the Rye so good for those who, so to speak, it is for. Namely, it does not necessarily try to appeal to anyone. You know that pleasure when you say something, not expecting anyone to get something that's in what you're saying, and someone reacts to it, and you feel a connection? A lot of the novel is a lot like that.

As for why it's so popular, aside from it in truth being a really really good novel, there are the controversies which always help, and then of course the state of the times of its release. Closing in on the hippies of the 60s, Caulfield's feelings about our phony world probably resonated far more with most people than they do today. Another thing is the fact that it in a way started a new way of writing young adult fiction. Though it was in truth written for adults, its popularity among youth opened up for a type of fiction for those age groups that was not afraid to deal with how matters actually were, instead of writing it like parents thought it was. With stuff like Looking for Alaska and The Perks of Being a Wallflower being everywhere today, it's not unreasonable to say it's a very influential work.

>> No.1731167

Oh is it one of our hourly Catcher threads? Fucking awesome I love these things.

>> No.1731170

>>1731165

I agree. I have a link with this book, and when I read it at 16 I fell in love. I know it's not the greatest book in the world compared to some, but it is still more important to me than most. I was genuinely surprised at the regular hate that this book recieves on here when I first came here, but still, it doesn't really matter to me.

>> No.1731172

>mfw a poster praises the book and gets nothing but herpderp troll replies calling Holden a whiny bitch. But when a poster calls it overrated and hates Holden, a pretty good reply from a trip.

-_______________-

>> No.1731180

its a hilarious novel actually
if you take holden serious and agree with him you are a humorless faggot

if like me, you read it as the life story of the biggest beta male faggot instead, it's non stop hilarity

>> No.1731181

in accordance with what the trip[fag] said, it really is about relatable loneliness; clearly is, that and a peter pan complex that seems to falsely inflate Holden's character by his social observations and, of course, his drinking.

>> No.1731217

>>1731180
>>1731181

I think you're being condenscending. There are different ways of putting things. You could just as well say that The Lord of the Rings is about how some races are just evil, or that American Psycho is a pathetic, communist pipe dream. Of course, you might have intended to be, in which I case I guess I respect that.