Book Review on the Catcher in the Rye
Abhilasha Thapa
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger
BOOK REVIEW
The Catcher in the Rye is an exhilarating and gripping work of fiction subject to a lot of controversy. Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye is a first person narrative and its genre is Bildungsroman: a novel relating to personal development or spiritual bond.
The book was written by Jerome David Salinger who was born in a wealthy family and spent his early life being transferred between various preparatory schools. He got admitted into a number of colleges but did not graduate from anyone of them. When he was at Columbia University, he did extremely well in his creative writing class, strengthening his interest in writing that he had since he was an adolescent. Many events that took place in Salinger’s early stages of life are depicted in this novel. This novel is commonly assumed to be a story of an individual’s estrangement within a callous world. The main character thinks everybody who is a grown up is a phony because their actions and guidance are all false.
The story starts with the protagonist, Holden Caulfield narrating his story from a rest home where he was sent regularly for treatment as he had got tuberculosis. Sixteen year old Holden talks about his brother D.B. who was a Hollywood writer at the start of his story. He was being expelled on the coming Wednesday from his fourth school, Pencey Prep, a prestigious school he attended in Agerstown, Pennsylvania due to his poor academic performance. He had already been banished from three other schools. Out of the five subjects that he had taken in Pencey Prep, he was able to pass just one of them, English. He goes to meet his history teacher, Mr. Spencer to bid him goodbye but instead gets chastised by his teacher. He wants to make a connection with other people, but almost every scene in the book shows him trying to do so and failing. In his dormitory, he gets annoyed by his neighbor, Ackley who is a pimply, insecure boy with
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger
BOOK REVIEW
The Catcher in the Rye is an exhilarating and gripping work of fiction subject to a lot of controversy. Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye is a first person narrative and its genre is Bildungsroman: a novel relating to personal development or spiritual bond.
The book was written by Jerome David Salinger who was born in a wealthy family and spent his early life being transferred between various preparatory schools. He got admitted into a number of colleges but did not graduate from anyone of them. When he was at Columbia University, he did extremely well in his creative writing class, strengthening his interest in writing that he had since he was an adolescent. Many events that took place in Salinger’s early stages of life are depicted in this novel. This novel is commonly assumed to be a story of an individual’s estrangement within a callous world. The main character thinks everybody who is a grown up is a phony because their actions and guidance are all false.
The story starts with the protagonist, Holden Caulfield narrating his story from a rest home where he was sent regularly for treatment as he had got tuberculosis. Sixteen year old Holden talks about his brother D.B. who was a Hollywood writer at the start of his story. He was being expelled on the coming Wednesday from his fourth school, Pencey Prep, a prestigious school he attended in Agerstown, Pennsylvania due to his poor academic performance. He had already been banished from three other schools. Out of the five subjects that he had taken in Pencey Prep, he was able to pass just one of them, English. He goes to meet his history teacher, Mr. Spencer to bid him goodbye but instead gets chastised by his teacher. He wants to make a connection with other people, but almost every scene in the book shows him trying to do so and failing. In his dormitory, he gets annoyed by his neighbor, Ackley who is a pimply, insecure boy with