The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. SalingerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
View all my reviews
The main reason I chose to reread The Catcher in the Rye is because of when it was mentioned in the movie called “The Good Girl” (2002) with Jake Gyllenhal and Jennifer Aniston.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55u2eXwbkM4
I really love that movie and I thought the book really related to the main male character in the story. I read it once before in high school, which is the best time to read it, I think. I even wrote a small essay on the book, which I will share here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-ezagM1amOE2adsCDH6sjhQPpOYzNuDNKKfxx9OKnmQ/edit?usp=sharing
Then I started researching any film adaptations and found a few I watched right after finishing reading the book. I reread the whole book in one day with the help of this audiobook: https://soundcloud.com/stephen-heintz-218879435/sets/the-catcher-in-the-rye-audiobook
The narrator was amazing, though I didn’t like the high pitched voice he gave Holden, but it grew on me overtime. I watched “Rebel in the Eye”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWRhXMMb7CYand “Coming Through the Rye”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBpnXJ49RBsright after finishing the book. All in one full day lol
I plan to read all of Salinger’s work in the future.
All my highlights were in orange in my iPad Kindle app because the book cover is orange. I still need to underline them in my physical copy, but I have to wait about a year or two because we don’t have a house. I think I would reread it when I get my hands on it. I would also have to check if my quotes are in the correct format as the physical copy. If they are not, I would have to fix this blog post. Who knows? I might add more quotes when I reread it again.
I made a playlist of all the songs that were mentioned in the novel.
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger Spotify Playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4djnIbjBeGxCRplgDzjBoa?si=qg0BhNCiQZKwru9_5eax_A
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger YouTube Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYL0fUO8zjtb11CphNTKpWm-K9EfbsrrU
Books and Authors Mentioned in The Catcher in the Rye:
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Ring Lardner (author)
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
Eustacia Vye, in The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
Charles Dickens. He’s both their favorite author and all. He’s carrying this copy of Oliver Twist
A Farewell to Arms (book)
Movies Mentioned in The Catcher in the Rye:
French movie, The Baker’s Wife, with Raimu in it
The 39 Steps, though, with Robert Donat
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| Senia got me this for Christmas, I think. I love it! |
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| Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 11:20 AM |
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| Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 8:32 AM |
“Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen. I thought it was going to stink, but it didn’t. It was a very good book. I’m quite illiterate, but I read a lot. My favorite author is my brother D.B., and my next favorite is Ring Lardner. My brother gave me a book by Ring Lardner for my birthday, just before I went to Pencey.
...
The Return of the Native
...
Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham,
…
Thomas Hardy up. I like that Eustacia Vye.
…
He came over and stood right in my light. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I’ve read this same sentence about twenty times since you came in.’
…
He kept standing there. He was exactly the kind of a guy that wouldn’t get out of your light when you asked him to. He’d do it, finally, but it took him a lot longer if you asked him to. ‘What the hellya reading?’ he said.
‘Goddam book.’
He shoved my book back with his hand so that he could see the name of it. ‘Any good?’ he said. ‘This sentence I’m reading is terrific.’ I can be quite sarcastic when I’m in the mood. He didn’t get it, though” (Chapter 3).
Lol I thought it was so funny when Holden kept going on about his one precious sentence! That’s one line I remember reading first.
“...whistling ‘Song of India’
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‘Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.’
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‘Hey,’ Stradlater said. ‘Wanna do me a big favor?’
‘What?’ I said. Not too enthusiastic. He was always asking you to do him a big favor. You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he’s a real hot-shot, and they’re always asking you to do them a big favor. Just because they’re crazy about themself, they think you’re crazy about them, too, and that you’re just dying to do them a favor. It’s sort of funny, in a way.
...
I didn’t answer him right away. Suspense is good for some bastards like Stradlater” (Chapter 4).
Why does Holden always have to go to quick conclusions about one guy and assume every other guy like that is the same? Is that the definition of racism? I’m not sure, but I like how Salinger writes.
The audiobook narrator sounds like Jake Gyllenhal. I think he would be a perfect option to play Holden!
“One thing about packing depressed me a little. I had to pack these brand-new ice skates my mother had practically just sent me a couple of days before. That depressed me. I could see my mother going in Spaulding’s and asking the salesman a million dopy questions-and here I was getting the ax again. It made me feel pretty sad. She bought me the wrong kind of skates-I wanted racing skates and she bought hockey-but it made me sad anyway. Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad” (Chapter 7).
“The only reason I didn’t do it was because I wasn’t in the mood. If you’re not in the mood, you can’t do that stuff right” (Chapter 9).
“D.B. and I took her to see this French movie, The Baker’s Wife, with Raimu in it. It killed her. Her favorite is The 39 Steps, though, with Robert Donat.
…
I’m very fond of dancing, sometimes, and that was one of the times.
…
Buddy Singer and his stinking band was playing “Just One of Those Things”
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‘Seattle, Washington,’ she said. She was doing me a big favor to tell me.
‘You’re a very good conversationalist,’ I told her. ‘You know that?’
‘What?’” (Chapter 10).
“I’m very fond of dancing, sometimes, and that was one of the times.” That’s another favorite line of mine. The last line is funny because the girl isn’t very conversational at all lol
“Then she left. The Navy guy and I told each other we were glad to’ve met each other. Which always kills me. I’m always saying ‘Glad to’ve met you’ to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though” (Chapter 12).
That’s so true though, Holden! It really is!
“After I put my bags in one of those strong boxes at the station, I went into this little sandwich bar and had breakfast. I had quite a large breakfast, for me-orange juice, bacon and eggs, toast and coffee. Usually I just drink some orange juice. I’m a very light eater. I really am. That’s why I’m so damn skinny. I was supposed to be on this diet where you eat a lot of starches and crap, to gain weight and all, but I didn’t ever do it. When I’m out somewhere, I generally just eat a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk. It isn’t much, but you get quite a lot of vitamins in the malted milk. H. V. Caulfield. Holden Vitamin Caulfield.
...
Eustacia Vye, in The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy” (Chapter 15).
I thought that was funny when Holden called himself “Holden Vitamin Caulfield.” I also wanted a malted milkshake after reading that part lol
Original Blog Post: Saturday, May 1, 2021
May 2, 2021 Blog Update: It was Sunday and we went to Five Guys to get a hamburger and a milkshake. I got a malted milk milkshake with vanilla and a hamburger with one patty, A1 sauce, and grilled onions. It was so delicious! It was like a steak in between two buns. But the other main thing I wanted was the malted milkshake of course because he mentioned that he would eat them all the time.
“‘Little Shirley Beans’
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He was singing that song, ‘If a body catch a body coming through the rye.’
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I mean you’d be different in some way-I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it” (Chapter 16).
“‘Tin Roof Blues,’
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Then I sort of started lighting matches. I do that quite a lot when I’m in a certain mood. I sort of let them burn down till I can’t hold them any more, then I drop them in the ashtray. It’s a nervous habit” (Chapter 17).
That’s funny because the character named Astor in the book called “The Edge of Falling” by Rebecca Serle did that too and this book was mentioned in that book. I can see some inspirations of Salinger in there lol
“Charles Dickens. He’s both their favorite author and all. He’s carrying this copy of Oliver Twist
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A Farewell to Arms
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Ring Lardner,
…
I was crazy about The Great Gatsby. Old Gatsby. Old sport. That killed me” (Chapter 18).
I love that book too, Holden! I first read it in high school and thought it was really interesting.
“‘You know that song “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye”? I’d like-’
‘It’s “If a body meet a body coming through the rye”!’ old Phoebe said. ‘It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.’
‘I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.’
She was right, though. It is ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye.’ I didn’t know it then, though.
‘I thought it was “If a body catch a body,”’ I said. ‘Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff-I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy’” (Chapter 22).
“Mr. Antolini lit another cigarette. He smoked like a fiend. Then he said, ‘Frankly, I don’t know what the hell to say to you, Holden.’
‘I know. I’m very hard to talk to. I realize that.’
‘I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don’t honestly know what kind … Are you listening to me?’
‘Yes.’
You could tell he was trying to concentrate and all.
‘It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, “It’s a secret between he and I.” Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don’t know. But do you know what I’m driving at, at all?’” (Chapter 24).
“I know. I’m very hard to talk to. I realize that.” The narrator sounded so sad when he said this line. It made me feel sorry for Holden.
“‘Oh, Marie!’
…
‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.’
…
She ran and bought her ticket and got back on the goddam carrousel just in time. Then she walked all the way around it till she got her own horse back. Then she got on it. She waved to me and I waved back. Boy, it began to rain like a bastard. In buckets, I swear to God. All the parents and mothers and everybody went over and stood right under the roof of the carrousel, so they wouldn’t get soaked to the skin or anything, but I stuck around on the bench for quite a while. I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and my pants. My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way; but I got soaked anyway. I didn’t care, though. I felt so damn happy all of sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling, I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth. I don’t know why. It was just that she looked so damn nice, the way she kept going around and around, in her blue coat and all. God, I wish you could’ve been there” (Chapter 25).
I like when he says he wishes I was there.
The Strokes reminds me of The Catcher in the Rye Holden character. I wrote an essay on the book, by the way. I wrote for an English class for freshman year in high school.
My Essay:
In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden got kicked out of Pencey Prep because he was flunking four subjects. He went on his way to say goodbye to old Spencer, his history teacher. Holden lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms at Pencey.His roommate Ward Stradlater had a date with Jean Gallagher that night. Holden and a friend of his, Mal Brossard, plus Ackley all decided to take a bus into Agerstown and have a hamburger. Then Stradlater came back from his date and they got into a conflict and started fighting. Holden decided to run away from Pencey and check into a hotel in New York because it made him too sad and lonesome to hang around there any longer. He walked to the train station and met a lady. The mother of a boy in one of his classes named Ernest Morrow. Holden checked into the Edmont Hotel and phoned a girl named Faith Cavendish. Then went down to the Lavender Room, a nightclub in the hotel, and danced with three girls around thirty or so. Holden sat in a chair in the lobby and thought about Jane for a while. Then he got a cab to travel to Ernie's, a nightclub. Holden saw one of his brother's friends, Lillian Simmons, while he was there. Then he ordered a prostitute up to his room from the elevator guy. Old Maurice, the pimpy elevator guy, and Holden got into a clash about how he owed him five bucks. Then he gave Sally Hayes a buzz for a date. Since his date was not until four more hours Holden had breakfast at this little sandwich bar where he met some nuns.Then Holden payed a little visit to the Museum of Natural History. He went on his date with old Sally to a play called The Lunts. Holden decided to see a movie at Radio City till him and an old intellectual friend of his named Carl Luce had a drink at the Wicker Bar. After the movie was over Holden walked to the bar to meet Carl there and had a conversation about each others sex life. Holden stayed at the bar getting drunk and walked over to Central Park. Then he decided to walk home and sneak in quietly to talk to his little sister Phoebe for a while. Holden's parents arrived so he left. He went over to Mr. and Mrs.Antolini's apartment to stay for the night. Holden wrote a note to Phoebe and they visited the zoo.
The Catcher in the Rye has many themes; however, I believe the most conspicuous is alienation as a form of self protection. I believe that the main character, Holden, learns how to use his isolation as proof that he is better than everyone else around him and therefore above interacting with them. I learned that interactions with other people can usually confuse and overwhelm some, and that cynical sense of superiority serves as a type of self protection. A quote that helps support this theme is when Holden says, "He really was, too. You could see that. But it was just that we were too much on opposite sides of the pole, that's all." (8). Holden seems to be excluded from and victimized by the world around him. He continually attempts to find his way in a world in which he feels he does not belong.
An example of setting is when Holden started telling his story from his school. "Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this school that's in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You've probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hotshot guy on a horse jumping over a fence." (1). This quote represents setting because Holden tells the readers the school he goes to and what state it is in. He also adds a little bit description of the school.
My favorite part of this novel is when Phoebe and Holden went to visit the zoo because that was the only time he was happy. It was nice to know that the story ended with Holden feeling "so damn happy."
When I first got the assignment, I did not know what to expect. Most first person books are about girls, so that was a game changer for me. I would give this novel a 5 out of 5 stars because I could always relate to Holden somehow in his stories. I would recommend this book to teenagers and all young adults alike because this age group would be able to relate better to the themes of this modern classic of the coming of age genre.
As I said before, being a teenager is not easy. But this teenager makes it look easy. Even though he has been depressed throughout the whole story, he has found ways to make himself happy. So if you are ever feeling down just find different ways to make yourself happy. In the end, the only thing that matters is you.
Originally published on Wix Blog on Oct 4, 2018.
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