The Catcher in the Rye (Paperback)

J.D. Salinger

ISBN 10: 0241950430 / ISBN 13: 9780241950432

Published by Penguin Books Ltd, London, 2010

About this Item

Paperback. The Catcher in the Rye is J . D. Salinger's world-famous novel of disaffected youth.It's Christmas and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school. Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters - shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends.The city is beautiful and terrible in all its lonesome neon glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic coming-of-age story- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind. Holden Caulfield is a dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780241950432

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Catcher in the Rye (Paperback)
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, London
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241950430
• ISBN 13: 9780241950432
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The Catcher in the Rye

Review

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.