CATCHER IN THE RYE!!!!!!!!!!!!


sorabji.com: Best book you've ever read: CATCHER IN THE RYE!!!!!!!!!!!!
THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).

By DarkAlley on Thursday, May 25, 2000 - 07:22 pm:

    Holden Caufield is my God. Not really, but his running commentary throughout the whole book about life I just loved. Hes a character we can all associate with. He gets annoyed at all the same shit we all do hes just a little more petty about it. But hes free to be petty. Although in the same respect, hes very afraid to grow up and experience life as it comes. Much like all of us. My favorite part of the book was when he was sitting in the stairwell at his old school and reads the word "FUCK" on the wall. He immediately gets all fired up and starts going off on the idiot that wrote it. It shows his innocence and kind-of explains my own view on the subject. What about you? What was your favorite part?


By Holden on Friday, July 14, 2000 - 03:57 pm:

    I've read it several times and always enjoyed it. Here's my favorite part...

    “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. “


By Jay on Friday, July 14, 2000 - 04:19 pm:

    my favorite part as well.


By Biro on Saturday, July 15, 2000 - 12:00 am:

    That was a GREAT book, am going to the library to re-read it. Third time around is the charmer. You guys are bringing back lots of great memories of books long forgotten. Thanks.


By semillama on Saturday, July 15, 2000 - 11:46 am:

    Fucking Lone Nuts.


By Holden on Saturday, July 15, 2000 - 02:39 pm:

    Well said.


By Fetidbeaver on Saturday, July 15, 2000 - 05:37 pm:

    I hated that fucking book. We had a flake of a teacher who made us read it every year. She acted like it contained the meaning of life. I wouldn't wipe my ass with the damn thing.

    p.s. notice my ass reference for Jay :o)


By Isolde on Sunday, July 16, 2000 - 12:26 am:

    FB: Thank you! Yay! Someone else hates a tried and true classic. Yum. That makes me so happy.


By Jay on Sunday, July 16, 2000 - 09:08 pm:

    i picked up catcher in the rye thinking just that. that it contained the meaning of life. that it was some deep literary masterpiece and it's just about this fucked up kid.
    i did like that one scene described above though.
    i've re-read a lot of books that were rammed down my throat by bad dressing english teachers and have found them much more pleasing when simply read rather than analyzed to all get out.
    maybe give the old Catcher another shot FB.


By Biro on Monday, July 17, 2000 - 05:06 pm:

    Sometimes a second look is a good thing, thankyou Martha Stewart for coining that phrase, I think Martha Stewart is an alien. Kinda like the Stepford Wives, too good to be true. Mulder & Scully should be on to her the next episode of the X-Files. I have to go fix a six course meal ala Martha for my alien friends visiting. Jeez I hope I have the right napkins and flatware.


By J on Monday, July 17, 2000 - 05:18 pm:

    Don,t forget the time to make napkin rings,and place settings.


By Biro on Monday, July 17, 2000 - 05:42 pm:

    k-mart - there, if Martha endorses it I am there. You go Martha........ LOL


By Jay on Monday, July 17, 2000 - 11:03 pm:

    martha stewart has got to be a real bitch in person. biro i think we've discussed this.
    power freak.
    but damn the bitch can bake a cake.


By Biro on Monday, July 17, 2000 - 11:28 pm:

    Its the alien Martha that bakes the cake, the real martha is drinking mind erasers in the back yard with the gardener.


By Skitzo on Wednesday, August 30, 2000 - 10:48 pm:

    J.D. Salinger plays God in this book, and he does it with such literary grandeur and style that it will forever remain a classic in those of us whom are able to grasp the true meaning of it. Here's a clue: Think about it!


By Chosen One on Saturday, March 24, 2001 - 04:43 am:

    Here's another clue: J.D. Salinger is Jewish!!eh Yes, he is still alive, albeit a recluse!! Further proof that Jews excel in every echelon of life. Literature being no exception! Just some of the many great Jewish authors & Nobel Prize winners in literature:

    ARTHUR MILLER (death of a salesman, the crucible)
    NORMAN MAILER - Author of the great novel "The Naked and the Dead" (based on his WWII service); and several ground-breaking works of prose: "The Armies of the Night, "Of a Fire On the Moon"; "The Executioner's Song". It used to be a lot of fun to see Mailer joust and pontificate on television. There is the first chapter of a new Mailer biography on the link. It gives Mailer's early background. Who knew his father was a South African Jew?
    J.D. SALINGER (catcher in the rye of course!eh)
    ISAAC ASIMOV (literary science great
    NEIL SIMON (playwright great, The Odd Couple)
    JOSEPH HELLER - Brooklyn born author of "Catch-22", "Good as Gold", and several others. Catch-22 was not completely a work of imagination, Heller was a airplane gunner who flew his full quota of missions during WWII. Heller died in 1999. Also coined the phrase, "Catch 22."
    FRANZ KAFKA (1883-1924) Czech-born writer who wrote in German. Author of the "Trial" and "The Castle" among other works. One of the first great modern novelists/short story writers who captured the despair of a single human being dealing with the modern state. "Fortunately", he died before the War, most of his family died in concentration camps. Frankly, Kafka is so famous that we can add little and there are scores of web sites that detail his life and work. (One odd note: there is now an amusement park in Prague in which you can view the city's history "through the eyes of Franz Kafka". What?) The following link takes you to the "Kafka" photo album. It links up with a discussion of Kafka and kabbalah. We found the latter discussion very slow reading--the writer's style is very academic and turgid. But the pictures are interesting. Including one taken of Kafka around the time of his bar mitzvah. Yes, Kafka was one of the few people who could say, without irony, that his bar mitzvah was a "Kafkaesque"
    JOSEPH PULITZER (journalist, ala "pulitzer prize)
    Xaviera Hollander - It is not easy to find a category for the Dutch author of the huge best seller, "The Happy Hooker". Hollander, now well over 50, became a sex icon in the '70s with her best selling book about being a madam--not to mention the pictures that appeared of her in many magazines. Her father is Jewish. Her mother is not. In an interview, Hollander ascribed her "sexy" side to her Jewish "side".
    ERICA JONG - Best known for "Fear of Flying",' but has produced a number of interesting novels. She got her last name from one of her husbands who was Chinese-American.
    JUDITH KRANTZ - Best selling novelist. Author of "Scruples","Princess Daisy", many others. She has just (2000) written her autobiography. It is fairly steamy stuff according to the reviews.
    JACKIE COLLINS - Described as the "Queen" of pulp fiction. Author of steamy novels of Hollywood, etc. adventures. Her father was Jewish, her mother not. She tried to be an actress, like her sister, Joan. Anthony Newley, Joan's ex-husband, once said "Jackie struggled for years to be an actress; Joan still hasn't succeeded".
    ALEX COMFORT - Author of the huge best seller "The Joy of Sex" and many other related titles. We recently saw that there is an anthology of erotica by Jewish women writers amusingly entitled "The Oy of Sex".
    Germs and Steel."
    E. L. DOCTOROW - Born 1931. Pulitzer Prize winning author of "Ragtime"; "Book of Daniel", "Loon Lake", among many others. On the following link are reviews of Doctrow's works and articles about him
    ANDREA DWORKIN - Leading American feminist writer and critic. She has been most associated with her campaign to try and find a legal way to have pornography defined as a hate crime against women or otherwise severely restrict it. Her main ally has been law professor Catherine McKinnon (not Jewish). The campaign has not been able to overcome First Amendment hurdles in the United States.
    HARLAN ELLISON - Don't call him a science fiction writer if you value your life, as those who have met this author and screenwriter know. Winner of many awards for his "science fiction". Even though Ellison says they hurt his script--he wrote what is often thought to be the best single episode of the Star Trek series--an espisode in which a idealistic young woman, played by Joan Collins, must be allowed to die so that future history is not changed for the worse.
    EDNA FERBER - Very popular writer of historical novels. Her novel, "Giant", was made into a popular film starring James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Liz Taylor. She was also a successful playwright, collaborating on the book for "Showboat", "Dinner at Eight", and others. Quite witty, she held her own at the Algonquin Rountable, a famous 1920s gathering of wits. One day she wore a suit much like the suit worn by famous English actor and playwright, Noel Coward. Coward was a guest at the "Roundtable". Coward said to Ferber, "You almost look like a man." She said, "So do you."
    SHELBY FOOTE - Quite a surprise here. Famous historian of the Civil War who became well-known with his commentary on Ken Burns' history of the Civil War on PBS. A Mississippi native, his mother was Jewish, father, not. Adopted Christianity as a young man, but he says "it did not take".
    BETTY FRIEDAN - In many ways the founder of the modern feminist movement. Author of "The Feminine Mystique". In 2000, she published her autobiography.
    ALLEN GINSBERG - Beat Poet from Patterson. Friend of Kerouac; Neil Casady (who was model for Dean Moriarity in On the Road; McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest"). Author of "Kaddish" and "Howl". (I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked...)"
    WILLIAM GOLDMAN - Screenwriter and novelist. Long considered one of the top screenwriters in the business. He has won two Oscars for screenwriting (for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and for "All the President's Men"). He also wrote, among others, "Marthon Man", "Stepford Wives", "Heat" (from his novel), "Princess Bride" (from his novel), and the screenplay for "Misery".

    JEWISH NOBEL WINNERS IN LITERATURE:

    SHMUEL YOSEF AGNON - Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1966 (shared with
    Nelly Sachs). Agnon was born in Poland in 1888 and died, in Israel, in 1970. He
    is regarded as one of the most important writers in the Hebrew language. Full
    biography on following link. Agnon
    SAUL BELLOW - Nobel Prize winning author who was born in Canada and moved at
    age 9 to Chicago (where he has stayed). Author of "Herzog", "Seize the Day" and
    many other works. Send him a card, just became a father again at 84 (his wife
    is 41 and, yes, she is Jewish).
    JOSEPH BRODSKY - Russian-born poet, essayist, and critic. He wrote both in
    Russian and English. He was sent to a Siberian labor camp for a year and forced
    into exile in 1972. He became an American citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in
    1987 and was poet laureate of the U.S. in 1991. He was only 55 when he died in
    1996.
    ELIAS CANNETTI - Bulgarian-born novelist who won the Nobel Prize for literature
    in 1981. Cannetti was raised in a Ladino-speaking Sephardic home. His novels
    are difficult going, but interesting. Cannetti sought refuge in London before
    the War and remained there the rest of his life.
    NADINE GORDIMER - Winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for literature. Gordimer, a South African, is known for her novels and short stories. The link will take you to short summaries of all her novels and short story collections and from
    there you can read the full NY Times review.
    PAUL HEYSE - German. Nobel Prize for Literature, 1910. Jewish mother.
    BORIS PASTERNAK - (1890-1960) Pasternak, a Russian Jew, was the winner of the
    1958 Nobel Prize for literature. Pasternak was forced to decline the award by the Soviet government. Pasternak was born into a prominent Moscow Jewish family. His father was a well known painter whose works are still much admired
    today. Pasternak's literary production was not that large. Probably because during most of his active career he had to self-censor himself due to the nature of the Soviet regime. His most famous novel, "Doctor Zhivago", was published abroad in 1957, but supressed in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev finally allowed the "great novel of the Revolution" to be published in 1988. In 1989, Pasternak's son accepted the Nobel on his father's behalf. We found this interesting quote about Pasternak, "Pasternak loved Russia. He was prepared to forgive his country all its shortcomings, all, save the barbarism of Stalin's
    reign; but even that, in 1945, he regarded as the darkness before the dawn which he was straining his eyes to detect - the hope expressed in the last chapters of Doctor Zhivago." (Isaiah Berlin in The Proper Study of Mankind,
    1998)
    NELLY SACHS - Born 1891. German-born novelist, poet, and playwright. She was born in Berlin and fled to Sweden in 1940. Remarkably, at age 50, she began a distinguished literary career. Her works often were on Jewish themes and the
    experience of persecution. She shared the 1966 Nobel Prize for literature with S.Y. Agnon. Ms. Sachs was the first Jewish woman in any field to win a Nobel. (There have been a number of Jewish women who have won the award since her).
    Nelly Sachs died in 1970.
    ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER - (1904-91) Singer won the 1978 Nobel Prize for literature. Singer, who was born in Poland, came to the United States in 1935.
    He wrote in Yiddish. But he heavily collaborated with his English translators. Singer's short stories and novels are all in print and are still very popular. Several have been made into films, but Singer said that once he sold the
    rights, he knew he couldn't control the film product and accepted what happened. He didn't like the film production of "Yentl"; but expressed some admiration for the film production of "Enemies: A Love Story". Singer's life is
    well-known through his own volumes of memoirs and any fan of his fiction can gain a great deal by reading them. Singer was aware that the Holocaust had destroyed something like 70% of the world's Yiddish speakers and that the language was often described as dying. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he said, "Yiddish has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have
    not been revealed to the eyes of the world. It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and cabalists--rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget. In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of the frightened and hopeful humanity."


By Jacko on Saturday, August 21, 2004 - 01:17 am:

    I really hated this book. It depressed the hell out of me
    Holden is just really stuck up and whiny. He cannot distinguish the line between phoniys and real peopele, beacause there is none. He himself is phony. He puts on his dumb acts and fools his parents, Mrs. Morrow, and others. The book sucked really BADLY.


By Jack osbourne on Monday, November 1, 2004 - 02:37 pm:

    this book blows


By agatha on Monday, November 1, 2004 - 05:04 pm:

    Jack is just feeling defensive because Holden's personality hits a little too close to home.


By jack on Monday, November 1, 2004 - 05:25 pm:

    jack osbourne, you mean.


By agatha on Monday, November 1, 2004 - 08:50 pm:

    That is correct. Not you, you're my favorite.


By jack on Monday, November 1, 2004 - 11:23 pm:

    aw. <blush> sweet.

    : )


By jack on Monday, November 1, 2004 - 11:30 pm:

    now i'm going to go root for some truffles.


By agatha on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 - 03:28 pm:

    You do that.


By Dodi on Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - 02:19 am:

    GO BUSH!!


By V on Thursday, November 4, 2004 - 01:48 am:

    Dodi,G.W.B. should pay you for this.


By Dodi on Thursday, November 4, 2004 - 01:20 pm:

    I agree!

    I just wanted to get my point across.


By V on Thursday, November 4, 2004 - 06:38 pm:

    ...you did real well. :)


By Dodi on Thursday, November 4, 2004 - 07:56 pm:

    I do my best my friend.:)


By V on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 04:56 pm:

    YOU WON!!!


By Dodi on Thursday, November 11, 2004 - 06:06 pm:

    Yeppers!


By Chaos on Monday, December 20, 2004 - 12:17 am:

    da book was aright..cudda been better but it was aright neways...yeaa...


By Diz on Friday, January 21, 2005 - 03:43 pm:

    I read book because I wanted to, not because it was part of any study I had to do. Perhaps that makes a difference to some people. I've mentioned it to various friends as being one of the most subtly impressive reads I've ever had the pleasure of stubbling across. Stalinger's prose is so genuine and from his gut. Like Holden, he does his best to cut through the bull shit and if he doesn't tell it like it is, he at least tells it as it sometimes appears depending on who you are and what your particular mindset is. The entire world seems different, kind of like Sylvia Plath's bell jar idea in the novel of that title, if your down, lonely or worse. I think it's great power is the degree of empathy it encourages from the right reader. I know that'll sound like a bit of a dodgy phrase but I know some perfectly bright people who just 'don't get it'. Maybe, just maybe, you've got to have experienced loneliness like that to get it. I tend to think that if you don't get it now, then you will one day. Not that it's all doom and gloom. It is a masterpeice of that blend of dry humour and general tradegy that I think Dickens also does superbly well. I say 'general tradgey' for want of a better expression. It's not a case of somebody dying or one striking disaster - it's vague and drawn out, and probably all the more exquisite and realistic for being like that. I reakon that's why many of us make grand claims for it holding the meaning of life. That's the bullshit though, isn't it? Salinger seemed to recognise that sometimes one of the biggest challenges of life is just the surprise of finding yourself alive and adrift, and not really knowing what you're supposed to do with any of it.


By K on Monday, February 14, 2005 - 08:41 pm:

    holden spends the novel speaking to a shrink does he listen to himself? is he re-reading his novel whilst he writes it?


By JAMES STEWERT on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 12:11 am:

    waaaaaal,its a real fast way to write a novel.


By Pink panter on Monday, February 28, 2005 - 02:44 pm:

    rocks


By Shweezzle on Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - 09:52 pm:

    People who dont like this book, and think it was "dumb" are just shallow. No worries.


By Kurty on Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - 06:10 pm:

    does anybody agree with me that Mr. Antolini is gay? I mean he married a much older woman...he came on to Holden!!! and it doesn't seem that Mr.A and his wife are a typical couple.


By V on Thursday, March 3, 2005 - 01:58 am:

    True,Mr.Antolinis wife is in fact a lesbian.


By Jim Curtis in CF on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 03:44 am:

    The fact is he wasn't a part of it to begin with. Listen, something happened that MADE a great deal of sense to the LaST of the seven Mandrake dealers. That's the clue ALOT of peep hole miss.


By Kmyk on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 06:45 pm:

    I personally liked the book. As I figure more about Holden and what his motives are for his actions and thoughts, you'll start to pity him but like him even more. You guys need to reread the book since you can't understand the concept of it. <-----not an insult


By Supermans Dead on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 01:16 am:

    i read catcher in school and thought i was horrible, this is my review i had to write for the worst book ever:

    The Catcher in the Rye is a book that has been banned for the better part of the last few decades and, after reading it, should have stayed banned. While reading this book you tend to wonder ‘Are there really people out there like this? And if there are they should be rounded up and killed before they can contaminate the gene pool’. The characters are just too far-fetched and you just wouldn’t find people like this in a normal society, or any society for that matter. The one thing that never changes is Holden’s incessant complaining. With all the things he complains about he reminds me of the fairy-tale character Goldilocks, shut up and eat your darn porridge. After I read this story I asked myself… Self, why is something this bad so popular? Maybe it’s the allure of seeing the big bad “F” word in school. I know I myself was waiting to see Holden finally snap and tell someone to go F themselves, but alas, even that was robbed from me and anyone else who read the book. If you’re waiting for a great ending, something to finally explain why so many people praise this, don’t hold your breath, there isn’t one! In fact, the only way you know the book is over is that when you turn the page, there’s nothing there. This book could be 500 pages longer or end 7 chapters earlier and still end the same, with nothing. In conclusion, if you’re going to read Catcher in the Rye… don’t. Instead pick up a bottle of drain cleaner and read the ingredients, then drink it, this would probably be more enjoyable than Catcher in the Rye.


By Poopy doopy on Tuesday, May 2, 2006 - 06:37 pm:

    very interesting all
    however this excludes the fact that
    you a have stinky sandy vaginas


By Vagina face on Tuesday, May 2, 2006 - 06:40 pm:

    i wish mine was sandy then i wouldn't need the operation now i have a stinky sandy buthole


By Pet on Saturday, May 27, 2006 - 01:56 pm:

    yo\


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