Friday, January 29, 2010

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

This classic the only novel written by J.D. Salinger was a must read when I was teenager. I was fifteen and it was a much talked about novel among my peers when I read it. Holden Caulfield the protagonist was considered the original angry young man of the fifties generation.


As he died at 91 just two days ago I decided to pay tribute by posting an entry here.


Text below is copied from: http://www.time.com


Salinger's only novel, The Catcher in the Rye, was published in 1951 and gradually achieved a status that made him cringe. For decades the book was a universal rite of passage for adolescents, the manifesto of disenchanted youth. (Sometimes lethally disenchanted: After he killed John Lennon in 1980, Mark David Chapman said he had done it "to promote the reading" of Salinger's book. Roughly a year later, when he headed out to shoot President Ronald Reagan, John Hinckley Jr. left behind a copy of the book in his hotel room.) But what matters is that even for the millions of people who weren't crazy, Holden Caulfield, Salinger's petulant, yearning (and arguably manic-depressive) young hero was the original angry young man. That he was also a sensitive soul in a cynic's armor only made him more irresistible. James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway had invented disaffected young men too. But Salinger created Caulfield at the very moment that American teenage culture was being born. A whole generation of rebellious youths discharged themselves into one particular rebellious youth.

Photo and Biographical Info courtesy of Wikipedia.




Salinger in 1950
BornJerome David Salinger
January 1, 1919
Manhattan, New York
DiedJanuary 27, 2010 (aged 91)[1]
Cornish, New Hampshire, United States[1]
OccupationWriter
Writing period1940–1965
Notablework(s)The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Signature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Salinger



2 comments:

  1. Did you like the book? I read it as an adult and thought it was lame. But it was at least 35 years after it was published.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think so as it is a title and author I have never forgotten! Though it was an awful long time ago. As I mentioned it did have rather a cult following amongst classmates at the time. Maybe I read it because everyone else was?

    ReplyDelete

I indulge my love of books with this blog and it makes it all worthwhile when you leave comments. I really am interested in what you think so do let me know. I have decided as the nature of this review blog makes for conversation in the comments, just to reply here and not individually, so please subscribe to comments or call back again to stay in the conversation. Thankyou for your continued support.