The Catcher in the Rye

The book I'm reading in English class this spring is called "The Catcher in the Rye". It's a pretty famous book and I'm sure many of you have heard of it. "The Catcher in the Rye" is a novel by J. D. Salinger and was written in 1951. The book has been translated into almost all of the world´s major languages, and over 65 million copies are sold in total. The book was originally written for adults, but since the main character of the story is 16 year old Holden Caulfield, the novel has been popular for younger people too. Holden is a student at a boarding school who really just wants to run away from everything in this world that thinks is “phony”. Holden gets expelled from Pencey Prep for failing, even though he appears to be a pretty smart boy. All we get to know about his past is that he has failed four schools, he has been visited by a psychoanalyst and that his brother died of leukemia three years before we enter the story. So far I think the book is very interesting and different from other things I have read. The language is good, and the fact that it’s written in first person with Holden as the narrator makes it very exciting to read, because it makes me as a reader feel like I understand what Holden thinks and feels. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this book.

I took the picture here