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J. D. Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye Mass Market Paperback – May 1, 1991

by J.D. Salinger (Author)

4.4 38,040 ratings

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The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books.

"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."

The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.

Reading age

16+ years, from customers
Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Lexile measure

790L
Dimensions

4.75 x 0.8 x 6.7 inches
Publisher

Little, Brown and Company
Publication date

May 1, 1991
ISBN-10

7543321726
ISBN-13

978-0316769488
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.
Highlighted by 1,824 Kindle readers
“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
Highlighted by 1,768 Kindle readers
Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
Highlighted by 1,466 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In Mr. Salinger we have a fresh voice. One can actually hear it speaking, and what is has to say is uncannily true, perceptive, and compassionate."―Clifton Fadiman, Book-of-the-Month Club News

"We read The Catcher in the Rye and feel like the book understands us in deep and improbable ways."―John Green

"A contemporary master--a genius...Here was a man who used language as if it were pure energy beautifully controlled, and who knew exactly what he was doing in every silence as well as in every word."―Richard Yates, New York Times Book Review

"Salinger's work meant a lot to me when I was a young person and his writing still sings now."―Dave Eggers

About the Author

J. D. Salinger was born in New York City on January 1, 1919, and died in Cornish, New Hampshire, on January 27, 2010. His stories appeared in many magazines, most notably The New Yorker. Between 1951 and 1963 he produced four book-length works of fiction: The Catcher in the Rye; Nine Stories; Franny and Zooey; and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour--An Introduction. The books have been embraced and celebrated throughout the world and have been credited with instilling in many a lifelong love of reading.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0316769487
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company (May 1, 1991)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 7543321726
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316769488
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 16+ years, from customers
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 790L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.75 x 0.8 x 6.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11 in Classic American Literature
- #32 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #94 in Classic Literature & Fiction

Customer Reviews:
4.4 38,040 ratings

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J. D. Salinger

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Born in New York in 1919, Jerome David Salinger dropped out of several schools before enrolling in a writing class at Columbia University, publishing his first piece ("The Young Folks") in Story magazine. Soon after, the New Yorker picked up the heralded "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," and more pieces followed, including "Slight Rebellion off Madison" in 1941, an early Holden Caulfield story. Following a stint in Europe for World War II, Salinger returned to New York and began work on his signature novel, 1951's "The Catcher in the Rye," an immediate bestseller for its iconoclastic hero and forthright use of profanity. Following this success, Salinger retreated to his Cornish, New Hampshire, home where he grew increasingly private, eventually erecting a wall around his property and publishing just three more books: "Nine Stories," "Franny and Zooey," "Raise High the Roof Beam, and Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction." Salinger was married twice and had two children. He died of natural causes on January 27, 2010, in New Hampshire at the age of 91.

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Sara Cabrol

I wish Arlo Guthrie narrated this!

Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2023

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I know that's the last thing you would expect in a review for this book, but stay with me for a few moments.

The book is a gem, and I don't think I can say much of anything that hasn't been said hundreds of times before, so this is a non-traditional review for you. Yes it has language that was shocking in the 1950's but let's be real, this book has never deserved censorship. If you think there is too much sex, then you really need to read the book again more carefully, because there is none at all- just a teenage boy and a bunch of talk. Also, there is no inappropriate conduct by the English professor, just a moment of panic upon being awakened unexpectedly by a touch on the forehead by a mentor who has just given him some very sage advice and is understandably very worried about the boy, who arrived at his home in the middle of the night soaked and freezing.

Now, back to Arlo Guthrie...
Have you listened to Arlo Guthrie's song "Alice's Restaurant" recently? If not, you may want to listen to it again. It may make this review a bit less nonsensical!

The entire time I was reading Catcher in the Rye, Guthrie's voice as the narrator in the song was in my head narrating the book for me! It's hilarious, but the cadence and vocal inflections he uses are perfect for Holden Caulfield. Give it a try and report back to me. If anyone knows Mr. Guthrie, please pass on my request to him.

PG13 for language, discussions of a sexual nature, mild violence. Themes include grief recovery, teenage angst, being and nothingness, ennui, and the generally hypocritical and false nature of society.

3 people found this helpful

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a customer

Used but in very good shape!

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2023

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I got this book for my collection because I absolutely love to own books. I had no problem with a used copy. In fact, I was happy that others had enjoyed it before me. It is in very good shape.
I first read this classic when I was about 14 yr old. In my family, books were greatly appreciated and perhaps we were some of the final kids allowed to freely 'graze' among the library shelves. We were very lucky. As most avid readers learn, books open many worlds and show many ways of being human. Libraries do such a great job of choosing their books! (I read 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' during elementary school and have re-read it several times. It paints a memorable picture of earlier and harder times, the importance of family.) I now understand this book is banned in a few schools so I re-read it with a true curiosity. I would think it would help to build understanding and empathy, but perhaps those virtues are no longer desirable? The world has changed, I suppose. Literacy accomplishes many things.

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Joan Dermody

Reading for my book club

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2023

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It's been over 50 years since I first read this book. I suggested it for a re-read for my book club. I see it so differently now that I am older but enjoyed it all the same.

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2023

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It arrived to the mail room on time and there are little to NO damage to the book. Glad I got it on time ⏲️ 😌

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2023

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Written in very simple english language with a story line that made you not want to put the book down. Enjoyable to say the least, but it helps to be from that era. Interesting viewpoints made you realize that though the world changes, it really does not change that much.

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OBrien

1 Point is to Acknowledge the Classic

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2023

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I really didn't know what to expect when I read Catcher. I've always been "aware" of it - but the hype surrounding it...the negative hype...made me wary.

I actually enjoyed Holden Caulfield. Or maybe "enjoyed" is the wrong word. I get him. And I don't see where the horrible stigma that follows this book comes from. I didn't see him as a "rebel," per se - like so many of the self-styled counter-culturalists of the day. I also don't see him in any other negative light.

I found Holden to be a sad figure. Stuck in a world where his brother still lived and he might have found some direction. To say more is to spoil much of his short "lost weekend." So I'll refrain. But suffice to say, Catcher in the Rye is well worth reading, and not at all the pearl-clutching offense it's built up to be.

I'd have given it three stars due to some overused words & phrases too insignificant to name here, but I added a star for the simple fact that it is, no matter how it's received, a classic.

13 people found this helpful

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iamwhatiseem

A relatable story

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2023

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Great character development. Easy to get engaged with the main character. Great read if you are interested in psychology and the process of a deep thinking, sensitive mind . Great alternate perspective of the mind of a 16 year old boy. I found it very relatable even as a 50 something woman

2 people found this helpful

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CC

The Catcher Over Time . . .

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2023

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This was a somewhat disappointing re-read. There were still times when Holden really got to me, especially during his visits with Phoebe. But empathy was difficult to sustain throughout some of his more whiny, repetitious rants about everyone and everything he hated. Also, a lot about the book feels dated rather than of historical interest. But no matter what may or may not work in the book over time, it was a strikingly innovative work of fiction, and Holden Caulfield is a character no one will ever forget.

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Sweet home

Why Some Books don't Die

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 18, 2018

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Some Books don't Die
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, which has continued to sell about a million copies every year since it was first published in 1951, is one of those books that won't die. The title was taken from a line in one of Robert Burns's poems and symbolised the writer's wish to save little children coming through the rye from falling over the cliff and losing their innocence.
There have been thousands of reviews of this book but the curious thing is, they are all either full of praise or severe condemnation, with little in between. This suggests a fundamental 'mind-body' dilemma in the way it's been interpreted. Although it's now a subject under serious investigation by neuroscientists, the eighteenth-century philosopher, David Hume, identified it as: the difference betwixt impressions, which first appear in our minds and ideas which make their way into our thoughts. It's also a problem that divides the mind of a child, who 'knows' without needing to 'understand', from that of an adult, who needs to 'understand' before 'knowing'. Some say this distinction disappears when the immature mind reaches maturity, but others might ask: which one is which? It was, however, a division that occurred much earlier in our evolutionary history, when common standards of empathy gradually became monopolised by authorised standards of conformity.
At one level the book is a first-person singular account of an anti-establishment teenager, Holden Caulfield, who has just been expelled for failing his school exams, so spends four days bumming about in New York, before returning home to face the wrath of his parents. At a more profound level however, it's his own, somewhat rambling, self-counselling enquiry into his inability to communicate with others, and there are hints that he too might be one of those children falling over the cliff and losing his innocence. In fact, it is suggested throughout the text, that we are all wandering aimlessly through the rye, unable to see where we're going or what we're doing until after we'd done it. In conversation with one of his school mates, for example, he suggests even Jesus couldn't have known what he was doing because he: 'picked his disciples at random and didn't have time to go round analysing everybody', but that didn't convince his schoolmate who told him that his trouble was: 'he didn't go to church or anything'. In other words, he hadn't been sufficiently conditioned to realise how wrong he was.
It's evident from the start, however, that Holden's home-life hasn't been easy. He remembered his parents having terrific fights in the bathroom and that communication with them was strained. He tells the reader: 'they'd have about two haemorrhages a piece if I told them anything personal about themselves'. We learn, furthermore, that his older brother had been traumatised from serving four years in the army. When he came home all he did was lie on his bed, saying he wouldn't have known which direction to shoot in, because 'there were practically as many bastards in the army as there were Nazis'. And when their younger brother died of leukaemia, Holden smashed all the garage windows, so his parents considered sending him to some 'goddam military school'. He admitted he’d been 'pretty run down' by, what he called, 'this madman stuff', but was sent away to 'take it easy' for a while instead. He remembered 'this psychoanalyst guy kept asking him if he was going to apply himself when he went back to school', but he thought it a stupid question because 'how could anyone know what they're going to do until they've done it? The answer is they don't!'
His farewell meeting with his history teacher, 'old Spencer', as paraphrased below, illustrates his problem:
'Caulfield? Come in ... have a seat there boy … so you're leaving us, eh'. He started going through his nodding routine: 'I understand you had quite a little chat with Dr. Thurmer [the headmaster]. What did he say to you?'
'Oh … well about life being a game and all, and how you should play it according to the rules …'.
'Life is a game, boy, a game one plays according to the rules … I flunked you in history because you knew absolutely nothing ... I doubt very much if you opened your text book even once the whole term ... Did you? Tell the truth, boy!'
'Well, I sort of glanced through it a couple of times' I said because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. He was mad about history.
'You glanced through it, eh?' he said, very sarcastically. 'Do you feel absolutely no concern for your future, boy?'
'Oh yes, I feel some concern ... sure, I do.' I thought about it for a minute .... but not too much, I guess.
'I'd like to put some sense into that head of yours, boy. I'm trying to help you ... '.
'I know you are sir', I said. 'Thanks a lot. No kidding. I appreciate it. I really do'
I felt sorry as hell for him but, all of a sudden, I just couldn't hang around there any longer.
Holden's attitude to learning, compared to old Spencer's, reveals a basic incompatibility between those who rely more on their feelings about how to cope in an ever-changing world, and those who rely on authority's rule-book to help them comply with a more ordered one. Alas, however, as we shall see, never the twain shall meet, since all those impressions, which first appeared in our mind have, somehow along the way become influenced by all all those ideas which made their way into our thoughts.
Wherever Holden went, he found himself involved with, what he called phony people: 'old Sally for example, the queen of the phonies, would start drooling all over the place when he told her he had tickets for a show that was supposed to be very sophisticated. You never saw so many phonies ... all talking about the play so everybody could hear how sharp they were'. His basic feeling, that all the world's a stage, was especially relevant to the movies at that time, when Hollywood was all glitz and glamour, and full of 'lean-jaw guys'. Meanwhile, at Christmas he remembered a 'whole bunch of people, thousands of them, singing Come all you Faithful! … Big deal! And all the ministers had these Holy Joe voices when they started giving their sermons'. He even felt his own schoolmates were phonies, 'all learning how to be smart enough to buy goddam Cadillacs someday'.
We might find these outbursts of an angry teenager amusing, but if we ask ourselves why, Holden tells us they're all playing games. 'Some game!' he says, 'if you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game all right. I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's the game about: nothing!' He compares it to that silent world, displayed in glass cases at the Natural History Museum he frequents, showing Indians in canoes or making fires and weaving blankets, or Eskimos sitting over holes in the ice, fishing. He keeps wishing things had stayed the same and thinking how different they were from the phony world he was experiencing all about him in the 'now'. His criticisms, however, are not confined to the behaviour of others; he is equally critical of his own behaviour and often refers to himself as a moron. His observations, not only of others wandering blindly through the rye, are also of himself immersed in it.
These intuitions about the way our objective thoughts unwittingly take control of our subjective feelings become increasingly evident throughout the text but are more bluntly stated when he returns home one night, while his parents are out partying, and sneaks into his much loved little sister's bedroom for a chat. On waking, she says: 'Holden … how come you didn't come home Wednesday? … You didn't get kicked out of school or anything, did you? … Daddy's gonna kill you'. But then, when she asks why he couldn't become a scientist or a lawyer one day, like Daddy, he realises she too is losing her childlike innocence and replies: 'Those people are all right I guess, when they go about saving innocent guys' lives and all. But you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make lots of dough and play golf or bridge, and buy cars, and drink Martinis. And even if you did save guys lives, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to, or because you just wanted to be a terrific lawyer with everybody slapping you on the back, and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial's over? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldn't!'
Towards the end of the book, he visits one of his more enlightened former English teachers, who tells him he's 'not the first person to be confused or frightened by human behaviour … The whole arrangement's designed for men, who at some time or other in their lives are looking for something their own environment can't supply them with'. Then, rather optimistically, suggests Holden might learn from them, just as they might learn from him. He says: 'it's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement’ but admits: 'it not education'!
The feeling that something had gone seriously wrong with society and needed its sense of security restored, must have been conceived in the wake of two World Wars, and, on the face of it, promoting the God of Consumerism seemed to fit the bill. It was our ego's myopic belief that it possessed the 'divine right of kings' to tell everyone, by means of mass mind-bending adverts, they needed 'the good life', and it certainly convinced the majority. This focus on a more acquisitive society, at the expense of a more emotionally spiritual one however, had unforeseen consequences and 'The Catcher in the Rye' helped to expose some of them.
The Beat Generation that followed encouraged quotes from poets like William Burrows, for example: 'Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape, or Jack Kerouac: The best teacher is experience and not through someone else's point of view, or, Dorothy Parker: 'If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he give it to'. Such anti-establishment ideas must have encouraged the 'black power', 'flower-power' and 'ban the bomb' movements, yet a growing belief that materialism would conquer not only the Earth but Space too, has continued to this day. Although we can sling-shot rockets round Jupiter to reach Saturn, for example, we tend to overlook the fact that we could only have done so after a long and tortured history of trial-and-error elimination, almost certainly involving far more failures than successes. It's the same neurological process by which our ancient ancestors learnt to sling-shot spears at wild animals; in other words, by repeated trial-and-error guesswork, or as Holden would say, by random.
Perhaps the ego's self-congratulatory bias in favour of remembering its successes while conveniently overlooking its failures, is a consequence of the rational mind's belief that it knows without having to feel any more. At least the environmental activist and poet, Gary Snyder realised we were putting the cart before the horse, by suggesting we: exterminate all rational thoughts. Although 'reason' has made us think we are the profit-masters of our 'progress', global warming, together with the depletion and pollution of all natural resources might force us to eventually think otherwise. As George Bernard Shaw realised, there's another interpretation of the word 'progress': 'The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself; therefore, all progress depends on unreasonable men.'
J. D. Salinger was far-sighted enough to see this, in saying: the world is full of actors, all pretending to be humans. In fact, his book must have been largely autobiographical because, like Holden, he simply couldn't be 'educated' in any conventional sense of the word and, like Holden's brother, was traumatised by his military experiences. Although he was lucky enough to know where society was leading us, he was unlucky enough to feel the consequences of knowing, so in 1953 felt compelled to escape his old stamping ground in New York and spend the rest of his days living out a more reclusive life in rural New Hampshire, far from all the publicity his book had generated. Some may feel they know, without needing to understand why The Catcher in the Rye deserves 'great praise', while others may think they understand, without needing to know why it deserves 'severe condemnation', so the body-mind dilemma, which has become an inescapable part of the human condition, is why this book will not die.

28 people found this helpful

C S

Love this book!

Reviewed in Sweden on November 17, 2022

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Fin replica av förstautgåvan vad jag förstår. En av mina favoritböcker all time.

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Francisco de Araujo e Silva

Avaliação

Reviewed in Brazil on August 12, 2023

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Livro em perfeito estado!

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Andrea Pighin

Educato degrado borghese

Reviewed in Italy on September 14, 2020

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L’Autore avrebbe voluto che la copertina del romanzo fosse interamente bianca, affinché i lettori si concentrassero sul contenuto: l’editore dell’epoca non ascoltò lo scrittore e inserì il cavallo di una giostra citata nel testo. La copertina bianca giunse solo nel 1991. Il titolo è invece ispirato alla canzone Coming’ Through the Rye di Robert Burns, ma viene storpiato in un passaggio del testo, quando il protagonista risponde alla sorella Phoebe che da grande vorrebbe salvare i bambini, afferrandoli un istante prima che cadano nel burrone.
Il giovane Holden Caulfield racconta la sua storia in prima persona, forse prima del Natale del 1949: la vicenda si svolge nell’arco di un fine settimana, quando di sabato Holden abbandona l’istituto dove studiava e di lunedì visita lo zoo insieme alla sorella. Il ricordo di questa esperienza avviene alcuni mesi dopo, quando Holden aveva compiuto diciassette anni. La storia è ambientata prima ad Agerstown, immaginaria cittadina della Pennsylvania, poi a New York, nell’area metropolitana di Manhattan.
Holden Caulfield assiste ad una partita di football da una collina, prima di andarsene dalla scuola, dalla quale è stato espulso per non aver passato abbastanza esami. Passa a trovare il professore di storia Spencer, che aveva in simpatia, ma viene ripreso e Holden se ne va senza comprendere la sincera preoccupazione del docente. Rientrato per l’ultima volta nel dormitorio, incontra due compagni di stanza, ma ne nasce un litigio per ragioni amorose. Emerge così fin da subito il carattere turbolento del ragazzo, il quale, non riuscendo ad individuare il proprio spazio nel mondo, diviene scontroso, schivo e diffidente verso gli altri.
Ritornato in anticipo a New York, decide di non avvisare i genitori e inizia così la sua avventura tra night club, incontri con vecchie amicizie e anche con una prostituta, che si rivelano tuttavia deludenti. Egli non sa ancora che cosa stia cercando; con curiosità si apre al mondo, ma è la sua sensibilità a ferirlo di fronte a persone che non sono in grado di offrirgli le risposte che ritiene di doversi aspettare.
Incompreso, in lui cresce il desiderio di fuga: è in parte una negazione delle responsabilità, in parte un rifiuto della necessità e del dovere di crescere, adducendo una serie di pretesti. In un linguaggio nuovo per il suo tempo, vivo e senza filtri, Salinger descrive il modo di vivere di quei giovani che non riescono a trovare un significato duraturo alla vita, principalmente perché rifiutano con disgusto la società borghese e convenzionale. Non sembrano esserci soluzioni esaustive a questo “educato degrado”, per cui il protagonista vede nella fuga una risposta immediata, che solo l’amore per la sorella Phoebe riesce a mitigare in una maggiore prudenza.

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Naomian Blaikie

An easy read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 4, 2023

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Although The Catcher in the Rye is narrated by a teenager giving an account of his own failings and general cynacism, it is fairly engaging read, but it was largely Caulfield's dry wit and subtle sarcasm that won me over. That killed me.

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