I decided to read The Catcher In the Rye by J. D. Salinger for my independent reading. It is a bildungsroman novel in which the protagonist of it is the narrator as well. The novel is set in between the 1940s and the 1950s and most part of it it’s set in New York. The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a teengager that tells the reader at the beginning of the novel that he just got kicked out of the boarding school he was attending, Pencey Prep. He describes all the reasons why he hates the school and the people in the school, who are apparently a bunch of “phonies”. He makes a detailed description of his roommates, Ackley and Stradlater, who bother Holden a lot and make him very irritated and turn out to be “phonies” as well. He reveals his platonic love to Jane Gallagher, a girl he spent a lot of time with during summer. After being kicked out of the school and having nothing to do, he decides to depart to New York and rent a hotel room so he can spend some days there until he can go to his parents house. He wanders around New York and makes references of his family multiple times. Holden’s sexual desire as a teenager becomes bigger and bigger throughout the novel.
In my opinion, it was a little annoying how Holden hated everything and was bothered by any kind of behaviour and how he thought everyone had a “phony” personality. Though something I really liked was Holden’s desperateness for women and how he strived so much to get dates with girls, it was funny sometimes.
Regarding to the narrator’s style and tone, it changes throughout the course of the novel but he speaks in a colloquial style and his tone varies from critical, nostalgic or cynical.
I strongly recommend this book because it has a good plot and it’s really well written.
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