'The Catcher in the Rye' by J.D. Salinger - Review

As part of my AS Level English literature coursework and exam preparation, I was told to read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. I'd been wanting to read this for a long time, knowing how famous it was, but had never got around to buying it, so here was my chance.

I read it in about a day and a half. I know some people who read extremely quickly and could've finished it in a few hours, but I'm not an exceedingly fast reader, and so this was a definite record for me! After reading it, I'll admit, I didn't really understand the deeper meanings to it (or even what the title meant, if I'm honest), but there was something about it that made me fall in love with it straight away. For me, that's what makes a brilliant book.

As I thought about it more and more, and carried out my research, I came to understand the book a lot more. I learned about the symbolism of Holden's red hunting hat, of his struggle with the concept of growing up and losing innocence, and his insecurities both in sexual and non-sexual relationships. I'll certainly not be the first young enthusiast to say all of this, but nevertheless I'd like to share it. I really felt that, even though I (and most other teenagers, I'd like to hope) am not much at all like Holden, Salinger still illustrates the chaos and confusion that goes on in a teenager's mind, which can be very relatable, particularly to me and to others my age.

When I started sixth form after the end of summer, feeling immensely excited to start studying The Catcher in the Rye in class, I made the catastrophic mistake of asking some of my new classmates what they thought of the book. While around half of them sluggishly grunted, "haven't read it yet", the other half (minus a few thankful exceptions) claimed they found it boring, and that there was no plot to it. I calmly resisted yelling at them that it is a modern classic (because yelling wouldn't exactly be the best ice-breaker for making new friends), and told them that this was a piece of literary fiction, rather than commercial fiction; that the writing style, emotive language and ideologies where the main aspects of the novel, rather than the plot; and Salinger certainly did an faultless job of conveying all of these, with phenomenal consequences.