The Catcher in The Rye

Could someone please tell me about Catcher in the Rye. I'm British, and I feel that I am either an utter dullwit unable to see a shining gem in front of me, or all of American culture is completely inaccessible to me.

What I took away from this book was: A guy is intelligent but an utter slacker, he gets kicked out school. He spends a few days in New York, then he stays with his favourite teacher who may (or may not) attempt to Paedophile him.

Then he goes chats with his sister and then it ends.

So, I am left wondering what life-lessons I skimmed passed in this incredibly popular book. From what I read, if this is the Great American Novel, then the American Dream must be that one where you get chased around your bedroom by your lamp.

It's not really that much of a point in it. Just that he wants to save people from seeing the bad side of life like he has, but he realisticly understand that you can not earase all the fuck yous.

The lesson is that we all construct metanarratives based on subjective perceptions of the self but stay trapped within them due to self assured comfort and laziness to create a consistent world view wherein self pacification is more valued than reality, even when people outside one's personal reality attempt to enforce their own views as normative.  If you relate to and identify with Caulfield or if you think he's abnormal and needs to be fixed, either way you've bound yourself to subjective societal truths to neglect reality.  Everyone fails.

Thankyou, 3. "Catcher in the Rye: Everyone Fails".

I like it because he says goddamn all the time.

I think you must have to read it when you're a spoiled, whiny, teenager to enjoy it.  Throughout the entire book I just wanted to punch H.C. in the mouth.

You know what? The author, J. D. Salinger, is still alive, but like Harper Lee he's a fucking recluse and has been for like 50 years. How about you ask him what he thinks about it.

I happen to love Catcher in the Rye. I bought 2 copies of it and I wish I would of picked the other copy I saw on the street the one day last summer. I think everyone can identify with Holden, and it makes me sad after reading the book sometimes still.

J.D Salinger is a known recluse also like Anon said. I wish he would make some appearances or something. He was on Time before.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/06/03/salinger.catcher.lawsuit/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=4033
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6662360.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/02/a-closer-look-at-the-jd-salinger-lawsuit/

It's an indictment of society itself.  Caufield can't accept the status quo.  He senses that the entire world -- from his parents, the other students, his teachers, the police officer, the hooker -- operates on some underlying lie that he can't quite put his finger on.  Therefore, everyone is a phony.  Everything is fake.  This is why crazy people love this book.  They read it and recognize that feeling.

If it's about growing up, it's only in the sense that to grow up is to give in to the lie, to stop being true, and to accept the phoniness and fold yourself into it.  Because there is no alternative, except for insanity.

I think when I read it I was already too emotionally mature for it.  i disagree with the basic message which is that everything beyond childhood is disingenuous.  things can be real and genuine at the same time.  its just different.

he made a big fucking deal about something that's not a big deal at all and doesn't have to be.

I think I might've liked the book, if I hadn't had to analyze it for school.  Textbooks are written to be analyzed.  Fiction is written to be read and enjoyed.

>>12
lol goddamn you are dumb

>>12
For some people thinking is so painful that they will forever disklike anything they've come to associate with it.

>>13
>>14

You do realize that you can think about something without analyzing it paragraph by paragraph, right?  If you sit down and analyze anything (books or otherwise), you can never look at it again without mentally tearing it to pieces.  That is not enjoyable to most people.

>>15
Analysis is nonetheless a crucial skill.  We learn to do it in the hopes that it will be as natural a part of the process as the reading itself.  A work of art can only be fully appreciated when it's fully understood.  Analysis is not tearing things to pieces, it's finding pieces and putting them together.

>>15
tearing it to pieces
You mean understanding it?

There's a "sequel" by some other guy. It's unauthorised, and publishers want to publish it, but guess who's fighting tooth and nail to preserve his claim to his character?

Quite rightly, in my opinion. Sure, Catcher connects with millions, and sure, it has become "their" book. But if they want to write their own stories of the characters, that's fan-fiction. Not to be published, and not to be profited from.

>>18
What are you, a lawyer?  Fuck intellectual property.

Should have posted on fanfiction.net

>>19
I'm a writer. Fuck intellectual property? You wouldn't be saying that if you had some valuable enough to protect.

>>19
Valuable?  I value life, and my integrity. I value information, the "product" that intellectual property supposedly protects, but I realize that the only reason information has any value is in furthering our common understanding, and facilitating our common progress.  I understand that intellectual property laws retard this process so that a few may profit by it, and that most of that profit is realized by unscrupulous creatures who had little or nothing to do with its creation.  Creatures whose desire is not to inform or entertain, but to advance their own interests at the expense of all others.
The practice of attaching a monetary value to information confuses its true value.  It's the primitive way of an industrial society and it's greedy, materialistic people.  I just don't think think that way.  Respect the Information.  Respect yourself and your work.  Share it freely.  Join the information age, writer.

>>22
I understand that intellectual property laws retard this process so that a few may profit by it, and that most of that profit is realized by unscrupulous creatures who had little or nothing to do with its creation.  Creatures whose desire is not to inform or entertain, but to advance their own interests at the expense of all others.
The practice of attaching a monetary value to information confuses its true value.  It's the primitive way of an industrial society and it's greedy, materialistic people.

That's a load of bullcrap. How does a story or character being stolen benefit mankind? The simple answer is that it doesn't. Wanting to protect something from the realm of arts is a far cry from software or drug patents.
You obviously have never created anything of worth.
Join the information age, writer.
The way you address him shows that you are obviously not a writer yourself. Maybe if you were your opinion (wrong though it is) may have been more relevant to the discussion. As it stands you are just another person whining about intellectual proprty who doesn't understand where the sharing of it is applicable. It's not like there is any source code a writer is not disclosing. Wanting to profit from someobody elses creativity purely because you can't create a decent character yourself is selfish.
P.S. Big open source fan here.

>>23
Damn, quoting failure. Second paragraph was a quote too

>>23
stolen stolen
Perhaps if you adopted a more mature view toward ownership of things you write, you'd stop saying this so much. You seem to have a wholly irrational belief (fostered no doubt by the legislative machinations of Disney et. al. with regard to copyright terms) that any idea you have is yours, yours, yours, and anything anybody does with it needs your approval. It's never been like that, and it never will be.

We need to move past an economy founded on a control-freakish desire to steer our intellecutal investments, toward one founded on a reasonable expectation of respect from others of our investment.

>>23
Obviously.  Your well composed and scathing reply has made everything clear. 

For the record my address was fraternal.  I hold writers in the highest esteem.  I must remember that this board, that should be literate above all others, is still on 4chan.

>>25
>>22 here.  Thank you.

>>25
Look, I'm all for the advancement of the human race through sharing knowledge, but ripping off a character does nothing for the human race. You are simply reiterating the same tired points again, which are wrong.

>>26
If you're giving it away for nothing, I bet you can't sell it

>>28
Apparently you're not "...all for the advancement of the human race...".  As >>25 points out, your use of words like stealing and ripping off presuppose the popular understanding of information exchange, as created by, and in the interests of, financially oriented market forces.  Imagine You write a novel and you post it on your website.  Many are already doing this.  It becomes so popular that fans start writing their own interpretations, sequels, versions in epic verse, whatever.  Why should you care?  Sadly, most of it would be awful.  Some would be enjoyable.  Sometimes there would be genius.  All of this subsequent work would serve to enlarge your readership and further your message, and perhaps, by the addition of a new and  related message, refine and/or actually improve your message.  But what if you're writing the sequel? Or something else entirely? Do you really believe it wouldn't get the warmest possible reception?  But you're here about the benjamins, right? I would assert that the man who supports his community will, in turn, be supported by his community and leave it at that, but this model could even work in this market.  Publishers came into being because printing presses were were necessary.  Soon(now, if we wanted) we will have suitable computers, or more easily, data devices designed for text readability(think kindle).  With these, a writer can self publish, advertise his own work(or hire others to do so), and even sell advertising. I believe the adjustment in the monies involved through the elimination of publishers, and other parasites would reduce the cost of the "product" to a point where piracy, though it would still be a factor, would not be any greater, and the creator would realize returns at least equal to those in the present system.  Let's face it; for most, writer's pay is shit.
Perhaps you would care to iterate some points now.

And as for you, >>29; I'll bet you can't even give it away.

>>28
I don't personally want to rip off any characters. My point is that a business model predicated on the efficacy of copyright is lunacy. It will succeed, but not because copyright is effective. Because the sentiments underyling copyrights are as real as ever — respect for an author's work, a desire not to be seen as derivative, indignation at those who do rip off favorite authors.

HEY GUYS

LETS RIGHT STAR WARS FAN FICTION AND SELL IT

TOTALLY COOL

PRINCESS LEIA KNELT BEFORE DARTH VADER AND PURSED HER MOUTH CHEEKILY

I THOUGHT I SMELT YOUR FOUL COCK STENCH THE MOMENT I CAME ON BOARD THEIS SHIP.

SHUT UP UP BITCH AND GET OUT MY LIGHTSABER SAID DARTH. THE PORK IS LONG WITH THIS ONE

This is why Japan's free market works better due to lax concerns over doujinshi and derivative works, allowing an alternate route of expression for fans while professionals are tasked with offering better quality to distinguish their work as professional.  I could make X-men fancomics in the US but I would get sued in a heartbeat.

>>34
Or you could have an original thought

>>35
Or you could have enough confidence in your own that you wouldn't need to be so stingy.

>>36
Fail. Just fail.

>>37
Getting desperate there, IPfag?

>>38
Your trousers are stained with barbecue sauce and your socks are out of fashion. I don't think you can use that pogo stick at all.

>>39
so you are like that chick that thinks she's a man and actually wants to have her cunt surgically removed

Retards ITT (and, frankly, anywhere else) who are saying that academic analisys benefits reading experience are exactly that, retards.

On an unrelated note, retards who believe that it is possible to steal intellectual property from a fiction writer are equally fucking stupid. I'm a writer myself. You can't steal from me. If you can write my stuff better than me, go and do it, faggot; except you can't, because I'm probably better. All "intellectual property" bullshit is there because people who can't do any better than awful fanfiction level of writing are afraid that their sudden, worthless success is going to be stolen by millions of hack that can't possibly be any worse than them either.

Intellectual property never ever makes an author. Author makes intellectual property, you weaklings.

Now, Catcher in the Rye is a piece of shit book with crap populistic morale and is going to be forgotten in less than half a century.

>>39
I rarely wear socks.

If you guys rip off my character super awesome man, i'll sue

>>43
You'll probably even Mary sue, aren't ya.

>>44
Super awesome man is indifferent to your riposte.

>>45
Fucker's pretty cool. Gotta use him as a villain in my next Harry Potter ghostwriting commission.

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

I thought what I'd do was, I'd make a post with a shitty and meaningless catchphrase.

>>46
Super awesome man is not impressed with your appropriation of his identity.