Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I know this book is "it", and there is a lot of blather from ecstatic readers about universal coming of age and a rueful sadness at loss of innocence. Okay, fine. It's in there. I laughed a couple or three times, and I even recall a good belly laugh. Good. And obviously there is Salinger's gift for spoken language and keen insightfulness regarding social peccadilloes and irritating manners. Most folks can identify with Holden's exasperation and frustration toward those who adapt to and adopt those "socializing" manners and peccadilloes as they transition to adulthood. Holden seeks to resist that polluting influence, which is admirable, right? Only, there's a problem. In spite of his recognition of the problem(s) in others, he is part of the problem himself. He candidly admits that he has a variety of personality quirks and negative behavioral characteristics. But he also has irksome and annoying behaviors that he doesn't recognize, and so his conduct contributes to the same noisome and spoilsome social corruption that he laments in others. This book has a tremendous fan base. It is beloved as a cultural and literary artifact. It is also praised for its dialog and characterization, and rightly so. The story is skillfully presented, no doubt. Superlatives are tossed about (notice the terms "genius", "master", and "brilliant" in the gushing spotlight review dated July 21,2000) when this novel is discussed. I understand why this is so, but I find myself tending to agree in sentiment with the tone of the one-star review below by Michael Atkins. This book is over-hyped. While Caulfield's character may ring true in both voice and observation, the result is a confection that is light in substance. Holden is a study in sweet angst, yes. So? The theme of the book isn't related to the word picture captured in the title, contrary to the regurgitated observations made below. The theme is that humans are broken, and while they may be able to see what is wrong, they aren't much capable to do anything about it. Even if they can act to resolve a problem here or there, they are instigating and engendering their own set of problems elsewhere. The musician Sting authored the popular song "Every Breath You Take" while a member of the band the Police. He has voiced his consternation at the way the public responded to his song, which was #1 on the music charts for some time. Sting points out that the song is not about sweet, devoted love at all, but is rather about an obsessed and ugly jealousy that is controlling and disturbed. The public was happily and haplessly ignorant of this, naively not picking up the clues in the song or the video, even though the high-key, low-fill lighting used in the video gives a classic noire, deep-shadow depiction of a character with a dark side. Sting has often confessed his exasperation with the public's inability to recognize the song for what it is, and he finds the song's great popularity as a wedding song shocking and shallow. The same is true of The Catcher in the Rye. As the other spotlight review by Jack from Des Moines illustrates, readers typically tend to identify with Holden Caulfield. Jack's statement is sterling: I AM HOLDEN CAULFIELD. "The number of readers who have been able to identify with Holden and make him their hero is truly staggering," claims the SparkNotes.com website. The ironic fact is that Holden Caulfield is one of the most pathetic and self-deluded characters in English-language fiction. He is, in his own wrecked way, as much a phony as any of the other characters upon whom he appends that label. Holden is everything he despises, despite his limited recognition of his own failings. For any reader to make the choice to happily identify with Holden Caulfield is to embrace in oneself the personification of foolishness. It is nothing less than gleefully claiming to be a phony. Look again at that SparkNotes quote above, then go figure. My two-star rating is probably more a function of my reaction to the story's popularity, a la Sting, than my reaction to the humor and craft of the story itself. I would probably give the story three or four stars (3½ maybe?) based on those qualities. I would be willing to give the story five stars for it's superlative depiction of the inability of humans to recognize their own shortcomings while they so easily dwell on the failures of others, except for one thing: the evidence suggests that Salinger failed in making his point. In a tremendous irony, one perhaps not unexpected, readers on the whole appear to be incapable of recognizing the true theme and purpose of the story. It seems that hardly anyone learns from the novel, they just LIKE it. Reviewer Damon Garr, in his 5-star review below, even mourns that he wasn't quite as cynical when he was a teen as Caulfield manages to be in the story. How utterly bizarre! Yes, people are Holden Caulfield...and what a sad, pathetic, shameful, and repulsive situation that is. Salinger proved a truth rather than exposed it--that is a failing--and the book loses any luster it might have been able to sustain because of that monumental shortcoming.