Book Report On The Catcher In The Rye Essay, Research Paper

I found the “Catcher In The Rye” to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. I found it more interesting than books such as “The Crucible”, “Great Gatsby”, and even Ben Franklin’s “Autobiography”. Writer Jerome David Salinger has peiced together a great novel.

In New York City, 1919, Salinger was born. With his father, Sol, being a food importer, and having an average mother, Miriam, noone knows where he attained his natural love for theatre. Growing up with his sister Doris, he attended public school in Manhattan. Having average grades, with Arithmic being his worst subject. Apparently, being rumored to be a quiet, polite boy, nicknamed “Sonny”. At 15, he attended Valley Forge Military Academy, then shortly attended New York University. In 1942, he was drafted into the Army. Finally, in 1953, he met Claire Douglas. Two years later, in 1955, he married her. After having 2 children, he unfortunatley withdrew more and more from society. But his career was not wasted.

In this book, Salinger shows just how creative a writer he really was.

From the opening of the book, where an old and withered Holden Caulfield begins with a distant flashback from a rest home to his days in Pencey Prep, a boy’s school in Pennsylvania, to the end where an obviously senile Holden, back at the rest home, claims he will be able to leave soon and that he will go back to school next September. I found the ending to be anti-climactic, but it was still pretty humorus.

The overall book seems to be more of a confession than a story, but it provides an entertaining change. The grizzled Holden “spills his guts” to a psychoanylist, revealing an entertaining plot to an entertaining book. One of the most important “angles” in the story is that the narrator is in an awkward psychlogical state.

Also, there seem to be a few discrepancies in the novel, placing the claims of Holden against actual events in the book. Although there could be a realistic argument, I believe that this is just a form of expression of Holden’s seline state, being that he is very old at the time of the story telling. Some may believe that this is just a sign that Salinger himself is the one that belongs in the rest home.

Despite the odd parts of the novel and the difficulty to find the book meaningful, it has some very interesting parts. I particularly like the part where Holden must clean the blood from his face with snow after a fight in chapter VIII. Some more noteworthy parts were where Holden accepts a prostitute from an elevator operator, but can’t follow through in chapter XIV, and when he decides he wants to be the catcher in the rye in chapter XXII.

Overall, I think that this is a great book, and I won’t spoil the rest for anyone who wants to read it.

Despite this being the only novel by Salinger, it shows that he put a lot of time and effort into “Catcher In The Rye”. It, like few other novels, is definitley worth at least two revisions, and highly reccoment it to anyone who can read.