J. D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye: Revised Edition (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
Anyone who has read Salinger's New Yorker stories--particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man & For Esme--With Love & Squalor, won't be surprised by the fact that his 1st novel is full of children. The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of 16, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Thru circumstances that tend to preclude adult, 2ndhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania & goes underground in NYC for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple & too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices--but his voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain & pleasure. However, like most lovers & clowns & poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, & for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It's there for the reader who can handle it to keep.
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