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As one of those `classics of literature’, it almost seems sacrilegious to criticize a critical success like `The Catcher in the Rye’. Well, I can’t help but feel as though the novel’s garnered respect and praise is a little much when you actually consider how little the novel really says about adolescence. Sure, it tries (and at times succeeds) to convey a feeling of apathetic innocence, but its construction is rather off-putting and it’s overall anticlimactic result is less ambiguously rewarding and more strangely hollow.

`The Catcher in the Rye’ is an ambitious story that attempts to say a lot but fails to really live up to its potential.

The novel tells of two mere days in the life of the recently expelled sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield. Not wanting to face the wrath of his parents, Holden decides to avoid home for a few days (until he’s expected back), living on his own in the city. The premise is merely a foundation for Holden’s simplistic views and reasoning’s concerning life and his future. He considers everyone around him to be fake and undeserving of his time, yet it is obvious that Holden is just as `phony’ as the rest of them. He goes on dates, gets trashed at bars, sneaks off to visit his sister, imposes (or does he) on a former teacher and even has a run in with a pimp.

Sadly, all of this is conveyed in Holden’s uninteresting and at times aggravating delivery.

I’m not trying to lighten the point which J.D. Salinger was trying to make, for it is a very poignant (maybe even more so today then when the novel was actually written) point. Our young ones are just as misplaced and confused as Holden, and so his tale of apathy masked desperation is one that we could all learn from; but Salinger loses my patience with his redundancy. Some have complained of the same thing, which I was pleased to see (it proves that some people are willing to think outside of the preordained box). Holden says the same thing on just about every page, so much so
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