Saturday 16 July 2011

Catching what in the what?

On this day in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger was published.

It was arguably one of the first novels to feature a teenager and one of the first to deal with adolescent angst.

When I first read it I was about the same age as Holden Caulfield, the hero of the novel and immediately identified with him. He disliked phony people, despised his teachers and felt alienated from his family. A real rebel, although he probably thought he had cause.


The title, which is great, concerns Holden’s fantasy of helping protect children who were playing in a field of rye near to a cliff.

No comments:

Post a Comment