11-30-2009, 01:09 PM | #41 |
Sapling
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Hello people, I'm new here and I joined this forum in order to stop playing video-games and do something more productive :P. Well, I have read this book over the summer, for it was required by the AP Lit course, and we're going to be discussing it soon. However, I fail to recognise the genius in the Catcher in the Rye. To me, it is at best a simple story about a 12 (not sure) year old, but nothing more. Can someone explain to me why exactly is this considered a masterpiece?
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12-04-2009, 11:09 AM | #42 |
"The Bomb"
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Welcome to Entmoot, Hidayat! You can probably find your answer in the past posts in this thread. Catcher in the Rye's classic status is due to the effect it's had on so many people in Holden's very impressionable, very insecure age group. No other book came close in terms of impact. If you didn't think it was all that good, then damn, good for you. I guess you don't have the same issues that Holden does. Not the overly sensitive, what-will-people-think-of-me type huh? But a lot of kids your age do, maybe most of them, and that's why they teach it in high schools.
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01-30-2010, 05:32 AM | #43 |
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JD Salinger dies, aged 91
Thank you for this great novel. I feel maybe it's time for me to read the book again
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01-31-2010, 06:14 AM | #44 |
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Count me with Earniel- I hated it.
Read it when I was 15 in 1969; at that time i was very involved in left-wing politics, so my major impression was "spoiled whiny overprivileged brat'. OTOH, I very much liked Franny and Zooey. Maybe I'll give it another whirl now that I'm no longer reflexively judgemental (Okay, not quite so reflexively judgemental) Interesting that he'd said he'd kept writing for himself over the years; could be a mass of stuff to come out, depending on his executors. And of course Hollywood is slavering over the movie rights- he'd refused them to everybody over the years. Good luck on that.
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07-08-2010, 01:17 PM | #45 |
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Loved this book. Thought it was a lot more subtle that people seem to give it credit for, as no one, fans and critics included, ever mentions the understated grief Holden had for his dead brother. It was more than mere alienation, confusion and unhappiness that's behind his "anti-social" behaviour. Plus it's an interesting look at New York public school life, not being American I found it a unique and fresh culture in my mind, despite knowing the book is set in the early 1960s.
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