| This is the most popular, the most vivid, and probably the most accurate American teenage angst novel there is. It is easy to read, sharp but not pretentious, and only just over two hundred pages long, all of which help explain its steady popularity. As it was published in 1951 and set in New York, it is a real tribute to be able to say that fifty years on it has dated very little. If you think teen culture moves with the speed of light and who can keep up, then this book says 'Not'.
The story is told in the first person, Holden Cauldfield is a Pencey Prep., Agerstown, Pennsylvania, student telling it in a way that holds your attention from beginning to end. The constant 'I' in every other sentence should get you down, but it doesn't. Whether you are a teenager, or you have teenagers, or you just remember being 'like that', his story holds you. He does not know what he wants in life, or why people want what they want of him, or why he does lots of the things he does, or why they do lots of what they do. He has just flunked out of Pencey Prep., just like all his other swanky schools, and he can't figure out what he is going to do. He wanders about the city a lot before he has to go home to face his folks. He dates lots. He drinks lots. He thinks lots. He gets sick. He loves his brothers (one live, one dead) and his sister, he knows whom he likes and whom he doesn't. Mostly he doesn't. He tries not to hate anyone, they can't help it mostly. People aren't all they seem. Some are a lot less than they seem, some a lot more. You can get burned finding out the difference. There are lots of phonies around and that's what he likes least. He tries not to be phoney himself, and mostly he succeeds. He'd like answers to his questions, but by the end of the book he still hasn't found them. And he knows that the adults he has meet never figured it out either, they got older, but they didn't get wiser although they pretend they did. That's phoney. They didn't even get the question, let alone the answer. He still wonders what the point is really. | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of book? - thoughtful Time/era of story - 1930's-1950's Kids growing up/acting up? Yes Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Age group of kid(s) in story: - high school Something wrong upstairs/downstairs? - searching for identity/meaning Wild kid(s)? - runaway! Main Character Gender - Male Profession/status: Age: - a teen Ethnicity/Nationality Main Adversary Identity: - society Setting How much descriptions of surroundings? - 4 () United States Yes The US: - Northeast City? Yes City: - New York Misc setting Writing Style Sex in book? Yes What kind of sex: - vague references only Lot of foul language? Yes Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog |
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