Comments on: The Catcher In The Rye: Why It Sucks

By: Sergey

Sergey — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 08:15:23 +0000

It is nice to see I’m not alone here. I couldn’t even finish it, although I managed to read at least half of it. I don’t know if it was revolutionary at the time or what, but if you take just the book alone, it sucks. It is boring as hell and it could be much, much shorter without losing anything. It could be easily contracted to something like this:

Phonies are all around, and it sucks.

While I don’t entirely disagree with the idea, I don’t feel like reading about a random delinquent doing nothing in NYC either.

By: Eddness

Eddness — Fri, 28 May 2010 00:14:41 +0000

I never read many of the books I was supposed to read in high school or college, because, after being duped into reading one or two that sucked, I never trusted the teachers or professors who touted the crap. So after many years, and many degrees (I learned that you did not need to actually read the stuff to graduate) I finally decided to go back and try to read some of the books that I missed out on. I started with Catcher in the Rye. I believe that the literary critics, professors and teachers who touted this book would also loudly proclaim how wonderful the emperor’s new cloths look. About the only thing that makes this book worth reading, is that it mocks the intellectual establishment who lauds this type of book.

By: Salman

Salman — Thu, 27 May 2010 00:31:49 +0000

this booked sucks, if i had a chance to meet holden i would so i could kick his ass

By: stew

stew — Sat, 15 May 2010 03:44:21 +0000

I literally just finished reading it.
As soon as I finished reading it, i went on google and typed ‘the catcher in the rye sucked’, and here i am.
The only reason I even read it is because I recently watched the episode about it on southpark making fun of it and wanted to see what the hype was all about, and my younger sister had the book lying around so I picked it up and started reading it, and the whole time I just kept thinking, ‘it’ll get better, it HAS to get better, hmm, maybe it has a dramatic ending that pulls it all together?’
no luck.

I can sort of see why some people might like it, reading deeply into the character and analizing everything. But you could do that with other books with better characters who actually go out and do somthing with their lives except complaining about everyone else. I understand that many teenagers are like this; complain about other people’s ‘phoniness’ and whatnot, but also knowing that your not much different from any of them either. but with Holden, he doesnt show even a glimps of maturity from all the things he goes through.

If the character had more depth to him then I probly would have liked it more, but since all we get to see in the book is a kid who complains and depresses about every little thing, there is nothing to learn from it.

My sister said she liked it, but when i asked her why, all she could say was ‘i dunno.. it had some funny parts you know’
I might add that she rarely reads so she doesnt know very many books to begin with.

I don’t have any problem with the fact that people like it, I think it just bothered me that its been so hyped up and so talked about, giving people false expectations on what a wonderful book its going to be.

By: my opinion

my opinion — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 02:40:28 +0000

I think this is probably the worst book (in my humble opinion, of course) that I’ve ever read.

I get all the ‘deeper aspects/between the lines’ type stuff, and still really, really despise it.

I consider it anti-individualist, anti-rebellion bullcrap. It’s as if individualism and childish lifestyles are impossible once you reach a certain age, and the only way to break free is to conform in some way. Holden Caulfield is so scared to fit in that he tries to be different, and his attempts to be different result in nothing but negative results. To me, the book is pretty much saying rebellion and individualism will get you nowhere. Just go to school, grow up, and conform.

Also, Holden isn’t an anti-hero. Anti-heros are at least likable. Holden is an anti-protagonist. If you like him, you should probably see a shrink. He is clearly on his way to becoming a pedophile. He’s already developing sociopathic/anti-social psychological features. He’s already deluding himself into thinking he’s a ‘hero for children’. He’s essentially impotent due to his lack of self-esteem, among other things. The list goes on and on, and if you compare Holden Caulfield’s psychological traits to that of a pedophile, the similarities are shocking.

All in all, this book sucks. This, of course, is my own opinion, and I completely respect those who enjoy it.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:49:55 +0000

I too came here while taking a break in some other more necessary research because that bit of “required” reading from my Lit I or II course in the late 70′s popped into my head and I recalled my views upon reading it and later re-reading it. It may be laudable in it’s capturing of the ‘lingo’ of teenagers of it’s day back in the early 50′s and it may have captured the ‘what’s life about’? angst of the “boomer” teens who grew up to become our English teachers in the 70′s and 80′s but I think the time has passed for it to be “required” reading and it deserves to be demoted to “suggested” reading. We were required to read many books in high school and later in college and most of them did provoke analytical, or soul searching thinking but for me. Catcher was the one that left me feeling like one of the few in the room who thought the Emperor had no clothes on. Some just simply thought it was stupid but those folks thought all the reading was stupid and those of us who really thought it was a dated turd were afraid to speak up for fear of being lumped in with those folks who ‘just don’t get it.’ Now that I’m approaching middle age I no longer succumb to that kind of peer pressure and I also know full well that if Catcher changed your life or made you feel less alone and alienated or made you get off the couch and do something with your life then great. If like me you thought it was an overrated turd…great too. Some people like olives, some people hate them…same thing.

By: Alisa

Alisa — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:14:16 +0000

I agree with you on this one. I read this book a while back and, while the character’s voice was excellently captured, I remember thinking that the entire book seemed to be devoid of any actual purpose.

By: Pheobe

Pheobe — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:50:32 +0000

David Westerman, just reading your comments depress me. And as for all you other people not liking the book, that’s fine. But you shouldn’t say bad things about my brother. He’s just different and all. He’s not like you guys. He sees things differently, and I think he really changed his life when he came out of that institution with the very soft walls and stuff.

By: Tom Smith

Tom Smith — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:10:13 +0000

You know what’s also annoying about “Catcher in the Rye”?

Royalties from this piece of shit enabled J.D. Salinger to live a comfortable life in a sort of exile, in a house up in New Hampshire,
where he never had to work again (and he barely published anything else, thank heavens).

By the accounts of his contemporaries, Salinger was in fact the prototype for the miserable little puke Holden Caulfield.

Salinger spent his “retirement” screwing teenage college girls,
probably the only good idea he ever had.

In fact, the only act of substance that can be derived from Salinger’s life is that he served hornorably as an infantryman in Europe in WWII.

Too bad the Germans didn’t get him.

By: H.

H. — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:22:37 +0000

If you don’t read it now, you are missing out on the experience of a lifetime. Of a lifetime.

If aliens came to our planet, and asked what we’re really about, really all about, we would hand them a copy to read and say,
this is what we are, the stuff we are made of.

And if they didn’t like it, you would know they were a bunch of phonies. A Bunch of real out of this world phonies.

Now it may be the only book I ever read, and I had to be forced to read it at that, for a test.

But to tell the truth, it changed my life.

My life was pretty bad, all up into junior high, and higher.

Then along came this forced reading, and made me think. It really made me think. Deep in my brain.

About how I’m pretty much that guy, and he is me, and maybe I should try to live like he does and not become a phoney.

You just can’t say he’s not the finest author on the planet, well he’s the finest one I ever read, that’s for sure.

And Goddammit, and excuse my french, but it’s so friikkin maddening when people say it’s not all that , or could be better, or worse, they “Didn’t like it”

If you didnt like it, why to go around whining and bitching whole day long, why not realize you just read bestest author of whole world and say “It was best I ever read!”

So instead of complaing like a idiot, maybe you just need to grow the hell up and do it.

Call me Holden, because I am very much like Him.
(that is, like Holden Caufield, the character and narrater of the book, who I am so simlar two)

ps- Hey, does anybody know where the ducks go in Central Park, in the Winter Time? I mean, do they migrate or what? Do they get on a fucking bus and go south? Or just freeze their asses off, ice skating and doing some god damn hijinks, like a pack of phonies.