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Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Salinger Famous For Catcher in the Rye
We have lost one of the world’s most famous authors on February 2, 2010, who is best known for writing Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the Rye has become more famous since it has been linked to some murderers. The book is popular, yet controversial. Mark David Chapman, the murderer of John Lenin is one of the best known examples of an individual being caught up in this novel.
J. D. Salinger as a Young Man

The Catcher in the Rye

Salinger's Life
Jerome David Salinger (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010) was born and grew up a Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan. He was Jewish, the son of an importer of Kosher cheese and his mother was Scotch-Irish. His nick name was Sonny as a child. He attended some prep schools and attended Valley Forge Military Academy for two years. He was always known for his sarcastic wit as a youth.
He spent several months in Europe and fell in love with Oona O’Neill, writing her frequent letters but was shocked when she married Charles Chaplin. He also attended Ursinus College and New York University. Then, in 1939, Salinger took some classes on writing short stories at Columbia University.
He was drafted into the infantry in World War II and involved in the invasion of Normandy. He fought in the Hurtgenwald, one of the bloodiest of the war and was considered a hero. While in Europe he met Ernest Hemingway and managed to write some short stories. In 1945 Salinger married a French woman named Sylvia who was a doctor but they ended up in divorce.
His wonderful story of “For Esme’- With Love and Squalor” he depicted a fatigued American soldier starting a correspondence with a 13 year old English girl, which helped him get a grip on life again. A biography written by Ian Hamilton, states the Salinger was hospitalized for stress.
After the war he wrote short stories that appeared in magazines such as Story, Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and the New Yorker. By 1948 numerous short stories appeared in a large variety of magazines and he was becoming very well known.
Catcher in the Rye
Finally in 1951, he published Catcher in the Rye, which became an immediate best seller, placed on the book-of-the-month club immediately. He won numerous awards and ended up earning $65 million dollars, which was a lot of money in 1951. He wrote the book for adults, but it hit home with the adolescents for its theme of teen rebellion. The book depicted adolescent alienation and loss of innocence which seems to be the draw. Most of us have certainly read this book in school or on our own. If you know the book well, you may want to skip this next paragraph.
The story is written in a monologue with lively slang. The main character in Salinger’s book was Holden, 16 years old, who was rebellious and he showed no growth in maturity by the end of the book. Holden thinks like an adult but acts his age. He views himself to be smarter than the average person, as mature as an adult but he’s quick to become emotional. His dream is watching over children playing in a field if rye at the edge of a cliff. When the children wander to close to the cliff, he saves them. His world view is that it is phony and Holder represents the early hero of adolescent angst, yet full of life. He alludes to getting sick and living in a mental hospital toward the end of the book. People that read this story interpret his character in many ways based probably on their own experiences as a teenager struggling to grow up. A book allows you to do that much more so than a movie.
Catcher in the Rye has had periods of time where it was censored from schools, John Hinckley Jr., the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. was a big fan of this book. Mark David Chapman was John Lennon’s assassin and was said to be obsessed with the book. This book has been referred to in numerous movies. I don't understand how obsession of this book would cause someone to kill another human being, but it happened.
Copy of Salinger's Letter Turning Down a Movie Deal

RIP JD Salinger
Classical Books
Quotes from Catcher in the Rye
Catcher in the Rye is considered a controversial book and almost every chapter has a famous quote. Examples listed on http://classiclit.about.com/od/catcherintherye/a/aa_catcherquote.htm:
"All morons hate it when you call them a moron." J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Ch. 6
"I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible." - J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Ch. 3
"It's no fun to be yellow. Maybe I'm not all yellow. I don't know. I think maybe I'm just partly yellow and partly the type that doesn't give much of a damn if they lose their gloves."
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Ch. 13
"All morons hate it when you call them a moron."
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Ch. 6
Salinger Became a Recluse
Salinger did not like the publicity at all. He gave very few interviews. He wouldn’t sell the rights for the book to be made into a movie. He stated that this was a very novelistic novel and “, the weight of the book is in the narrator’s voice, the non-stop peculiarities of it, his personal, extremely discriminating attitude to his reader-listener, his asides about gasoline rainbows in street puddles,” A bit confusing statement for me, but the answer was no.
In 1955, Salinger married Claire Douglas, the daughter of the British art critic Robert Langton Douglas. He had a daughter. This marriage also ended in divorce in 1967, then Salinger's retreated into his private world and Zen Buddhism only increased. He was adamant about no interviews. One wonders why his life turned out that way when it started out in a normal fashion. Perhaps World War II experiences haunted him, too many failed marriages or maybe he just wanted to be left alone for some other personal reason. He ultimately moved to New Hampshire and lived out his days to the ripe old age of 91. No one seems to think there are numerous manuscripts at his home just waiting to be discovered.
On page 51 of his book, he wrote, “I hope to hell when I die, somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a ---cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”
I imagine that fictional line was not particularly how he felt at 91, but then who knows. There is an unauthorized biography and probably more to be written. I don’t think anyone will really ever understand this man,
© 2010 Pamela Oglesby
Comments
Great hub discussing one of my favorite novels!
Great Hub!!!!!!
The hub is excellent. The pros and cons in writers life is depicted in very methodical fashion. The reader can not skip even a single sentence as each and every sentence is connected with each other like a web. Thanks for providing such a magnificent peace of text.
I have never heard of the author or any book but will loook it up and have a read. Thank you Pamela99. By the way Michael Jackson bleached himself because he had a skin problem whereby batches turned white. Not to make matter worse, he bleached himself.
Pamela
Holden is much like our King Hussein Obama. He too was rebellious as a youth trying desperately to fit into a world he despised. He saw himself as Black yet like Michael Jackson desperately wanted to be white. Jackson drove himself insane by continually bleaching his skin and altering his nose until he eventually turned into a freak.
King Hussein was forced to live in a white world with his grandmother whom he eventually threw under the bus in defense of his mentor Reverend Wright. I believe the maturation process in our King ended somewhere around the age of 16; otherwise he would not so readily embrace the destructive policies of those radicals such as Saul Alinsky and Karl Marx. Such is the action of a disturbed teenager who allows himself to be ruled by his anger against his perceived white world; remember he wrote White Man’s Greed Rules a World in Need!
Our King views himself as smarter than the average person; in fact he views himself to be the smartest person in the room; any room! Holden’s cliff is Obama’s world and we are his children. He doesn’t realize his destructive policies are pushing our civilization over the cliff. His mental hospital is in effect the White House and he’s surrounded himself with a plethora of nutcases.
I never have read the book, but I will put it on my to read list. Thanks for a great hub!
I had no idea that Robert B. Parker had died. I am sure the "literary" folks would not put him and Salinger in the same paragraph but I loved Parker's books and considered myself a huge fan. I don't know how I missed this news and frankly hoped you were wrong.
Now we will never know Spenser's first name or what happens to him, Hawk, Sonny, Jesse or Pearl the second.
Yikes!
Dear Pamela,
Catcher in the Rye was one of my favorite books. To anyone who hasn't read it, it's never too late. Great hub.
I never read it either, Pamela.
I was too busy trying to survive, to be the least bit interested in rebellion, when the book came out. I would surmise that that type of pain and angst was uniquely a New York thing.
Pamela,
Like Robert I also have never read Salinger. Are his books good?
Pamela this book was one that was not allowed in our school library back in the day.I never read it and wonder should I have.
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