Catcher in The Rye by JD Salinger is number Five on The Greatest Books of All Time site which combines various criteria, looking at more than sixty lists of best works, and it is also part of The Modern Library Top 100 – many of these books are reviewed on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html - 10 out of 10

 

Catcher in The Rye by JD Salinger is number Five on The Greatest Books of All Time site which combines various criteria, looking at more than sixty lists of best works, and it is also part of The Modern Library Top 100 – many of these books are reviewed on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html

 

10 out of 10

 

 

Holden Caulfield might be the most complex, intriguing, amusing hero of a major novel, I wonder how it came up at number five on this new site for Greatest Books of All Time, though I do not say it is not among my favorites, on the contrary, this was the third time I have read and enjoyed this immensely, there should be a fourth encounter

 

On the one hand, we have ingenuity, we hear the main character saying God damn, I hate it so many times, pain in the ass too, but he is just a teenager, ergo we understand that this is different, he does not know any better…and yet, he is so mature, in all this innocence, and he also combines a terrific sense of humor with tragedy

He is depressed and we hear this so very often, and almost everything has a serious impact on him – his own sister, Phoebe, is desperate with him at one point, and says he does not like anything, and then tells him to name something - albeit all the narrative has a light tone, and there is such a ‘funny feeling’, funny is another word we find frequently

 

Holden Caulfield has been expelled from a boarding school, Pencey, and we follow the events that unfold following this crisis, the protagonist is not just intelligent, he is remarkable in so many ways, however awkward he can be, he is masterful in English – he is the narrator of this magnum opus after all – but does not get interested in the rest

When he speaks with his former English teacher, Mister Antolini, Holden explains some of his disinterest, referring to this class where students are required to tell a story, but then the others shout digression, when the narrator does not stick to his subject, and indeed, it is a rather sad situation, there seem to be no justice there

 

Another extraordinary aspect of this chef d’oeuvre is that we see genuine opinions on fundamental subjects, Jesus is liked by the teenager, but he objects to the disciples, for instance and insists that Jesus would not condemn Judas, or something like that, showing the munificence that is characteristic of Holden Caulfield

Passages would be controversial – take the line taken on the US army and the Nazis, the ‘former have the same number of bastards like the latter’, or something to that effect, it is not the hero that ‘says’ this – also the take on films, Holden could not stand films, thespians – he is against the war, would take the firing squad instead of fighting…

 

I seem to share a dislike of Hemingway with Holden – alas, I will be 61 in a few weeks, and should know better than an adolescent – who is turned off by the ‘phony’  A Farewell to Arms https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-farewell-to-arms-by-ernest-hemingway.html he is a fan of Great Gatsby – number one on the GOAT site – and then he speaks about Romeo and Juliet with…a couple of nuns

Holden is concerned about what the nun who is also an English teacher would say about the books that have delicate material within, Romeo and Juliet are mentioned and our boy – who doesn’t like being called that – is upset about old Mercutio – he uses ‘old’ quite a lot, the repetition here is not upsetting, but gratifying

 

Mercutio https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/romeo-and-juliet-by-william-shakespeare.html dies because of Romeo and Juliet, according to Holden, who is very critical of the film he sees – just because he could not find anything else to do – with this duke that loses his memory, then he has it back after some adventures

Quite a few events are more than disturbing, such as the death of that pupil, bullied and assaulted by colleagues, who jumps to his death – Mister Antolini is the only one to get close to the dead body, even taking him into his arms, covered with the coat, not caring that it would be spoiled by all that blood, unfortunately, this same teacher might have initiated some sexual advances, when his former student spends the night at his place

 

The conversation with Carl Luce is a treat – well, all this book is a masterpiece – touching on the Eastern perspective is better, the young man is curious about sex, evidently, he is a virgin – he explained in the confessions he makes to readers that he had been close, but either parent come to early, he is in a car with another couple and could not pass the line

Nevertheless, when he is in this hotel, the elevator boy, Maurice, acts like a pimp and offers services for ‘five dollars a throw, or fifteen the whole night’, and somehow, Holden gets entangled in this – he wants to know about it, for his future marriage – and he is visited by this young woman, more a girl, from what she says

 

Embarrassed and in despair as we know he is, the hero does not feel like having sex, not under those bizarre, inappropriate circumstances anyway – he has explained to Carl Luce that he wants a spiritual and sexual experience – and he claims that he has had an operation at the clavichord, and the girl leaves, only to return

Maurice is pressing for another five dollars, despite the fact that readers and Holden know that he had said only five for one throw – and besides, there has been no throw – and it ends with the pimp kicking the boy…another funny sad thing was the lying, he would tell people he is going at the…Opera, and then the mother met on the train – she hears how her son is the most popular, called to be the nominee, when in fact he is obnoxious – a fantastic magnum opus!

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’