Jerome Salinger was born into a Jewish family. Father, a successful trader of sausages, having given him a brilliant education, expected his son to continue his family business. But the real passion was literature. What characterized the creative manner of the writer? Probably, a sharp look, the ability to consider blatant injustice behind officially seeming decency. Consider the circumstances under which a young man in a civilized country becomes unhappy. Salinger’s fame was swift and dizzy: at thirty-two he became famous throughout the country, writing the novel “The Catcher in the Rye”.
Strange was his spiritual world. To him, acutely aware of the acute shortage of spirituality of society, he seemed artificial and far-fetched.
Through the lips of his character, the author says that he would rather choose a horse than a car, because you can even talk to her. The book "The Catcher in the Rye" is a novel-concern, a novel-problem. Salinger tells readers in it that at a time when adults “played with”, endlessly rebuilding their far-fetched, and therefore imperfect world, children are perplexed, seeing it as it is: with bright sun and green grass, river, comrades in the yard . But gradually their clear and pure gaze fades as one plunges into the desert of life. They will leave their childhood dreams and impulses. They, of course, will grow up.
The book is a story no longer a child, but not yet an adult - seventeen-year-old Holden Caulfield, completing a course of treatment for tuberculosis in a sanatorium. The young man tells about the events of last year. After a conflict and a fight with a classmate, Stradler, walking with a girl he liked, he dropped out of a closed school in Egerstown just like the previous one. The real reason is poor performance: Holden is not evaluated in half the subjects of the course. The young man believes that everything around him is fake, feigned, "linden." Such is the hero of the book "The Catcher in the Rye." The content of the novel further tracks the adventures of a fugitive student. He leaves for his native New York, but is afraid to return home due to the reaction of his parents to the fact that he dropped out of school. He is staying at a hotel.
Of course, he considers himself an adult. Therefore, he decides to "hang out" first in a hotel nightclub, which he does not succeed, then - having gone to his elder brother D.B. to the favorite night bar, he asks the taxi drivers the same question, completely stupid, the answer to which does not interest him. A young man, on the one hand, reaches out to people, he wants to contact with them, and on the other, he pushes off from them, seeing falsity in their words and deeds. This is the main psychological problem of the protagonist of the novel "The Catcher in the Rye." The reviews of American literary
criticism confirm
this . At the hotel, a young man is seduced by the elevator's offer - to buy a prostitute for a while. But when she arrived, she changes her mind. The girl, together with the elevator, demand and take away doubled against the agreed amount. Then he leaves the hotel and leads the life of a tramp. He invites Sally Hayes to the theater, then goes with her to the rink. The girl does not share with Holden Caulfield his annoyance with others, does not support his idea for a couple of weeks to leave home to ride with him in a car. In response, the young man insults her, and they part. Holden is tormented by contradictions: after getting drunk, he tries to apologize to Sally on the phone. Then he decides to see Fabie's sister, buys her a plate, but accidentally breaks it. The illogical, impulsive actions of the protagonist determine the content of the novel "The Catcher in the Rye." The reviews of literary critics are therefore diametrically opposed: from admiration to rejection. Arriving home in the absence of his parents, he feels complete understanding on the part of his sister, she lends him her deferred money. It was at this moment, at the first meeting with Fabi, Holden Coldfield tells her who he wants to become in this world - a catcher of defenseless and naive children, blindly wandering in the rye and risking accidentally falling into the abyss.
He decides to live with his former teacher, Mr. Antolini, but his suspicion and impulsiveness again play a cruel joke with him. The question arises: who, in fact, is the main character? Or do hypothetical children find themselves in a dangerous situation, that is, "over the precipice in the rye"? The reviews of the Americans themselves are unanimous - the main character of the novel is in trouble. A purely American pattern is triggered in his mind - "go to the West and start there from scratch." Holden reports this idea to his sister. She comes with a suitcase and claims to go with her brother. Now Caulfield’s turn to hold her. On the stage of circling Fabia on a carousel in the rain and admiring this spectacle of her brother, the plot of the novel ends. This was enough to buy real estate and settle in the provincial Cornish (New Hampshire). Here the writer lived as a recluse, measured to him by God for the next sixty years of his life after writing "Over the Catcher in the Rye." Reviews of literary scholars on subsequent works are becoming more restrained. Why did this happen? Perhaps Jerome Salinger became isolated, as he initially expected a different reaction to the novel, more practical. After all, he revealed the real ulcers of the system of education and upbringing, why, recognizing the novel, society did not turn to face their elimination? Unfortunately, his works, written later, could not achieve the success prepared for “Catcher in the Rye” (the American name for the novel). Perhaps the triumph overtook him because in the novel he wrote about his youth, interweaving experienced emotions, memories, impressions.