The Catcher in the Rye

Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents.

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Holden Caulfield is a seventeen-year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school, in 1950s New York. Precocious, sensitive and confused, he blunders through a haze of teenage failures, disappointments and anti-climaxes and delivers to the reader a bitter-sweet, biting commentary on all the 'phony' aspects of society and the 'phonies' themselves. Through his direct first-person narrative emerges one of the most touching, funny and nuanced portrayals of the confusions and frustrations of youth that exists in the literature of the English language, and a sparky and colloquial style that influenced generations of writers afterwards.

Innovative and revolutionary for its time, The Catcher in the Rye is as much a testament to and reflection of that time and its frustrations as it is a timeless and universal reflection on life, disillusionment, and growing up.