In 1951 J.D. Salinger wrote a book that changed the world. The world of high school English literature classes. Now everyone has to read it. That's why sales of the book continue to be so high even though Salinger died. It's like what? What? Where do all those royalties go? Probably to his wife. But that's also counting Kindle sales plus you can get a paperback for 25 cents. The novel is popular with young readers for its themes of rebellion, angst, alienation, innocence and loss and identity, acting up, being argumentative, and being a psychological mess. The protagonist is an unlikely hero.
The story is about Salinger's favorite pastime, baseball. Through practice bouncing a ball off a wall really hard, a young athlete named Holden develops himself into the best catcher on his high school team but doesn't get the recognition from the school that he feels he has earned because he's short with big ears. And one of his ears is weird from the inside bit that's like a tiny cup is turned inside out and facing forward. Everybody makes fun of him, like whoah, Dude, you got a weird ear. So he challenges his whole school to lob baseballs into a rye field hard as they can throw and bet them a $1,000 bucks he can catch every one of them. He came from a well-to-do family so that was a reasonable bet. If he lost the bet, no biggie, his dad could pay for it. He kept the rye field free of baseballs the whole late summer season until harvest so they didn't mess up the harvester and finally won the admiration of his peers. I totally read this whole book, and it is really super good.
7 comments:
Better than Salinger! Even better than that movie.
I never read it and now that Chip has posted a synopsis I don't have to. Should anyone ever ask I will tell them that I am familiar with it and that it is my second favorite baseball book, after Ball Four.
Which I also haven't read.
It was required reading at Morningside College in 1964 but I'd completely forgotten the story line. The story line I remember is the draft board changing me to 1 A in '65 because I'd waited two years before starting college but that's not a complaint, just a memory.
Ball Four was a riot and a half. I swear my college roommate was Holden Caulfield. Insane, but fun and funny. Except my roommate wasn't any good at baseball.
Nice.
At a certain stage of your life it's really good. Then you grow up. The whole book is about the extreme suffering of an extremely sensitive soul, which is what a lot of people think they are at 17.
Chip - your synopsis is way more interesting than the actual book.
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