The Catcher in the Rye

Bibliography: J.D.Salinger:Kdo chytá v žitě,Slovenský spisovateľ,Bratislava 2000.

Salinger's publications:The Catcher in the Rye(Kto chytá v žite),Nine Stories(Deväť poviedok),Franny and Zooey,Raise High the Roof Beam,Carpenters(Zodvihnite vysoko povalený trám,tesári),Seymour:An Introduction(S.:Úvod)

Jerome David Salinger, American novelist, was born in 1919 in New York. He has grown up in trader’s family. He has studied at universities in New York and Columbia, where he has taken a course in short story writing. He has published short stories in various magazines including the Saturday Evening Post. During World War II. he has served in the U. S. infantry on the western group of armies in Europe. After the war he has started writing literature, mainly psychological novels and tales, in which he dedicates his attention to children’s and youngsters’ problems. Major success came with the novel The Catcher in the Rye, which was written in 1951. The success of this novel really surprised him.
Nowadays he lives alone in simple house in New Hampshire and he refuses any interviews and publicity.

The Catcher in the Rye novel is divided into 26 short parts. Author used here very vivid spoken language with huge amount of slang words and not rarely also vulgarisms, what is typical for thousands of young Americans. The story is told in I-narration.
The title of the book is perceived as motto of the novel, while the rye-field is symbol of America in the past, when it wasn’t destroyed by factories and desire of money.

The story line:

The psychological novel The Catcher in the Rye tells story about one young, 16 years old boy Holden Caulfield, son of solvent parents. Parents wanted him to study the best schools, but it wasn’t purpose of his youth and life.
It is Saturday evening and there is a football game at Pencey Prep School. Everybody is there except Holden. He’s found out he’s been expelled from school again so he goes and says good-bye to his history teacher. He is supposed to stay at school until Tuesday when the Christmas holiday starts. But after he gets back to his room and finds out that Strandlater has left for date with Holden’s old friend Jane, he decides to leave the school tonight and spent couple of days in the city (N.Y.C.). He is fed up with the school life and people that surround him. He gets into fight with Strandlater and afterwards he packs his suitcase and leaves the school disappointed.