Catcher in the Rye. BAD!

And cultures are what create this "laziness." All of the rebelliousness is of the same kind of concept as newborns never drowning, but wait a few weeks and the culture of fear doubt within which their parents live will insure basically even more helpless fearful hence drowning babies.

The novel illustrates the kind of culture without connections, the lack of purpose, the dumbed down educational system. You think this is rebellion? Now way, it is conformity to all the helplessness and dependence that is thrust upon an individual by control freaks. So what about the obscenity? Well thinking is prohibited in most schools, and your time is so divided you can never study in depth. Just blame the kid for having such a strained out focus, that the only appeal is a bunch of words that are "forbidden," words that everyone knows. Because they are one of 10 words that reduce a person to an uncaring animal status, they are perfect for oppression, the stupidified individual even after the most intensive and expensive prep school, turns into a dummy such as Holden Caufield. So just blame the kid now, he has nothing to do with his dumbed down environment, he is the dummy on purpose. He so called "escapes," and exaggerates his dumbed down nature, mocking himself in what is ultimately a satirical work. Of course no one has come up with that interpretation before, but that is what it obviously is.

Udio says:

"back then, as pointed out by others in this thread,
The Catcher In The Rye

is/was a 'Re-Focusing' work
a type of dis-information work

a contemporary of JDS is Robert Alton Wilson
who as RAW is engaged in MaybeLogic

there is a movie being made, see;
>www.guerrillanews.com...<
[.....-->Title: Statuary Ape]

the 'CITR' tradition endures to re-focus & dis-info the hive minds"

Do the above lines of text make any sense to anyone on this thread? They're certainly beyond my comprehension.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Udio says:

"back then, as pointed out by others in this thread,
The Catcher In The Rye

is/was a 'Re-Focusing' work
a type of dis-information work

a contemporary of JDS is Robert Alton Wilson
who as RAW is engaged in MaybeLogic

there is a movie being made, see;
>www.guerrillanews.com...<
[.....-->Title: Statuary Ape]

the 'CITR' tradition endures to re-focus & dis-info the hive minds"

Do the above lines of text make any sense to anyone on this thread? They're certainly beyond my comprehension.

No, I never did get that. I think complete thoughts in the form of complete sentences might have helped me, but hey, I'm a stickler.

You might know, OTS...

Didn't J.D. Salinger do some work with the government in some form or another? If so, what?

I LOVED this book! I read this as a teen (1980?) and to me the message is this:
Its hard to be an individual in a world that is bent on making you a clone of everyone else. It can really drive you nuts! 'Winners' and 'losers' are subjective terms. For instance: In today's heavily conservative society, a 'winner' is a businessman who lives in suburbia and has 2.5 kids and stay at home wife. Now, if people are happy with this, ok. But if they truly wanted to be lion tamers, they have 'won' by society's opinion, but not their own.
This book is a 'classic' because it makes you think. It is not a comic book where everything is spelled out, you have to read between the lines.
I think the message of this book is resisting the pressure to 'clone up' and do 'as you're told'. I like this sort of thinking because I am very unusual and it helps to see/read others thoughts about alienation and following your OWN path rather than taking the easy, conformist path.

I don't think the main character had the character to be successful in any sense of the word. His or 'theirs'. The fact of the matter is that he is just not likeable. Not one bit.

If this guy's version of success had anything to do with other people, or having to be in contact with them at some step along the way, I think his level of success could be only marginal.

Maybe if he was a painter or something like that, then at least he could achieve success after death, when no one had to listen to his bitching.

if you didn't get the sarcasim and humour in the book then you are simply missing the point. One of my favourite books. Its about a jerk off you loves winding people up, and he is good at it, its funny, so if you dont like it, why even bother discussing it on a conspiracy site?

I remember enjoying this book, it was well written and gave vivid descriptions of 1950's America which I found fascinating. I think I had read "Vernon God Little" by DBC Pierre just before and found many comparrisons, almost like an updated Catcher in the Rye.

I remember being forced to read "To kill a mocking bird" at school and hated it, only to buy it again when I was older and appreciate the genius of the book.

after reading Catcher in the Rye, I could never understand why the book had been on a banned list

Originally posted by thedarktower
if you didn't get the sarcasim and humour in the book then you are simply missing the point. One of my favourite books. Its about a jerk off you loves winding people up, and he is good at it, its funny, so if you dont like it, why even bother discussing it on a conspiracy site?

Nobody necessarily missed the point. The point is clear.

It's actually not that funny.

Why on a conspiracy site? Maybe the assasination connection. Maybe the "List" issue.

Maybe the OP just friggin felt like it. We've all seen much worse pretenses for a thread. At least this one has something to discuss.
He wants to know why it is considered an important/ influential book.

the fact is that it was a highly lauded and credited piece of literature that was quite depressing and actually sucks quite badly.

I read everything. It's amazing some of the crap I've waded through to get to the good part of a book that never got there.

This book.

Yeah, It's a slog through crap all right.

Seriously depressing with very little to offer except for maudlin angst and shock value for the time it was written in.

Its the favorite book of lone gunmen-
both hinkley jr and mark david chapman were big fans.
hinkey sr. was head of world vision ministries in texas
and was a bush sr associate.
chapman worked for world vision in ark.

While an important work of fiction, it fails to be a great work of literature. One scene in particular comes to mind. It's the one towards the end when Holden ends up crashing at his teacher's place. Everything that goes on there seems so forced and doesn't really add to the narrative of the novel, while everything before it flowed smoothly and was critical to the piece as a whole. So, in the end it's a well written book, and it's influential, but it's not great.

Now if you want to talk overrated books, On the Road tops the list.

Wow. This is a blast from the past. I started this thread in 2004.

And I did post this thread and start this discussion on the premise that Catcher in the Rye was not a novel for mass consumption, but rather a book of codes... which could explain the reason for it really being of no consequence as far as the actual story goes.

It has stood the test of time, though. Gotta give it that. It still sucks after all these years.

This was the worst book I have ever seen, and just because kids see that cuss words are allowed, that was the hook. And the educators who push this as required should have their heads examined. They should be taught Latin, they should be reading the classics. But no TPTB want the children dumbed down so they can be manipulated and mind-controlled. It's sad that so many are already in that state of mind.

Latin is very valuable tool as it is the basis (never changing) basis of: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, medical field, law field, science field, biology, astronomy etc., etc.

Originally posted by Niki
I LOVED this book! I read this as a teen (1980?) and to me the message is this:
Its hard to be an individual in a world that is bent on making you a clone of everyone else. It can really drive you nuts! 'Winners' and 'losers' are subjective terms. For instance: In today's heavily conservative society, a 'winner' is a businessman who lives in suburbia and has 2.5 kids and stay at home wife. Now, if people are happy with this, ok. But if they truly wanted to be lion tamers, they have 'won' by society's opinion, but not their own.
This book is a 'classic' because it makes you think. It is not a comic book where everything is spelled out, you have to read between the lines.
I think the message of this book is resisting the pressure to 'clone up' and do 'as you're told'. I like this sort of thinking because I am very unusual and it helps to see/read others thoughts about alienation and following your OWN path rather than taking the easy, conformist path.

I would have vastly preferred to simply have read this explanation rather than struggling through this book I don't know how many times, trying to ascertain why it is considered "good".

I kept thinking it was me, that I wasn't "getting it", which of course, I couldn't have, so I continued to read it once every few years, finally giving up. The only intriguing thing about it, is that it is found in the apartments of killers, and sometimes in their back pocket. This has interested me, also, and attempting to "guess" what about it might have attracted this population of neer-do-wells.

Maybe you have to be a psychotic killer to "get it". lol, in which case I hope I never do.

But the above poster's perception seems to sum it up well. I guess.

Well I read the book and could not see what the fuss was about. There have always been whiney people… So what?

Anyway in the 90s my daughter had to study the book at her girl’s school in south London. A handful of loud vocal PTA type parents got into a tizzy over this book as it would lead to suicides.

So much hype over so little. The book actually stinks. If this caused the end of the USA golden age well then the US golden age was even more fragile than I thought.

I would have to say that this is a book that should not be read in high school, but in college when a person is old enough to understand it without trying to relate it to their own life. I had to read this horrid book in 9th grade, and because of my age at the time of reading it, it caused me to become horribly depressed and I almost killed myself a few times. If I had been older in a time when I could read things and think of them not by what their content and emotional stand-outs are, but why they were written and how they affected the time they came from, then it would have been a decent read. I probably would have even enjoyed it.

The problem with educators today is that they imagine for some strange reason that children have the innate capacity to look at books from an unrealistic perspective. When most people read, they apply it to themselves. They try to understand it and experience the writer's experience in themselves. For this reason, books like Catcher in the Rye should NOT be read at an early age! It's border-line molestation of the mind.

S + F !!!!

Great point, great reason for a thread on ATS as well. I kept hearing all about all these great classics and I am with you all the way. I just watched this "Gone With the Wind" and the special effects sucked, the point was stupid, the sets really looked cheap.

reply to post by cindyremains


Ah, On this we shall certainly part ways in our thinking and appreciation for literature. When I was speaking, it was directed towards the book in discussion, certainly not all classics. The classics are amazing and are still enjoyed and studied by many, as in my opinion, they very well should be.

As far as "Gone With the Wind", it was not filmed for special effects. It doesn't beg to be "The Matrix", (although I love the matrix), it was filmed as an historic commentary on the Civil War, and there is much to be gained in knowledge about our history in this movie. It is perhaps, one of the best movies ever made. And if you think "the point was stupid", then I'm at a loss as to what to say to you.

[edit on 9/4/2010 by ladyinwaiting]

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


I take it you shy away from any authors that employ sarcasm without emphatically stating so?

Silly conspiracy theories aside, it was just a book that I had to read as part of 9th grade English. Holden wasn't "whiny". He was just the stereotypical "rebellious teenager" type.

Perhaps Salinger is embarrassed because of the people who read his book and then committed heinous acts?

Originally posted by DeltaChaos
So I asked myself... Self, what could it be about this book that makes everyone like it so much. Then I thought about how J.D. Salinger was some kind of spook for the Feds at one time, and wondered if it was some mind control device. Nah...

The book played a very large part in the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman, according to many accounts.

I had never heard that about Salinger...interesting.