The Catcher in the Rye

This month’s reading at the English Book Club is one of the most sold and known all around the world.

In English education it is a MUST, something you have to read whether you want to or not.

Perhaps for non-English readers, it could sound just like something you have heard of related to murder, mystery and various conspiracy theories.

So the myth of the book grows bigger every year.

If we add that its author is as mysterious and aloof as its main character, the myth becomes a legend.

Sex, lies and conspiracies!

We are talking about The Catcher in the Rye.

A not very long story, written in quite simple language, that portrays the Christmas vacation and the expelling from high school of Holden Caulfield.

A 16-year-old boy that, as young as he is, is fed up with almost everything and everyone.

He finds that his life is so boring and most of the people are phonies.

The book it was first thought to be a serial article for “The New Yorker”, but due to the II World War, it had to wait to be published.

So finally, Salinger published it as a novel in 1951.

The story tells in teenager words and manners how confusing adolescence can be.

All the big questions of life are hidden in this short piece: desire, fear, defiance, family boundaries…

But what has made the novel bigger than it probably is, is the fact that so many murderers (H. L. Oswald, M. D. Chapman, R. J. Bardo) have assured that “The Catcher in the Rye” was some kind of inspiration in their murdering design.

Salinger retired from public life some years after the publication of his main works, what made the weird author became an icon of the inspirational genius he would be.

Thus, due to all the facts detailed above among others, some people have developed a conspiracy theory over the book.

For further imagination on that topic, you can watch “Conspiracy” or “Finding Forrester”.

And remember, it is better to be hated than to be phony.