Paul Brown

Having read it in my teens; twenties, thirties and now forties The Catcher in the Rye is one of those books I keep coming back to. Why? After all there's not a lot that really happens except for a know it all teenager getting expelled from school and then hiding out in New York for the weekend before going home to face the music. Ferris Bueller's Day Off this is not! However, what The Catcher in the Rye does have to offer is narrator Holden Caulfield who just happens to be one of the most original; cynical, insightful and hilarious voices in contemporary fiction. It would be easy for a book like this to be overshadowed by its misinterpretation by Mark Chapman prior to murdering John Lennon or its creator virtually living a life in exile after its publication but over seventy years later The Catcher in the Rye endures on its own merits as the epitome of teenage angst. The older I get the more patience and tolerance I may have for the "phonies" but there's something that makes you feel forever young when you spend a weekend in the Big Apple with the literary equivalent of Morrissey. To paraphrase Kurt Cobain The Catcher in the Rye reads like teen spirit.