Why is the catcher in the rye a good book to read?
It invites you to think. People will get different things after reading it, as with any other book I guess. But there’s the underlying theme I see of transcendentalism. Maybe not to the extreme, but it does hold a negative connotation of today’s society. I could argue that the use of the setting is to put Holden in an extreme environment. The city life is fast-paced and all around people are striving to achieve more. So the very city life is an epitome of what society has become. Maybe you could argue that reading Holden’s thoughts you get a sober view of reality, not one that’s fanciful and glamorizes things, though it can be depressing. And Salinger writes in a way that is subtle and interestingly symbolic. It’s simple to follow along the story, and not get lost in symbolism. I didn’t even really notice anything until I looked it up online. Holden is pretty explicit about things though. It’s a very real type of story that teens can relate to, since most of us go through a stage where
