Talk:The Catcher in the Rye

John Wilkes Booth

Wasn't John Wilkes Booth found with a copy after murdering Abraham Lincoln?

allusions section is poor

someone fix it?

Needs th e symbols in the book

like the: Red cap- Holden's escape from the outside world

Phonies-The Adults or people who conform to join society.

Baseball mitt- his love for littature

Ducks - Holden thinks that in the winter the ducks are frozen in the lake he wonders where they go. the ducks can escape scociety but when they come back they have not changenged

Museum - every thing in it never changes it stays in glass. But when you go inside you change.

“Little Shirley Beans” record - it symbolizes that he wants pheobe not to change and that pheobe is like that broken record still going threw child hood

Movies- they are phony and the people in the movies act and aren't people

Unmade phone calls - hi

Erasing profane graffiti - jioning socity and seeing the realities of the world around him

Mummies - a peisefull place and mummies are never changeing.

Carousel - the never chang child hood and to grow up you must reach for the circle and you learn from falling but you have to just get up and try again

Possible copyright infringement for "Plot summary" section

Due to large sections of matching text with http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/catcher/summary.html, I have removed the current version of the plot summary and replaced it with the most recent untainted version as edited by 82.27.227.103 (Talk) at 17:27, September 28, 2007. The copyright infringement was made by 71.198.213.19 (Talk) at 20:16, September 29, 2007. Other sections have been left unchanged.

Larry (talk) 01:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Summary

The summary is awfully skeletal and lacking. 208.81.91.135 (talk) 21:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Editor, please add new comments to the bottom of the page. Yes, the summary is terse; it's supposed to be. --Loodog (talk) 22:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The summary is skeletal and lacking, as well as just plain wrong. Holden never asks Jane to accompany him on the trip out West. He wants to go alone. He considers giving her a buzz before he leaves, but never even talks to her about it. 208.81.93.16 (talk) 22:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

There shouldn't be more than a few paragraphs describing the plot synopsis. However, if there's an error, don't hesitate to fix it yourself, that's what Wikipedia's about. Kerrow (talk) 23:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Skeletal, yes. I don't feel that is's lacking, however. The article isn't supposed to be an in-depth analysis of the novel, simply a short synopsis. JelloExperience (talk) 14:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Sources

Someone added the unsourced paragraph: "The book has also been criticized for having almost no plot or action. Critics claim that the series of events are unrelated and have no meaning within the context of the book, and the style of writing is intentionally childish and difficult to read, with a lot of unnesscessary words and stall tactics that lend nothing to the story and only increase its length. Indeed, much of the book is nothing but wild tangents that go nowhere and cut off as suddenly as they start. The novel's success has been described as a fluke." If these criticisms were in fact made by actual literary critics, I'd personally like that to be cited. --JayHenry (talk) 04:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Im a fukken real literary critic i get payed for this shit. this is my job i critique fukken books just because i havent won a peabody like ebert and roper its still a critisism.

Interesting. Our policy on this, Wikipedia:Verifiability, requires that these claims be published in reliable sources. I wonder how many literary critics have won Peabody's. --JayHenry (talk) 05:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

or a fucking pulitzer or whatever i dont keep track of what awards are for but yeah its published on wikipedia just now thats a pro bono critique just for you. its a fucking fact that the book has been criticized like that because i just criticized it like that by writing that on wikipedia and whats more reliable than wikipedia citing itsself? i ask you

Unfortunately, another rule is that Wikipedia does not publish original thought. The idea is: imagine if everyone shared their opinion on George Bush. Some people think X, some people think Y. While it's true that people think all these things, the whole encyclopedia would end up kind of crazy if everyone got to write a paragraph sharing their personal thoughts on every subject. There are just so many people in the world. That's why we have to stick with stuff that's been published in reliable sources. It's not perfect, but otherwise things would be completely unmanageable. Imagine if, hypothetically, somebody wasn't a literary critic, and he or she posted a review that didn't make much sense, but lied and said they were a real critic? --JayHenry (talk) 05:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

that would be better because the george bush article would be informative of public opinion and not a compilation of filtered news jargon like you see on tv. wikipedia is different than a regular encyclopedia because its users write it and not a team of professional encyclopedia writers checking sourches and putting facts. criticism is opinion its not like you can fucking fact check it like a publishing date or a page number

But actually that's not how Wikipedia works. Things have to be neutral, verifiable and can't be original thought. I'm sorry, but that's how it's always been. Wikipedia is for facts, not for opinions, and certainly not for everyone's opinions. Sorry if you thought it was something different, but I'm just trying to explain how it works. --JayHenry (talk) 05:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, anyone can claim to be an expert or professional on anything so wikipedia should never be the first place for an opinion to be published. Wikipedia will only report opinions that have been published in peer-reviewed sources with quality control. Please include a link to the notable periodical your work is published in and no additional "fucking fact check" is necessary.--Loodog (talk) 15:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Bardo/Chapman connection

I noticed that Robert John Bardo is mentioned to have been carrying the book on his person when he murdered Rebecca Schaeffer, but no mention is made of the fact that, at least according to Gavin de Becker's "The Gift of Fear", Bardo was known to have had an obsession with Mark David Chapman; this is believed to be his reason for having the book, as well (as Chapman had it on his person when he murdered John Lennon). The "Controversy" section of the article makes it seem as if these are both isolated incidents -- lending a further negative connotations to the possession of the book rather than a "copy cat" element. There also seems to be no source for the Bardo information -- though only the Winona Ryder/shoplifting note seems to require citation. Forgive me for my amateur Wiki-editing skills or lack thereof, but I thought it deserved a mention in case a more skilled/experienced editor agrees. --Chacharu (talk) 02:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that paragraph ought to be split off from the section on Controversy and given its own section. I propose to call it Assassins. I also propose to add a 2nd paragraph to that new section, as follows:

In the movie "Conspiracy Theory", Jerry Fletcher, a CIA-trained assassin, has a copy of CITR on his person when he's arrested, and it's noted that several other assassins also had one. It becomes a major clue in the movie; the CIA supposedly brainwashed these assassins that if they didn't have a copy of that book, they would feel worried until they bought one; and thus the CIA would be able to track them - by electronically monitoring sales of the book. (Jerry has dozens of copies of it but has never read it.) Interesting plot detail; you'd think tho that they'd pick a book that wasn't selling a quarter million copies a year. Or maybe there's 50 million CIA assassins out there?Friendly Person (talk) 00:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The Catcher and the Rye

this book was great and everyone should read it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.118.66.30 (talk) 12:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)