The Catcher in The Rye Summary – Novel by J. D. Salinger

The catcher in the rye book is an adult book which is written by J.D Salinger. It was partially published as a form serial in 1945- 1946 but as a novel, it was published on 16 July 1951.

This novel shows very adult themes like angst and alienation. It is also translated widely that around one million copies are sold each year, with total sales of more than 65 million books.

The novel also deals with the complex issue of innocence, identity, belonging, loss, Connection, sex, and depression.

So, here is a summary of the most famous novel by J.D Salinger and their best story for all of you.

Summary-of-The-Catcher-in-the-Rye-Book

Summary of The Catcher in the Rye Book

The story is narrated by a young man named Holden Caulfield. Holden is not specified about his location while he’s confiding in the story. The events he narrates take place in the day a few days between the end of the plunge school term and Christmas when Holden is sixteen years old.

1. Holden life in Pencey

Holden’s story begins on the Saturday following the end of classes at the pencey prep school in Hagerstown, Pennsylvania. It is holden’s fourth school, he has already failed out of three others. At Penney’s, he has failed four out of five of his classes and he has attained notice that he’s being expelled out of penny but he’s not planned to return residence to Manhattan until Wednesday. He visited his old history teacher, named Spencer, to say goodbye, but when Spencer strives to rebuke him for his poor academic performance, Holden becomes annoyed.

Return to the dormitory, Holden is further annoyed by his unhygienic neighbor, Ackley, and by his own roommate, stradlater.

Stradlater depletes his evening on a date with Jane Gallagher, a girl whom Holden used to date,  love her, and whom he still admires. During the course of the evening, holden thrives increasingly worried about stradlater’s taking jane out and when stradlater returns, holden questions him insistently about whether he tried to have sex with her. Stradlater bully Holden, who flies into danger and attacks stradlater. Stradlater clasps Holden down and bloodies his nose. Holden decides that he’s had expended enough time in pencey and will go to Manhattan three days early, stay in a hotel, and not tell his parents that he’s come.

2. Holden in Edmond hotel

One the train to New York, Holden meets the mother of one of his former pencey students. Though he thinks this student is a total greedy he tells the woman made up stories about how quiet her son is and how well honored he is at school. When it arrives at Penn Station, he goes into a phone booth and considers calling various people, but for several reasons, he agrees on it. He gets in a cab and asks the cab driver where the ducks in Central Park go when the lagoon freezes, but his query annoys the driver. Holden has the cab driver take him to the Edmont Hotel, where he tests himself in. 

From his room at the Edmonton, owners can see into the rooms of some of the visitors in the opposite wings. He identifies a man putting on silk tights, high heels, a bra, a corset, and an evening gown. He also sees the man and a woman in the author’s room taking turns spitting mouthfuls of their drinks into each other’s faces and chuckling frantically.

He interprets the couple’s behavior as a form of sexual play and is both disturbed and elicited by it. After smoking a couple of cigarettes, he calls Faith Cavendish, a woman he has never confronted but whose number he got from a neighbor at Princeton. Holden thinks he remembers listening that she used to be a stripper, and he thinks he can entice her to have sex with him, he calls her, and though she is at initially annoyed to be called at such a late hour by a total stranger, she eventually suggests that they meet the next day. He doesn’t want to wait that long and winds up hanging up without organizing a meeting.

Holden goes downstairs and to the lavender compartment and sits at a table, but the server understands he’s minor and refuses to serve him. He fits with three women in their thirties, who appear like they’re from out of the city and are most eager in catching a glance of a celebrity. However, holden dance with them and realizes that he is half in love with the blonde one after discerning how nicely she dances. After making some banter about his age, they leave, letting him spend their entire tab.

3. Holden meets jane

Holden goes out to the hallway, he starts to think about Jane Gallagher and, in a flashback, reviews how he got to know her. They met while devouring a summer vacation in Maine, played golf and checker, and gripped each other hands at the film. One afternoon, during a game of checker, her stepfather came onto the patio where they were playing, and when he left Jane began to weep. Holden had walked to sit beside her and kissed her all over her face, but she wouldn’t let him kiss her on the mouth. That was the nearest they came to “necking”.

4. Ernie’s a jazz club

Holden departs the Edmont and takes a cab to Ernie’s jazz club in Greenwich Village, again, he asks the cab driver where the ducks in the central park go in the winter, and this cabbie is even more annoying than the first one.

Holden sits lonely at a table in Ernie’s and identifies the other buyers with distaste. He runs into Lillian Simmons, one of his older brother” s former girlfriends, who asks him to sit with her and her date. Holden says he has to meet someone, sleaves, and steps back to Edmonton.

Maurice, the elevator operator at the Edgemont, assigns to send a prostitute to holden’s room for five dollars, and holden approves. A young woman specifying herself as sunny comes at his door. She pulls off her dress, but holden starts to feel unique and strives to make conversation with her. He claims that he recently experienced a spinal operation and is adequately recovered to have sex with her but he offers to pay her nonetheless. She sits on his lap and talks dirty to him, but he contends on paying her five dollars and indicating her the door. Sunny returns with Maurice, who demands another five dollars from Holden.

When Holden denies paying, Maurice punches him in the abdomen and leaves him on the floor, while sunny seizes five dollars to form his wallet holden goes to bed.

5. Holden, sally equation

 Holden wakes up at ten o’clock on Sunday and calls sally hayes, an impressive girl whom he has dated in the past. They organize to meet for a matinee showing of a Broadway play. He eats breakfast at a sandwich bar, where he talked to with two nuns Romeo and Juliet. Holden hands over the nuns ten dollars and strives to telephone Jane Gallagher, but her mother answers the phone, and he hangs up.

He takes a cab to the central park for his younger sister, Phoebe, but she isn’t standing there. He helps one of the phoebe’s schools are tightening her skate, and this girl tells him that Phoebe might be in the museum of natural history.

Though he knows that phoebe’s class wouldn’t be at the museum on a Sunday, holden goes there anyway, but when he gets there he chose not to go in and instead receives a cab to the Biltmore hotel to meet sally.

Holden calls Jane again, but there’s no answer. He calls carl luce, a young man who had been holden’s student adviser at the Wharton School and who’s now a student at Columbia University, luce arranges to meet him for a drink after dinner, and holden goes to a movie at radio city to kills time.  Holden luce meets at the wicker bar in the seton hotel. At whootan, luce had talked Frankly with some of the boys about sex, and holden and strives to draw him into a discussion about it. Once more, luce grows annoyed by holden’s juvenile remarks about homosexuals and about luce’s Chinese girlfriend, and he brings an excuse to quit early Holden continue to drink scotch and listen to the pianist and singer.

6. Being a catcher in the rye

Quite drunk, holden telephones sally hayes and babbles about their Christmas Eve plans. Then he takes off to the lagoon in central park, where he used to see the ducks as a child. It takes him a high time to find it, and by the time he does, he’s freezing cold. He then chose to sneak into his own flat building and wake his sister, Phoebe. He is forced to admit to Phoebe that he was kicked out of school, which makes her angry at him. When he strives to explain why he dislikes school, she indicts him of not liking anything. He tells her his fantasy of being “the catcher in the rye”a person who catches little kids as they about to decline off of a mountain. Phoebe tells him that he has misremembered the poem that he took the image from; Robert burns’ poem says if a body meets a body, appearing through the rye not catch a body.

Holden calls his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini, who says Holden he can come to his flat. Mr. Antolini asks Holden about his deportation and tries to an attorney about his future. Holden can’t his sleepiness, and Mr. Antolini caressing his forehead. Guessing that Mr. Antolini is making a homosexual invitation, Holden rapidly excuses himself and leaves, sleeping for a few hours on a  bench at the grand central station.

Holden moves to Phoebe school and mails her a note saying that he’s leaving home for good and that she should meet him at lunchtime at the museum. When Phoebe arrives, she’s clasping a suitcase full of clothes, and she asks Holden to take her with him. He denies talking to him. Knowing she will follow him, he strolls to the zoo and then takes her across the park to a carousel he sells her a ticket and stares her ride it. It begins to rain heavily, but holden is so happy seeing his sister ride the carousel that he’s close to tears.

This book is something you all can’t get over it and on every page of the book will bring something exciting for you.

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