Talk:The Catcher in the Rye

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Topic

I have to say I don't see why this should be an article at RationalWiki. It's not about pseudoscience, religion, fundamentalism or cranks. Having articles on everything that is/was challenging or controversial doesn't really fall within our remit. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 01:21, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I wrote it because of the conspiracy connection - the idea that it has some special influence.--^talk 01:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It's also relevant as an example of people trying to impose censorship on others. It makes my blood boil that people would try to take this wonderful book away from kids. --Damo^Hi 00:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Kept

Kept per RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/The Catcher in the Rye. Sophie^Wilder Sophie^Wilder 16:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

This book sounds a little pedophilic?

Hear me out. A lot of rhetoric in the book appreciates the innocence of children, and it appears Holden is not emotionally mature and can only relate to children. The book does not contain any hint of child sexual attraction, but it does have rhetoric of emotionally immaturity and the focus of child innocence. Isn't it creepy for an adult to hate all adults and be very fond of a child's innocence? Wouldn't this thought process be considerably similar to the mind of a pedophile?—チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 20:51, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Is it all it's cracked up to be?

I wouldn't describe it as a "goddamn awesome book" at all. It's alright, but extremely overrated and long surpased.

If anything, this article doesn't reflect the book's real appeal... to teachers! There are barely any mainstream schools which don't have this book in their libraries in the Anglosphere. Far from being subversive, this is a book teachers tend to hand to children, much like "Of Mice and Men".

As for the children themselves... the world's moved on. Even when I was at school many years ago, it was a vanilla book, overtaken by fashion and the fact that it's very tame compared to what's come since. Nowadays its rebellion comes off as phony.

I'll probably rewrite this article a bit to reflect this.-Albannach (talk) 13:39, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

At minimum I removed that strikeout (I'm not always against strikeouts like some of the site, but that was just cheerleading).

I'm actually not sure how mission-oriented this book is, except for two possible subjects:

A) It was frequently targeted for censorship in schools. Although less so these days, because it's "old hat".

B) Like modern loner / masochism / rebel appeal movies (eg Fight Club which, ironically given the original book's intent, ending up influencing things like masochism in evangelical communities, conspiracy nuts, and the manosphere), "back in the day" the book was misused by a few loner murderous cranks. BobJohnson (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2022 (UTC)