I think overall the book brought some great discussion as people tended to either love it or hate it...and those books seem to spark the most interesting debate.
I think Tripp's comments (sent via email to Michelle) summed the book up best:
"I think Catcher is a brilliant exposition of adolescent angst, the turmoil-laden transition from childhood to adulthood, and the fear of loss of innocence. Holden is the catcher nobly struggling to save children from all the scary, major, yet inevitable changes they must undergo. Phoebe, Holden's sister, as the chief target of his "saving." But Holden himself is in the mix, and must be "saved" by Phoebe, who also becomes a catcher of sort.
I wouldn't say the hero prevails, but
he endures, this leaving us with the (somewhat) comforting message that adolescent angst is only temporary, and can be overcome. In that way I think many high-schoolers have embraced the book as a kind of true tale of their ordeals and their metamorphosis -- they wander from disjointed thought, from seemingly meaningless experience to another -- hating phoniness all the while, and even challenging the conventions of adult society a little bit. But they eventually get through it, more or less in one piece.
Is the field of rye a real place, and must we, in truth, be caught? Or is it a fantasy place of untouched innocence Holder dearly wants to hold onto, just as he wants to hold on to his youth?
In the end, isn't the process of "going over the cliff" an unavoidable part of growing up."
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