If a body meets a body ...

	If you think of a plot as a series of events that build one on  the other towards a climax, then the plot of THE CATHER IN THE RYE is one of its least significant aspects. It can be summarized in a few paragraphs, but the summary will only give a small indication of what the novel is about.
HOLDEN CAULFIELD is 16, a prep school student who flunked school the week before Christmas. Several days before he is expected home he leaves the school planning to spend some time on his own in New York City, where he lives.
	Though Holden is friendly with many people at school, and though he has several friends in New York, he is constantly lonesome and in need of someone who can sympathize with his feelings of alienation. The person he feels closest to is his ten-year-old sister Phoebe.
After a day spent in futile attempts to make contact, he sneaks into his home to see Phoebe, but she is not too happy about his being expelled from school. Holden decides the only solution to his problem is to run away and establish a new identity - as a deaf mute who will not need to communicate with anyone.
	On the verge of a nervous collapse, Holden changes his mind and decides to rejoin his family. He then enters a hospital not far from Hollywood, CA, and this is where he tells his story. At the end Holden is not sure he will leave the institution and he is sorry he told his story in the first place.
There is much more to the novel than this plot. It is a rich psychological portrait of a boy who is frightened at the prospect of growing up, a boy who has few of the tools at hand necessary to face the world on his own.
	This book has an intriguing story. And it contains marvellously drawn portraits of character. It is a statement about outsiders and society. And more ... as you will discover when you read it.

Lilli Scherner | LK Englisch 2001

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