The Catcher in the Rye--------------------------------------------------Anyone who has read J.D. Salinger's New Yorker stories ? particularlyA Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The LaughingMan, and For Esme ? With Love and Squalor, will not be surprised bythe fact that his first novel is fully of children. The hero-narratorof THE CATCHER IN THE RYE is an ancient child of sixteen, a nativeNew Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tendto preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep schoolin Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to makeany final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thingwe can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just stronglyattracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There aremany voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, undergroundvoices-but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcendinghis own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issuesa perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, likemost lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps mostof the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or setsaside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handleit to keep.