What a tiresome book. Holden Caulfield, the priveleged but discontented teenage protagonist and narrator, leaves his school a couple of days before the holidays after being told that he can’t come back the next semester. He spends a couple of discontented, self obsessed days moping around in New York, dismissing everyone else as a phony except little kids who ‘kill him’. He is fascinated with sex, but is equally drawn to celibacy. His life is aimless. The only thing he cares about is his family, particularly his younger sister and his dead younger brother. The girl he really fancies, who he met on holiday in Maine, he avoids talking to or meeting again, despite his strong feelings for her.

Salinger has probably captured the teen spirit of the age perfectly, and that is why I could not wait for the book to end. Bilsdungromans are only any good if the character actually develops into something, but Holden didn’t. There’s kind of a hint at the end, in an afterward, when he refers to someone as ‘affected’ rather than ‘a phoney’, that his language at least has evolved, but it’s too little, too late.