The Catcher in the Rye

　　席捲新世代騷動不安的靈魂　跨越60年依然不滅的捕手熱
　　反社會者的聖經　禁書爭議延燒至今

　　「他媽的 這世界！」

　　本書為作者唯一一部長篇創作，透過主角霍爾頓漫無目的在外遊走兩天的遭遇，以其特有的眼光、態度與語言，寫實呈現少年的感受、想法與心理。甫出版便在美國掀起一陣「捕手熱」（Catcher Cult），大眾反應兩極化，使此書既被列為禁書，又被選為教材，更成為無人不讀的小說作品。霍爾頓對這虛偽社會的厭惡與反抗、對成人世界的措手不及、對純真年代快樂時光的懷想……再再觸動舉世野少年騷亂不安的心靈。

　　「我拿了手提箱什麼的準備動身，還在樓梯口站了一下子，沿著那條混帳通道望了最後一眼。不知怎的，我幾乎哭了出來。我戴上我那頂紅色獵人帽，照我喜歡的樣子將鴨舌轉到腦袋後頭，然後使出了我全身的力氣大喊道：『好好睡吧，你們這些窩囊廢！』我敢打賭我把這一層樓的所有雜種全都喊醒了。隨後我就離開了那地方，不知哪個混蛋在樓梯上扔了一地花生殼，他媽的差點摔斷了我的混帳脖子。」

　　Anyone who has read J.D. Salinger's New Yorker stories--particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man, and For Esme With Love and Squalor--will not be surprised by the fact that his first novel is full of children. The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield.

　　Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in 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 make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it.

　　There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices-but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.

　　★本書中譯版《麥田捕手》由麥田出版。

作者簡介

沙林傑 ( J. D. Salinger 1919.01.01－2010.01.27 )

　　美國作家，1919年1月1日生於紐約，2010年1月27日逝世，享年91歲。

　　15歲時進入軍校就讀，也在這個時期，藉由每晚躲在棉被中、借助手電筒光線，開始寫故事的生涯。1940年首度發表短篇小說作品，1951年出版《麥田捕手》，一時聲名大噪。

　　沙林傑本人不改孤傲本性，數十年來離群索居，且謝絕一切媒體採訪，也始終拒絕好萊塢片商購買本書電影劇本版權的請求。

　　J D Salinger was born in 1919. He grew up in New York City, and wrote short stories from an early age, but his breakthrough came in 1948 with the publication in The New Yorker of 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish'. The Catcher in the Rye was his first and only novel, published in 1951. It remains one of the most translated, taught and reprinted texts, and has sold some 65 million copies. It was followed by three other books of short stories and novellas, the most recent of which was published in 1963. He lives in Cornish, New Hampshire. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.