Criticism and Critical History:

• Eric Lomazoff, "The Praises and Criticisms of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye": neither a brilliant piece of scholarship nor a model of expository prose, Lomazoff's piece--written when he was in the 11th grade!--nevertheless gives a useful overview (after the first five paragraphs, that is) of Catcher's early critical reception.  A juicy quote: "It is a widespread belief that much of Holden Caulfield's candid outlook on life reflects issues relevant to the youth of today, and thus the novel continues to be used as an educational resource in high schools throughout the nation (Davis 317-18)."
• James Stern,"Aw, the World's a Crumby Place" (New York Times 15 July 1951): one of the more famous initial (negative) reviews, written in a parody of Holden's narrative voice. You may be asked to register for the Times's website, but don't worry--it's free.
• Louis Menand, "Holden at Fifty: The Catcher in the Rye and What It Spawned" (The New Yorker 1 October 2001). "The book keeps acquiring readers...not because kids keep discovering it but because grownups who read it when they were kids keep getting kids to read it. This seems crucial to making sense of its popularity. The Catcher in the Rye is a sympathetic portrait of a boy who refuses to be socialized which has become...a standard instrument of socialization." (This article has been taken off-line, but it was reprinted in a collection called If You Really Want to Hear About It: Writers on J.D. Salinger and His Work in 2006. You can still hear it read out loud, though.)
• Salinger in the Gale Literary Databases (HSU users only):  short bio-bibliographical entries and a healthy selection of critical essays (in full-text form) from Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism, and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
• SparkNotes.com:  looking for a good, canned interpretation of Catcher--or just something to argue with and position yourself against (or, ahem, "spark" your own thinking)?  Spark Notes--basically an online rival of that bane of English teachers, Cliff's Notes--provides a decent, if somewhat orthodox and unimaginative, critical overview.  In my big-shot-Ph.D. professional opinion, this is more reliable (and sophisticated) than some other cheesy cheat sheats like NovelGuide, GradeSaver, or even Cliff's Notes. (What? You mean you're actually familiar with such shameful things?  I'm scandalized!)  And it's the very first entry you get when you Google Catcher!--how easy is that?  Just don't plagiarize.
• And in case you were wondering: yes, I'm also familiar with the Catcher guidebooks published in 2007 by Sarah Graham (one by Routledge, one by Continuum). They're well done, and used properly, they could both be very useful. Again, don't plagiarize--and if you don't know what constitutes plagiarism, don't take chances.
  
  

History and Context--Some Starting Points:

• "New Historicism" (Wikipedia)
• Sanford Pinsker, "Historical Context" (from The Catcher in the Rye: Innocence Under Pressure (New York: Twayne, 1993))
• Tim Dirks, "Film History of the 1950s" (filmsite.org/greatestfilms.org)
• Rob Latham (U of Iowa), "1950s Moral Panics: The Juvenile Delinquent and the Homosexual" (lecture notes for a course on "Sex and Popular Culture in the Postwar US"; notes for other weeks may be of interest, as well)
• Thomas Devine (CSU Northridge), Study Questions for James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage (History 474B, "The United States Since 1945")
• James Stuart Olson, Historical Dictionary of the 1950s. Go to the library's homepage and click on "Abstracts and Databases." Find "ebrary," and then plug in "Olson, James Stuart" as a simple search term. The Historical Dictionary is the first item in the list of results. If you're working from home you'll need to download the ebrary reader before you can access this resource.
• Affiliated Film Producers, "Secure the Blessings" (1951): an educational film about the glories of American-style democracy (Prelinger Archive). Try clicking on the "Cold War" link under "keywords" (near the top of the page) to find other such fiilms from the late 1940s and early 50s.
• Louis Menand, "The Horror: Congress Investigates the Comics" (The New Yorker 31 March 2008). A smart review article of David Hajdu's The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America.
  

Miscellany:

• Robert Burns, "Comin' Thro' the Rye" (a two-column version with the Scots English original helpfully juxtaposed against a "standard" English translation). Holden famously misremembers this poem, which is basically an extended rhetorical question aimed at rationalizing casual sex.  Hmm...calling Dr. Freud: why might Holden have (subconsciously?) transformed its message so?
• Jonathan Bate, "The Mirror of Life: How Shakespeare Conquered the World." Harper's April 2007. An example of New Historicist analysis that's decidedy ani-Tillyardian in its approach.
• Joy Garnett and Susan Meiselas, "On the Rights of Molotov Man: Appropriation and the Art of Context." Harper's February 2007. Is context everything? You decide. Another example of New Historicism in action, this time in a contemporary setting.