Does anyone know a good site for finding critical responses of the novel "Catcher in The Rye"?

Question

How it was perceived when it first came out ? By readers and critics, alike. Thanks !

Answer 1

Ask a librarian for help with CLCs -- contemporary literary criticisms. They're large encyclopedia-like books with articles discussing most important contemporary authors and their works. Salinger would surely be included.

Answer 2

University libraries are probably the best places to find literary criticism. If you're not a university student, you may not be able to check books out, but you can probably go and do research there.

Depending what quality of sources you need, you can also try googling "catcher in the rye history" or something similar. You're bound to find some essays and things, although they won't be as reliable as what you'd find in a university library.

You can also try the Wikipedia page for Catcher in the Rye -- don't use the Wikipedia article itself, but look at the bottom for the references and external links. Sometimes those can be a good starting point for online research. The Wikipedia page for the book is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catcher_in_the_Rye