The Catcher in the Rye vs. Old Man and the Sea

I think that if I had to choose between the novels The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, and Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, I would definitely pick The Catcher in the Rye as my favorite of the two. I liked The Catcher in the Rye more than Old Man and the Sea for many reasons. First of all, The Catcher in the Rye had a lot more characters, which added a lot more interest to the story. It gets very boring reading about the same man in the entire book, but with more characters there is more going on. I liked all of the dialogue between Holden Caulfield, the main character of The Catcher in the Rye, and the people that he met and interacted with throughout the whole book. I also liked the setting of The Catcher in the Rye more than the setting of Old Man and the Sea. New York City in the nineteen-fifties is so much more exciting than in the middle of the ocean in Central or South America. This kind of goes hand in hand with the characters. New York City is obviously a huge and extremely populated city, so there are going to be a ton of people. The middle of the ocean however…there are absolutely no people. Even though there are no people in the middle of the deep blue sea, the old man in Old Man and the Sea still manages to have conversations. He talks to himself, to his hand when it is cramped, and to the great marlin that is dragging him away from home. I thought it was boring, and honestly a little weird, that he had nothing to talk to. You can only talk to your hand so much. I guess my main reason for liking The Catcher in the Rye more than Old Man and the Sea is the excitement. The plot is much more complicated, which makes it an easy and quick read.