The action of The Catcher in the Rye takes place between 15:00 on the Saturday previous to Christmas holidays 1949 and approximately the same time the next Monday. Holden Caulfield explains what happened to him during these forty-eight hours. The reader's impression when he/she finishes reading the novel is that most of it takes part during night-time. To confirm that impression I decided to establish the times of transition between day and night, situate these moments in the novel and count how many pages correspond to day and night.

To make the chronology of the events described it was necessary to establish the time of sunrise and sunset in New York City for the days during which the action develops. These times change approximately one minute from one day to the next in December, so we can apply without error the times for December 20th. On this day in...