Mark David Chapman just shed a tear.

Was talking about this at work...girl sitting next to me was like who was J.D. Salinger I was like oh he wrote Catcher in the Rye and nothing she had never heard of it or anything about it. I am not sure how much relevance the kids today have for ol J.D.

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Reverence (not relevance), and the answer is very little. Not sure he deserved much more than that. Catcher in the Rye is one of the worst books in the high school English canon (not cannon).

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-5,000

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Yeah I was going to word that last line about how relevant ol JD was differently but oh well I apologai. For the record though I read alot worse books in high school than The Catcher in the Rye....Pride and Prejudice minus the zombies comes to mind.

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I Could never erase all the stupid post on this board in a lifetime, and I wonder if puckhead freezes to the pond in the winter time?

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

1997. Junior year for me at Streamwood High School. Mr. Eickmeier recommended I read Catcher in the Rye for our "pick a book" book report.

Not being well read, I said sure.

I got somewhere between a third and half way through it when I walked up to Mr. Eickmeier, plopped the book down on his desk and said I'd rather fail the report than finish reading "this piece of crap."*

Agape and agog, Mr. Eickmeier said I could try to finish another book and do my report on that if I wanted. That book turned out to be Slaughterhouse 5. A truly classic novel by a true American master.

How anybody can consider the incessant complaining of self-righteous twat Holden Caulfield good reading is beyond my comprehension.

*Before you get all "you can't hate a book you didn't finish," let me preemptively say FUCK YOU, YES I CAN. There are maybe 2 or 3 possible endings that could make that book worth finishing, and they all involve graphic descriptions of either prison rape or vivisection of the main character.

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Interesting. I was a big fan of that book. My place in life might have been different than most here. Read it when I was like 11 or 12 (well before it was required reading). I appreciated reading some of the frustrations I felt. At a different time or in a different place in my life I can see where it would not have resonated as clearly as it did.

I always hoped that they would make it into a movie, but it would only be a disappointment compared to the book...

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

I never read it. It's in the book collection though.

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@audioidkid

It feels weird when your pick for the Dead Pool dies. I can see why people dont enter them.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You caused this 91 year old man to drop dead. I hope you are happy with yourself.

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I was 14 and depressed, an incessantly complaining self-righteous twat myself. It resonated. It doesn't hold up as I've gotten older. Not at all.

Too bad it took a guy dying to draw out an old favorite. Missed ya, George's Clam.

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That's part of the problem, imho. I'm not calling you out, just the thing of the thing, so to speak. Catcher sets people up for a lifetime of (mis)identifying their own traits in narrative. It's reflexive, it's positive reinforcement, and in my opinion it's bullshit. It's why our theaters, televisions, and best seller lists are full of garbage. How writing this bad got propped up as 'classic' is way beyond me.

I don't intend that to sound as fired up as it does but I think the outpouring of love for Catcher (not Salinger, the writer, who was perfectly capable of good writing, evidenced by the short stories made available today by NYT) has put me over the edge.

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Nice one.

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The death of Wild Bill had a much, much greater impact on me.

Poor Wild Bill.

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"catcher in the rye" is the perfect book to read when you're 15.

when you're 30 you can laugh about how you thought it was that important to you at that age.

Fire away

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also: once a pole sitter.......

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

(George sitting in with the book club around a back booth at Monk's.)

MARIE (describing Holly Go-Lightly in "Breakfast At Tiffany's"): She didn't want the constraints of any relationship, that's why she got rid of the cat. The most important thing in Holly's life was her independence.

GEORGE: Well, not really. After all, she did get together with George Peppard. I mean, Fred.

MARIE: George...Fred's gay.

<George ponders this quizzically.>

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Mickey Rooney in his greatest roll

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Jason Scott Lee in "Dragon : The Bruce Lee Story" didn't think so. I agree with him.

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Raoh: At this moment, I'm more powerful than you ever were. I am fist of the north star.
Ryûken: I don't agree and I never shall. Go and do what you must Raoh, but never set foot in this dojo again!

Catcher in the Rye has the pretty clever idea to tell a story of what was probably a manic episode from the mental hospital. Unfortunately, Salinger never really did much after the book and he had these bizarre relationships with young women. Salinger made sure that no one would ever make a movie of the book, although most movies just ruin books. He had that George Lucas syndrome where he would sue the pants off anyone who created anything similar to his work.

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To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

I wonder if Alex J. Ferguson will be the same way with Life Cycle.

Between Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace, my 8th grade lit class was a major disappointment and turned me off from English classes for a few years.
Hell for me would be stuck in a room forever with only those two books to read.

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Any book that caused so many uptight assholes to ban it can't be all bad.

meh the fact that it has been banned is due to language issues not thematic issues (oooh the book uses the word fuck!), a book for the baby boomers to help them feel justified in feeling disenfranchised. Catch-22 did it in a more creative way.

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Since when is the quality of a book only based on what "mature adults" think of it? Yes we get it, old crusty dudes don't like it anymore and if you did like it, it was only because you were an immature fuckwad who wasn't exposed to "better" books.