JD Salinger: In Memoriam

For me The Catcher in the Rye is a piece of literature that is both comforting and unsettling. It feels to the reader as though they are not by themselves – Holden represents the countless people in the world who feel as though they are held down or alone. On the other hand, “The Catcher” pinpointed the word I had been looking for at that time in my adolescence to describe the people with which I had made contact. Holden taught me they were phonies. He taught me never to be a phony, but he also taught me that there was nothing I could do about it. No one could ever catch all those kids running through the rye, and so all I could hope to do was to never get too close to that cliff that Holden talked about.