The Catcher in the Rye

I'm not a writer so this won't be poetic or thoughtfully written like the commentaries we will hear in the next few days but one of my favorite authors died today. J. D. Salinger at 91. Even though he hasn't published anything since 1965, his book The Catcher in the Rye is my all time favorite book, hands down. I read Catcher in junior high during a summer break after finding out that it was a book on the banned book list. I have always been an avid reader and read above my age level for a long time and when my mom told me there were banned books I was flabbergasted. I was both intrigued and appalled that people would want to censor books. I wasn't that naive that I didn't understand why so much, I guess my liberalism was budding.

So, that summer in junior high I checked Catcher in the Rye out from the library and fell in love with it. I can't tell you how many times I have read it, or how many school papers I wrote about the book or even really why I like it so much. I didn't really relate to Holden like adolescent boys might but maybe the sense of telling people 'no' or the freedom he chased was what was so appealing. Without getting to philosophical I just liked it, and still like it.

So we come to my Holden, if you haven't guessed it yet, he is named after Holden Caulfield, the original Catcher in the Rye. I wanted to use the name Holden for as long as I have known that I wanted to have children and I'm thankful that I have a husband that was cool with it. Hopefully when Holden gets to be in junior high he will have his interests peaked and read his mom's favorite book.

So I leave you with a famous quote from the book and rest in piece J. D.

I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in a big field of rye and all. ... Thousands of kids, and nobody big at all, nobody big but me. And I'm standing on the edge of this crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to come and catch them. If they start to fall ... and don't look where they're going. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.