Quicksand Fans

J D Salinger is dead.

I still remember reading The Catcher in the Rye in my youth. There's a lot of Holden Caulfield in me - I rage against the Universe, which takes no notice.

In Pace Requiescat.

I read Catcher some years ago; couldn't relate to it at all. Anyone want to read the nearest equivalent in British literature should read "Billy Liar" by Keith Waterhouse; not many people know that Waterhouse wrote a sequel, "Billy Liar On The Moon"; the original in 1959, the sequel in 1972; the first tragic, deep and "kitchen sink" meaningful, the second laugh-out-loud hilarious, yet both about thye same character at different times of his life; teenage and middle-age.

Lomax wrote:J D Salinger is dead.

I still remember reading The Catcher in the Rye in my youth. There's a lot of Holden Caulfield in me - I rage against the Universe, which takes no notice.

In Pace Requiescat.

You killed JD Salinger?!

"Catcher" was required reading in 10th grade in Connecticut public schools where I grew up. It was certainly a good read, but it was a very odd study of coming of age in a troubled world. Looking back, I think Holden Caulfield epitomized to angst that it was to be teenager at that time. The story certainly reinforced my notion that I would not go back and relive that age, even though it would let me be younger - I think this was one of Salinger's main points.

I'll have to work up some nerve to read it again at age 54.

- Jack