"The Catcher in the Rye": Still Required Reading?

Link to February 12 Oshkosh Northwestern article, "Some see 'Catcher''s days as numbered on required reading lists".

Excerpt: Zoe Miller, 14, likes J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” so much that her copy is dog-eared from multiple readings. And she wishes her parents had spelled her name Zooey instead of Zoe, in honor of another Salinger book, “Franny and Zooey.”

But Becky Johnston-Carter, 19, hates “Catcher” so much that she made a YouTube video in which she stabbed the book with a knife, then burned it in a barbecue grill.

When Salinger died last month, “The Catcher in the Rye” was heralded as the ultimate depiction of modern teenage angst.

But while “Catcher” is widely taught, do 21st-century teenagers still relate to the book’s moody narrator Holden Caulfield?

Or has “Catcher,” first published in 1951, become just another classic shoved down kids’ throats?

Passions rage on both sides.

I can't relate. What a pathetic reason NOT to teach any book.

Best advice I ever received in college: On the first day of a class on Chaucer, in the spring (1970) semester of my sophomore year at SUNY Buffalo, Professor Vic Doyno exhorted the class to escape our present-day mindset and values if we wanted to fully appreciate and understand Chaucer's pilgrims and the world in which they lived. It's a good way to approach life in general.

Becky Johnston-Carter. Trapped in her own mindset.