"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."
-Holden Caulfield (from J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye)
I know there will be many that have a much different opinion than I on this, but I consider Catcher in the Rye one of the great reads of my life. If I slip back into my high school years, there were many teachers being let go or reassigned after having their students read this book. In fact one study showed Catcher in the Rye being the most often censored book in the U.S., second only to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.
My good fortune was to have an English teacher who was not afraid to give us The Catcher in the Rye as a reading assignment. The book will most likely be forever one of Salinger's most memorable books.
What prompts you to question and learn more about the life we live? What inspires you?
