> It scares me to death, the number of adolescents I have encountered who >take Holden under their wing as some sort of model of heroism. I read Catcher >as a teenager and was a little put off by Holden's finger pointing... >Reading Catcher now I am struck by what a tragic figure Holden is, no matter >how right he may be in his observations. Still a bit of a youngun myself, I've still got enough distance from those years to agree with you. Reading your post, I began to wonder: Do you (bananafishers all) think that Salinger's intended audience for Catcher was the vastly disillusioned adolescent populace? It seems to me that he intended the novel for adults who had been through that age and had survived it. So why, then, is Catcher so widely prescribed to American high schoolers? Do you think this is a great mistake on the part of curricula-forgers? God knows the Educators have shown their incompetence often enough--is it possible that they misread the novel, decided, "This'd be a good one for the kids"? Should, then, Catcher be reserved for the older, more equipped reading audience...? Not Constitutionally, or anything, but theoretically. At the moment, I tend to think so...but on the other hand, I "identified" with Holden and still survived, and now because of that early exposure I've come into Salinger's wider window on life as a slightly less puerile being. Any ideas? Brendan ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com