the catcher in the rye

proof positive (as if any more were needed) that i have lived a long time: the catcher in the rye, which i got in trouble for reading when i was in seventh grade and my middle dtr had to read when she was a sophomore in high school, has been dismissed as "rather tame and sort of laughable" by an oberlin college english prof who suggests that it be replaced with newer stuff that's more, y'know, _relevant_. (that was the buzzword way back when i was in high school, which 'splains why we got to read bernard malamud, piri thomas, and richard wright instead of beowulf and chaucer.)

ADDENDUM: looking back on it, the person who influenced me to read the catcher in the rye was...my mother. no fooling.