Like (probably) most folks who read this book, it was jammed down my throat as Required! Reading! in my Honors English class in High School (I guess they saved it for the Honors class because we were all Ivy-bound brilliants who wouldn’t be seduced into the gutter by all the naughty language and behavior depicted in the book).
Why?
Since when was rebellion for its own sake considered radical in the literary sense?
Reading this book was like getting stuck on the last commuter bus home next to a drunken, rambling teenager.
Its style may have been “radical” for its time, but it’s neither interesting nor particularly well-written. I have no idea why this is considered a “classic.”
To me, an example of a “classic” is something like Frank Herbert’s “Dune”–even though it was written back in the 60’s, before the lunar landing, it still remains an epic story in and of itself, even with the science fiction aspects removed. “Catcher” on the other hand is more of a period piece, and makes for boring reading, like most of the Bronte sisters’ works which we were also required to slog through (oooh, Edwardian social mores, and written by a WOMAN! How RADICAL and RELEVANT!! not….).
In short, this book for me sums up everything that’s wrong with the way that English-language literature is taught in school. No, we shouldn’t let kids read the funnies and the White Pages and call it literacy, but there has been enough new stuff in the past 40 years to push out some of the no-longer relevant stuff.