"Most beloved pieces of required reading in the English language" ? Are you serious? What about East of Eden? Things Fall Apart? The Good Earth? Hamlet? Catcher in the Rye is infamous- right up with Invisible Man and A Separate Piece- as having driven more kids to hate reading than any amount of television and video games could accomplish. The characters in the story are generic and dull, the plot is rambling and predictable, and the "beloved" writing style adds  becomes a nuisance after the first 15 pages. As if adding insult to injury, the story randomly ENDS with the main character at some sort of merry-go-round, without any sort of definite conclusion or closure to the multiple gaping story threads that connected the entire novel. Particularly frustrating is how Caulfield is now treated by some "enlightened critics" as some sort of progressive folk hero. Frankly he just seemed to me more like a whiny brat who couldn't live up to life's responsibilities. I was secretly hoping he would end up in jail throughout the entire story.

The best thing Salinger ever did for me was to be the inspiration for the main character in the movie "Finding Forrester". At least that was entertaining.