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She suggested that the novel was overrated, students didn’t like it and they only read it so they could read the word “Fuck” as part of an assignment. The same colleague intimated that teaching The Catcher in the Rye would be a waste of time. So I got a “yes” to Twain and a “no” to Salinger. Winning it would have meant that I’d successfully proven how unimportant The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is, which is a point that I could never, and would never have a desire to, prove.

Arguing that students needed The Catcher in the Rye more than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a very difficult argument to win.

My department chair said that Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was more important. I know because I’m a high school teacher and I teach it every year. The Catcher in the Rye is the greatest book of its time. The Catcher in the Rye is not great and it certainly isn’t as great as everybody says it is. However, is this the case with The Catcher in the Rye? Is it as great as those that worship it insist it to be? No. Here’s the thing though, the thing that so many people writing about it, people like me for example, often fail to realize: sometimes things are considered great by the masses because they truly are great. “What is the greatest coming of age tale ever written?” for example, or “What is the best young adult novel ever penned?” and of course the inevitable backlash of “What is the most overrated American literary classic in history?” The Catcher in the Rye is the answer to a poll question. Much like Citizen Kane it is more than a work of art. The Catcher in the Rye is the Citizen Kane of coming of age novels, which means it pulls off a much more difficult trick than actually being the best coming of age novel ever written it’s widely accepted as the greatest coming of age novel ever written. It’s a classic to be sure, but it’s often thought of as the classic-more than a coming of age novel more than a great coming of age novel. The Catcher in the Rye holds a very singular place in the world of literature. Accordingly, as happens every five years or so, it also became popular to talk about how overrated The Catcher in the Rye is (see Aaron Sager’s “Why I Dislike ‘Rye’: Not be-Holden to Salinger’s ‘Catcher’”, for example, PopMatters 11 February 2010) Once again, as happens every five years or so, it became popular to wax poetic about the literary achievement that was a nice little book called The Catcher in the Rye. Several eulogies were written, printed and posted in various media sources.

Salinger died at the age of 91 and the world promptly began mourning him.