![]() ![]() It was also the first time, if I’m remembering correctly, I ventured to read a real piece of literature on my own. It was definitely a breath of fresh, relatable air, before spending the rest of the class half-paying attention to Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies. There was a manner immediately recognizable in Holden, as several literary scholars and angsty, disillusioned, middle-class kids would similarly identify. A few days later, either from the school’s library or from that classroom directly, I stole a copy, and it’s still in my room, disheveled from a thousand teenage hands before mine. It was the first I’d ever had a physical reaction to a passage of literature - and the first I’d ever been let down at the mention that those books weren’t in my class curriculum. I flipped to the first page, and it’s opening paragraph (which might remain the most endlessly quotable introduction of all time, adjacent to “ It was the best of times …”) was almost immediately chiseled into my memory. The first I encountered it, there was a mound of copies organized on top of a mobile projector stand - all stamped with the high-school return address - in my English class. ![]() In high school, I read Catcher in the Rye outside of class, and each day, Holden Caulfield’s diction became my own internal speaking voice. ![]()
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