Good Magazine recently published an article about why we should finally stop teaching The Catcher in the Rye in schools. Then Gawker weighed in with a disingenuous rebuttal. I'm happy to see that at least someone is having this discussion. I have always hated The Catcher in the Rye with the flaming passion of a thousand fiery suns. Even today, seeing that solid red cover with gold type makes me throw up in my mouth a little. As a black female teen in the 90's, I failed to see why Holden's whining should interest me. Yet, millions of students have this stale text shoved down their throats every year. On top of that, I had the particular misfortune to be at a school that forced us to read Franny and Zooey as well. It's a miracle that I'm not blind today from gouging my own eyes out.
Gawker misrepresents Trubek’s argument . Where did she mention Gossip Girl or Lindsay Lohan? Her revised syllabus is exactly the sort of thing the children of this millennium would enjoy reading. And isn't literature supposed to bring enjoyment as well as provoke thought?
If Catcher simply must be part of the syllabus, it should be relegated to the “classics” portion of the curriculum along with The Great Gatsby and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The core reading list, however, needs updating so that today’s more diverse and media-savvy students will be interested in reading at all, and so that more students have the opportunity to see themselves reflected in literature. Hey, teenagers of the 50’s were lucky enough to experience this when Catcher was published. But you can't expect the multicultural students of today to be thrilled by all angsy white boys all the time.
