So it turns out it's hard to talk coherently about half of a great novel within our self-imposed four minute deadline. Nonetheless, I tried. Rereading Catcher with the nerdfighters, I am struck by what an accomplished novel it is--not a hair out of place, as one might say of a bride. But the sexuality of the novel troubles me much more now than it did in high school--the conflation of femininity and innocence, the belief that good men have some kind of moral duty to protect young women from themselves. Holden is a sweet kid, and a good kid. The problem (or so it seems to me) is not the narrator but his story.

I can forgive a narrator most anything. A story, though, is harder to forgive.