Salon

My Sweetie and I belong to a salon that meets every other month to discuss a book, a movie, a topic - whatever the hosts select.

Tonight was an especially lively discussion on a book that all but one of us had read as adolescents: The Catcher in the Rye. One had read it at three different times in his life: as an adolescent, as a high school librarian, and now as an older adult.

Some of us had no patience for Holden’s adolescent self-centeredness; one found him quite amusing.

Since J. D. Salinger led a life of seclusion, we do not know how much of the book was autobiographical. But surely, the references to war and the army were based on his experience during World War II. Perhaps the whole book is about the battle fatigue he suffered.

Some were surprised to discover that the book had been published in 1951. They thought that it was surely written in the 1960s.

But we all agreed that the food and company was excellent.