March 30, 2001

Holden Caulfield: a Hero for All the Ages

By DAVID RACHELS

My enthusiasm for literature began with my father's enthusiasm for a fart joke. One night he and I were driving home from a bad play when our conversation turned to flatulence (as conversations with a 10-year-old sometimes will). The subject prompted my father's delighted recollection of Edgar Marsalla farting in chapel. "Old Marsalla," Holden Caulfield tells us. "He damn near blew the roof off."

When we arrived home, my father dusted off his copy of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the

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