Ode to J.D.

Last Thursday J.D. Salinger died. Last Tuesday my American Literature students finished reading The Catcher in the Rye. When Michael Jackson died all of Thailand mourned. When Salinger died the 7 students in in my class did. "Ajarn he died!"

Today I had the unhappy task of telling the final student in my class who was still in the dark. Her eyes widened nearly to the size of fists, "really?" she whispered.

My students do not know much about Western literature. Their mother's never tucked them in to the lilting sounds of Anne of Green Gables and required reading in 8th grade was not Steinbeck. However, the authors they know they hold onto like dear friends. Whenever Edgar Allan Poe is mentioned they share a knowing smile, and today when I brought in our next book (A Streetcar Named Desire) their eyes lit up at the sight of the authors name. "The Glass Menagerie!" They said beaming. They surprise me sometimes.

Jason sent me a New Yorker quote which resonated so fully with my class' Salinger experience:

""Catcher"defines an entire region of human experience: it is - in French and Dutch as much as in English- the handbook of the adolescent heart."

My students may be Turkish and Thai and 24 years old, but their hearts are certainly adolescent. As one student in my class wrote in his weekly reading response,

"When I read this story I found something from my life, I used to behavior like this against teacher too, I was stubborn and messy student in high school, that in this way me and the boy are similar."

Pardon the errors but the heart is all there. So, from my students to Salinger, a deep thank you for allowing them (and me) to realize that growing up is growing up. Whether you are a prep school city boy named Holden, the son of a Thai farmer or a stubborn Turkish high schooler, sometimes we all have the urge to push the envelope, to get into trouble, to try a new life on for size.