I just read online that JD Salinger died. I'm a little shocked, mostly because I didn't know he was still alive.
Despite his idiosyncracies, Salinger was one of my favourite authors, if not for his body of work, then for Holden Caulfield, who is my favourite fictional character ever. And this is why:
. . . I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.
RIP, Mr Salinger.