Author J. D. Salinger has died - and like any death, it's a sadness. But I couldn't help getting mildly irritated by the eulogy on Salinger's work I heard on the radio this morning. If we are to believe what I heard, teenagers were rushing out, buying The Catcher in the Rye with the sort of enthusiasm they would now buy a new Harry Potter, because here was literature they could identify with. Tosh. What really happened is that English teachers found a book which they thought would go down well with the kids but was still real literature, and it was down to them that it achieved its current untouchable status. Don't get me wrong - English teachers do a brilliant and difficult job. Much 'great literature' is hard work to read. You have to get your students past the barrier of the arty or dated writing to see there is actually some good stuff in there. But there's no doubt Catcher in the Rye was their idea of an engaging teenage read, rather than a real t