What meaning, if any, can one attach to the expression 'a key book of the present decade'? It is used as a blurb in a … reprint of [The Catcher in the Rye]…. Whoever remembers the book will suppose that this is a serious claim, implying perhaps that The Catcher, as well as being extremely successful, is a work of art existing in some more or less profound relationship with the 'spirit of the age.' It is, anyway, quite different from saying that No Orchids for Miss Blandish is a key book. On the other hand, there is an equally clear distinction between this book and such key novels as Ulysses or A Passage to India. For it is elementary that, although these books have been read by very large numbers of people, one may reasonably distinguish between a smaller, 'true' audience and bigger audiences which read them quite differently, and were formerly a fortuitous addition to the "highbrow' public. But although Salinger is certainly a 'highbrow' novelist, it would be unreal to speak of his audience, large though it is, as divided in this way. What we now have is a new reader who is not only common but pretty sharp. This new reader is also a pampered consumer, so that the goods supplied him rapidly grow obsolete: which may explain why I found The Catcher somewhat less enchanting on a second reading.
It is, of course, a book of extraordinary accomplishment; I don't know how one reviewer came to call it 'untidy.' Nothing inept, nothing that does not look good and work well as long at it is needed, will satisfy this new public. Structural virtuosity is now taken for granted, particularly in American novels. This one is designed for readers who can see a wood, and paths in a wood, as well as sturdy, primitive trees—a large, roughly calculable audience: fit audience though many.
