Date: 1945

Author: J.D. Salinger

It’s easy to get the feeling Salinger saw post-modernism coming and retreated from the world to let it catch up to young Mr. Caulfield. It has, just look around you.

Well-dressed alienation — the churning literalism that comes from failing to fathom irony — is a rage-and-a-half. Everyone’s “suave as hell,” needs their “beauty sleep” and their “psychoanalyst guy.” Holden, signing off for good, asks: “How do you know what you’re going to do till you do it? The answer is you don’t.”

Now, go tell that to Nike. Better still, reread the source material.