“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.” These three opening lines are from Russian author Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 magnum opus, “Lolita.”

Most people I know do not have nice things to say about Holden Caulfield. Even the ones who admit to liking “The Catcher in the Rye,” as a book, are just as quick to assert that they hate Holden, as...