R.I.P., J.D. Salinger

[trysail]

"Sex is something I don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it- the same night, as a matter of fact. I spent the whole night necking with a terrible phoney named Anne Louise Sherman. Sex is something I just don't understand. I swear to God I don't."

-J. D. Salinger
The Catcher In The Rye
New York, 1951

 

[LaRocha]

I think JD was into Urine Therapy. That's awesome that he's dead, now all his unpublished books will be published and he'll probably earn his legendary status. Right? If this guy doesn't have reams of completed novels ready to go he's probably gonna be seen as sort of a phony.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I think JD was into Urine Therapy. That's awesome that he's dead, now all his unpublished books will be published and he'll probably earn his legendary status. Right? If this guy doesn't have reams of completed novels ready to go he's probably gonna be seen as sort of a phony.

Allegedly there are 15 in his safe and he has probably forbidden his heirs to publish them. I must be the only one on the AH who has never read a word he wrote. Advantages of being a bear, I guess.

 

[CharleyH]

Now here's a guy who wrote his greatest work at 32(?) and didn't really write anything that could live up to it afterwards (a fear of many writers, I assume). Nevertheless, 'Catcher in the Rye' continues to be timely for each new generation (North American or English speaking, anyway) and it is a brilliant piece of work. RIP J.D. and thank you!

 

[trysail]

Allegedly there are 15 in his safe and he has probably forbidden his heirs to publish them. I must be the only one on the AH who has never read a word he wrote. Advantages of being a bear, I guess.

I think you're depriving yourself.

I, too, hadn't read a word by him until I was in my mid-40s. I suspect the schools didn't think it was particularly advisable to expose us to dangerous ideas ( which, judged from their purely selfish perspective, makes perfect sense ).

For better or worse, Salinger wrote some lines that are likely to endure and I derive pleasure from reading immortal sentences as they appear on their original plinth.

I had the same experience with Kerouac's On The Road. It was a pleasure too long denied.

 

[trysail]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aHoKf.IjRWf8

J.D. Salinger, ’The Catcher in the Rye’ Author, Dies at 91
By Nancy Moran

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author whose 1951 novel “The Catcher in the Rye” captured the pain of teenage angst and became a fixture of U.S. high school English courses, died today. He was 91.

Salinger’s son, speaking on behalf of the family and through the Harold Ober literary agency, said the author died of natural causes at his home in New Hampshire.

Salinger was known almost as much for his hermitic lifestyle as his only full-length novel and its emblematic protagonist, Holden Caulfield. In 1953, he withdrew to a farm in rural Cornish, New Hampshire, and limited his contact with the literary world. He hadn’t published a story since 1965.

“He was famous for not wanting to be famous,” wrote the late British biographer Ian Hamilton in his 1988 book, “In Search of J.D. Salinger.”

Still, fans and journalists sought out Salinger over the decades in letters and trips to New Hampshire. His last-known interview was in 1980 with Betty Eppes, a reporter for the Baton Rouge Advocate whose quest to meet the author was turned into a feature for the Paris Review.

“The Catcher in the Rye,” told in the slang-filled narrative of the troubled 16-year-old prep-school student Caulfield, turned Salinger into an American literary star. The novel marked a break from fictional depictions of youth that eschewed themes of self, sexuality and alienation and is credited with jump-starting the so-called Beat Generation of writers including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs.

Best Seller
Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of the book when he shot and killed Beatle John Lennon outside the singer’s Manhattan residence, the Dakota, in December 1980.

Salinger published more than two dozen short stories and novellas, but none gained the critical acclaim of “The Catcher in the Rye.” The book remains in the top 10 of best-selling works of classic fiction on Amazon.com’s Web site.

Salinger’s plan in the late 1990s to turn his last published work, “Hapworth 16, 1924,” from a 1965 edition of the New Yorker magazine, into book form never materialized.

Jerome David Salinger was born on New Year’s Day, 1919, in New York, the only son of a food importer, Solomon Salinger. His mother, Miriam, was of Scotch-Irish decent and he had an older sister, Doris.

In 1934, Salinger was enrolled in Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania, by his father after having spent two years at the private McBurney School in Manhattan. He was an average student, a member of the school’s drama club and editor of the class of 1936’s yearbook, according to Hamilton. He later studied at New York University...

*****​

...In 1972, Salinger wrote to 18-year-old author Joyce Maynard after reading her front-page New York Times Magazine article, “An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back on Life,” an account of coming of age in the 1960s. Maynard dropped out of Yale University to move in with the 53-year-old writer, whom she affectionately called “Jerry.”

‘Moody and Cranky’
In 1998, she published “At Home in the World,” a memoir of their 10-month relationship before he sent her away when she sought to have a baby. Maynard described Salinger, who had been influenced by Zen Buddhism and Hinduism, as consumed with yoga, meditation, and a strict diet of whole grains and vegetables. She also said he could be “moody and cranky” and critical of her “worldly” habits, including her desire to publish and give interviews.

A year later she auctioned off his letters at Sotheby’s for more than $156,000 to help pay for her children’s college education. The successful bidder, software publisher Peter Norton, offered to return the letters to Salinger...

*****​

...In 1953, he published “Nine Stories,” a collection that included “Bananafish” and other stories from the New Yorker. “Franny and Zooey” combined separate stories about the youngest of the seven Glass siblings into book form in 1961. “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction,” published in 1963, combined two New Yorker stories and is narrated by Seymour’s brother, Buddy...

*****​

...“The Catcher in the Rye,” which took its title from the Robert Burns’s poem “Comin’ Thro the Rye,” follows Caulfield’s descent into depression and institutionalization while fantasizing about catching and preventing children playing in a large field of rye from falling off a cliff.

“That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy,” the character tells his sister, Phoebe, after being kicked out of his fourth school, Pencey Prep.

The tale of lost innocence and alienation opened up a literary debate over whether Caulfield, in his struggle against society’s “phonies,” was inspired by Salinger’s own private- school experience and sense of disillusionment.

The novel continues to stir controversy today over its use of language -- “goddam” is repeated throughout -- and content including underage drinking and Caulfield’s hiring of a prostitute. Some U.S. schools have banned the book...

*****​

...In 2000, Salinger’s estranged daughter Margaret wrote the memoir “Dream Catcher.” In it, she described a neurotic father obsessed with health fads, including homeopathy and the drinking of his own urine. Her bid a year later to sell 32 letters from the author at Sotheby’s failed...

*****​

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Allegedly there are 15 in his safe and he has probably forbidden his heirs to publish them. I must be the only one on the AH who has never read a word he wrote. Advantages of being a bear, I guess.

Not only have I not read him, I don't know anything he has written (which also means I might have read him and not known it, but I hardly read books, so I doubt it ).

 

[sadangel]

I read Catcher in the Rye at about age 14. It was pretty good. I always wished he had written more. I would have read them.

 

[penandpaper]

Read Catcher for the first time about 10 years ago. Great writing, but I remember waiting for the ball to drop. Something to happen, and then the book was over. Was it me or is that others recollection as well? His character, the astute observations, the consternation he felt at that age; all captured beautifully. But was there an actual plot other than him getting expelled, drinking, and ending up in a mental institution?

 

[TE999]

I read 'Catcher' for the first time when I was 13...at that time it was something of a 'forbidden' book because of the language and such...my cousin who was 17 let me read his copy...I enjoyed it...I didn't understand all of it...but the writing held my interest...I've read it since and enjoyed it even more since now it was framed in my own life experiences...it's a classic piece of literature.

'A Perfect Day For Bananafish' by Salinger is an excellent short story too.

RIP, JD.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

Sean Connery played Forrester in Finding Forrester. For those of you who have seen the movie, you know what I'm about to write perhaps.

They announced today that J. D. Salinger may have a dozen unpublished manuscripts locked in his safe in New Hampshire, in the way that Forrester had in the movie.

We've all read Catcher In The Rye and now I can't help but suspect that movie was based on J. D. Salinger as the main character. Any thoughts? What do you think?

"There is a marvelous peace in not publishing," J.D. Salinger told The New York Times in 1974. "Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."

Oh, yeah, boy can I identify with that statement. For those of you who write for yourselves, when you want to write, and whatever you want to write, there is not another peace like it.

Rest in peace my friend.

 

[jimmyjoyce]

There's quite a lot of Salinger actually, in addition to 'The Catcher in the Rye.' The cycle of stories centred around the Glass family is very good, in my opinion -'Franny and Zooey' and 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' especially.

It's a shame Salinger didn't publish more, but what he did publish stands as a major accomplishment anyway.

- jimmyjoyce

 

[Pure]

Rip

i read and enjoyed the book at the time, though it really isn't all that deep. captures the character well.

i believe his daughter wrote a memoir about what a difficult parent and person he was.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

I never liked the book even when I was a teenager and was supposed to like the book. I thought it was a lot of self-aggrandizing twaddle. But, hey, that's just me...

 

[trysail]

Read Catcher for the first time about 10 years ago. Great writing, but I remember waiting for the ball to drop. Something to happen, and then the book was over. Was it me or is that others recollection as well? His character, the astute observations, the consternation he felt at that age; all captured beautifully. But was there an actual plot other than him getting expelled, drinking, and ending up in a mental institution?

i read and enjoyed the book at the time, though it really isn't all that deep. captures the character well.

i believe his daughter wrote a memoir about what a difficult parent and person he was.

Ol' Holden has been and will likely remain a great enigma and puzzle.

"Let me know if I can cast any obscurity on the subject."
-James Joyce ( speaking of Ulysses )

 

[Stella_Omega]

Now here's a guy who wrote his greatest work at 32(?) and didn't really write anything that could live up to it afterwards (a fear of many writers, I assume). Nevertheless, 'Catcher in the Rye' continues to be timely for each new generation (North American or English speaking, anyway) and it is a brilliant piece of work. RIP J.D. and thank you!

Timely? Only if you are a relatively well-off young man in the middle of a relatively well-off community that hasn't had access to modern technology such as the internet...

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I never liked the book even when I was a teenager and was supposed to like the book. I thought it was a lot of self-aggrandizing twaddle. But, hey, that's just me...

From what little I know of the book, that is about right. All teenagers think they're God's gift to the world. Most of us outgrow the delusion. From the news reports about his life, JD never did.

 

[Pure]

daughter's story

margaret salinger, Dream Catcher; A Memoir (2000)

http://wac.colostate.edu/aw/reviews/salinger_2000.htm

she is quite partial to his earliest short stories. anybody read them? urls? availability? apparently JD never allowed a collection of them to be published.

the short story, A perfect day for bananafish [1948] is available in toto, online

http://www.freeweb.hu/tchl/salinger/perfectday.html

 

[LaRocha]

From what little I know of the book, that is about right. All teenagers think they're God's gift to the world. Most of us outgrow the delusion. From the news reports about his life, JD never did.

I think he probably experienced more before the age of thirty than most adults. He may have written his best work around age thirty, so he more or less took the next 60 years to process all that he did experience in that short exuberant period of time from 16-30.

-----
As the build-up of US forces in Britain developed apace with the preparations for the Allied invasion of occupied Europe, Salinger was stationed in England, at Tiverton, Devon, and was among those who landed at Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

He saw service throughout the Allied advance through northwest Europe, notably during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45. He was assigned to a counter-intelligence unit in which he interrogated German POWs.

His wartime experiences, which included witnessing the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp, affected him deeply. He later told his daughter: "You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nostrils - no matter how long you live."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...m-just-one-novel/story-e6frg6so-1225824863689

 

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

His book, A Catcher in the Rye, was one of the first I read as a teen. Must say, it did move me in some strange and moody ways.

My dad freaked when he saw me reading it, and tried to make me stop. I bought another copy and . . . haven't stopped reading since. Just a memory folks, no great philosophical point.

May your day and life be peaceful,

Esperanza Hidalgo