It’s hard for one to appropriately announce the death of J.D. Salinger, because there are too many things that should be said about him. Do I begin with the innumerable amount of fellow authors, musicians, filmmakers and restless adolescents who count him as a serious factor in the direction of their lives? Do I recall scorning Vassar during my college application process as a result of Franny’s disdain for the “two absolutely Vassar types” on her train? Do I admit that my love for the Glass family prompted me to begin writing, or that Jawbreaker’s “For Esme” holds the highest plays in my itunes?
It will be hard to find a person unaffected by the passing of Jerome David Salinger, who died at 91 today. Frustratingly reclusive, he left for his cabin in New Hampshire in the 60s and never looked back, leaving only four complete books in his wake. The Catcher in the Rye has long been required reading for middle and high school students, and the lives of the Glass family unfold in the other three works. There are a number of essays Salinger published in The New Yorker, but the lack of a collection of these pieces and a decline in their free distribution on the web has made them difficult to come by as of late.
Salinger’s rejection of his own fame poses an interesting comparison to the somewhat sophomoric connotation that comes to surround his books. It’s not that the work isn’t respected, but at some point in your development (for me, a college creative writing class), you realize the mention of Catcher has become an intellectual taboo (though remains a popculture stronghold). Is it because so many authors cite him as an influence that he need not be mentioned, or is it a product of stories that pertain largely to growing up and the human condition, subjects we like to pretend have no place in the intellectual sphere. Could it be a subconscious response to the author’s ultimate abandonment of his readers?
Perhaps Salinger’s passing will create a new niche for his work, as well as opening the door to the discovery of writing that has gone unreleased for more than four decades. Whether he continued to produce in his hermitage or not, characters such as Holden Caulfield will live on eternally, and that’s exactly how Salinger wanted it. It is not Salinger we think of when we remember Catcher, but Holden, and cliched or not, he was the kind of author that made books hard to forget.
April 11, 2011 at 8:59 pm, Renaisanc9 said:
Almost every question this author poses is unnecessary and comes from a postulation and conclusion that she has already made. I KNOW this because all of MY answers to them are “NO.” No, it is NOT exclusively Holden I think of when Catcher comes to mind – I DO think of SALINGER. Never have I read Salinger where I have not thought directly about HIM while reading and enjoying his characters.
So, Shannon, you might wish to rethink your postulations before basing your writings upon them. In this case, TRY SAYING “NO” to every single one of your questions… and with that in mind, REWRITE this obit… please.