J.D. Salinger, 1919-2010

[parttimedriver]

The Catcher in the Rye was pretty much the first 20th-century novel written for adults I ever read. I was eleven. I immediately read Salinger’s other three books--Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction--and reread them periodically over the next decade or so. Except for Nine Stories,

Comments

[supergee]

The Glass family prepared me for late Heinlein, though in their case the one-man circle jerk was more spiritual and less sexual. That is by no means entirely a put-down.

[parttimedriver]

True that. I actually discovered Heinlein shortly after I discovered Salinger. Hm, there's a paper in there somewhere....

Salinger

[anonymous]

Brett, I appreciate what you found in Salinger's work and concur with nearly all of the conclusions that I understand (meaning I have not read the "other" four books). He seemed to me to be the first to give a fearless, honest voice to the purgatory that is adolescence. I think one of the great mysteries will be whether he wrote for himself or whomever during the past decades. I have to ask you this: Is it possible that his stature is due at least in part to his overt reclusiveness, like an artist who dies at his or her peak, a la Morrison or Dean? Does the fact that he leaves us wanting for more imbue what we have with unfairly emotional value? Just asking? BTW, thank you for sending me to the dictionary with "orgone."--Lee Hinnant

Re: Salinger

[parttimedriver]

Hi, Lee--I think Salinger's reclusiveness inevitably added to his fame. Whether it affects anyone's individual response to his work is an open question. Maybe in some ways it's easier to feel devotion to someone you don't know a lot about.

[paulwitcover]

Thanks for this, Brett. It's so fashionable to sneer at Salinger's work, dismiss it as juvenile or passe. I reread Catcher for the first time since adolescence a few years ago. To say it held up is an understatement. It's of course impossible to recapture the freshness of the prose, because that voice, like Hemingway's, has by now completely permeated popular culture. But in a way, that makes the power of the novel all the more evident, because it still works, even when you're not dazzled and enraptured by that voice.