J.D. Salinger Tributes

No flowers to rest on his stomach, please.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100129/u ... 9195749200

 

I liked Catcher and never understood all the fuss.
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Wonder if he kept his curtains always closed?

 

Rest in peace, you cranky old coot. And your book is overrated.

Remember a thread from a long time ago about favorite and least favorite books?

 

It is at least partially because he was a cranky, and perhaps crazy, old coot that it all reached such a cult status.

That, and it really is an excellent book, that EVERY adolescent male should read. If he somehow knew of its coming popularity and effect on generation after generation, you would have to wonder if practically stopping there was not part of the game plan. He still wrote, but maybe he didn't dare have "Catcher" suffer the consequences of any lesser literary labours...

 

.. and Studs was WAY UNDERRATED! And even wiki has very little to say about the trilogy.
Ah well, for you that 'weren't there'.

Read -but BEWARE- the review, it's correct in issues addressed... but it's freaking CLUELESS about the big picture!

- Typical intellectual self referencing self contradictive dreck.

When I was a kid, I first read Horatio Alger, which was about overcoming severe deprivation and adversity ... then Penrod, by Booth Tarkington which was the first I read relating to 'coming of age' and dealing with others.
Then I read, Young Lonigan, then I read Catcher. Then I read Catch 22.
Then I read Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

And I no longer entertained the fantasy that I was the only REAL person and everyone else was only in my imagination... and out to get me.
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BOT: TNR article on Salinger and CatcherWhy Do People Love 'Catcher in the Rye'?
- Not a bad job of it.

 

Not bad, if not a little too over-focused on the Jewish-Catholic supposed conundrum at the beginning of the article.

I like this quote:

Alfred Kazin, among other critics, took the harsh view, characterizing Salinger's audience as "the vast number who have been released by our society to think of themselves as endlessly sensitive, spiritually alone, [and] gifted, and whose suffering lies in the narrowing of their consciousness to themselves."

Sure you have to agree, if the audience forever stays 16 years old and never matures. I would say many critics like Kazin, then or now, don't get it because......they've grown up!

Gish's son had it right. But I wouldn't classify Holden and his story a pure fantasy. There is some truth and reality there for some, and you can "get away with it."

 

You're probably right.

 

Funny you should mention this, because this week there was an article in the Plain Dealer about the closest thing this generation has to Salinger, Bill Watterson, the guy who wrote the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. He loathes (his word) publicity, and the PD did an email interview with him that they stated as far as they could see, it was the first interview he had done in 20 years. Watterson never licensed any products with Calvin and Hobbes. No stuffed animals, coffee mugs, T shirts, anything with Calvin on it is technically trademark infringement. Here is the interview, and here is a short retrospective of the strip by fans.

Watterson lives here in Cleveland, in a beautiful, somewhat secluded (surprise) suburb called Chagrin Falls. In the town square, there is an independent bookstore named The Fireside Bookshop. They are a quality outfit, and have great customer service, they've managed to do very well against the big chains of the world. What Bill Watterson once would do for them is put a personal message in some of the Calvin and Hobbes volumes, so they could sell them for a few extra dollars. He did this until one of the books showed up on ebay, and he wouldn't do it anymore.

My point to all of this is hey, if you do not want publicity, fantastic. The sign on the door of my house says forget the dog, beware the owner. However, Salinger could have been a little more gracious about it, Watterson does that pretty well.