This is sort of a no brainer for a blogger: " Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody". Just tell everybody everything.
Start of writing about J.D. Salinger with a steal from W.P. Kinsella, ok... I once tried to write a short story called The Rapture of M.J.V. Hightower, but it quickly became just too sad, and I stopped. I came to Holden all on my own, and I really do not know how. I am guessing clueless from a list of banned books in some newspaper story. I am always slack jawed shocked when I hear people, as I did today, say that " THE CATHER IN THE RYE" was required in their high school. Monkeys would have flown out the collective asses of the school board and administration before that " filth" would have been allowed in Winder Barrow High School, but this is starting to sound like David Copperfield crap.. and goodness knows on this night ,of all nights , we should no go there.
I was ,and I do say was, because until today , I had not read any Salinger in years, an obsessed fan. I devoured everything that there was, and somehow, was lucky enough to come across , late, some stories that were only published in magazines. I can honestly say, I have read everything that he ever did publish. I was one of the many, many tragic early 80's haircut boys with Cather in my back pocket the day that Hinckley popped Ronnie. (I think I switched to Zooey the next day). How many small town boys were swept into that post war zeitgeist NYC world of running away... and hookers and scotch and green inked baseball gloves. It is not a real stretch to say that , just maybe the reason that it has sold 65 million books is that a whole lot of people needed and got that escape.. that ( and go ahead and cringe) salvation.
They were just little short stories. Catcher is the longest story ,and it is literally pocket sized. But there is so much depth, you have to read everything, then go back and read again to understand the Glasses. I mean, poor Walt's tragic death could just so easily be skipped over. Bananafish is FIFTEEN pages long, but gives you more backstory, raises more questions, gives you more character development than plenty of massive novels. I mean come on: " She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped nothing. She looked as if her phone had been ringing continually ever since she had reached puberty". AND, well.. leaves you with that question.
Part of all this mystique , all this interest ,was the fact that he turned his back on everything. Mr. Salinger gave a big ole finger to that post war America, and wanted no part of what the rest of the USA was doing anything at all to get. That most American of all sicknesses, FAME. He would not have become this iconic figure if he had been doing talk shows for the last 50 years , telling us all about how Holden was all grown up blah, blah, blah. He walked away... " leave me alone". Shocking
NOW the big money question: Has he been writing for the last 50 years? Are there just countless Boo Boo stories coming down the pike? Conflicted.. everyone EVERYONE has imagined that adult Holden, do we really want to read the definitive answer?
VERY COOL NYT STORY : Walking in Holden's Footsteps.
BDay Bubble's take : Of Glasses, phonies and bananafish
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