Thursday, January 28, 2010
IN THE RYE
We finally lost J.D. Salinger today. I say "finally" because we lost him as an interacting friend and neighbor in the literary world over 50 years ago.
He did his work and he was done and then he didn't want to talk about it.
Some think that there are piles of unfinished works lying all about his Cornish, NH home. I would be surprised but it would be fun if there are.
He was 91. This makes him a hero to me. He would be anyway but the over 90 thing does it.
Some people wonder what all the fuss is about. They don't get it.
Yep.
His influence is so far reaching beyond the works themselves. I thought as I wrote a few of these lines that they are informed by Salinger.
Figure it out.
What is true is that much of what we think of as modern literature is affected by his stuff.
But for me, personally, I remember reading the stories with a kind of giddy pleasure. A feeling of being drunk.
I desperately wanted to belong to the Glass family.
I still do. I think that I am Buddy.
I just read them all again over the last year. Same feeling.
Salinger was not interested in people's analysis of his work. He didn't want to delve into his personal history and all that.
Here. Try this.
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”Say no more.
He won't. Well, maybe in those hundreds of manuscripts his son will release next week.
J. D. Salinger, Literary Recluse, Dies at 91
