rip JD Salinger

[ejwriter]

Dead at 91. Just crossed our wire.

[Noah Body]

According to this, (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100128/ap_on_en_ot/us_obit_salinger) the man who gave us Catcher in the Rye has shuffled off this mortal coil. Developing story.

[WildScribe]

I'd had no idea that Salinger was still alive. Rest in peace...

[finnisempty]

Sad news. RIP.

[CaroGirl]

I'd had no idea that Salinger was still alive. Rest in peace...
Me neither. Same sentiment.

[IceCreamEmpress]

He had a long life, and will be remembered by millions of readers.

The impression I got from knowing one of his children slightly was that he was a terribly unhappy man. I wish him peace.

[Wayne K]

Is sad, but I think being terribly unhappy is just as sad. No one should have to live like that. RIP

[Plot Device]

RIP, Mr. Forrester.

[Plot Device]

We had a Salinger thread about a year ago where he was in the news, suing some guy who was doing a spoof of Catcher in the Rye. If not for that thread from a year ago, I also would never have known the great recluse was still alive.

BTW -- there's another RIP Salinger thread in Roundtable.

Mods?? Thread merger somewhere or other perhaps?? (Duplicate threads always happen when it's the death of a writer.)

[aadams73]

Wow, I had no idea he was still alive.

[Mr. Anonymous]

:(

[robeiae]

Godspeed, J.D.

[mscelina]

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
J. D. Salinger (1919 - 2010 )

Another great one gone (even though I loathed Catcher, still)...

[Celia Cyanide]

I can't believe Haskins didn't post this.

[Hemingstein]

LINK: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584170,00.html

http://www.foxnews.com/images/596074/1_61_012810_salinger.jpg

"NEW YORK — J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91."

[Fran]

According to the BBC his son's confirmed it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8486169.stm

[KTC]

oh god, no. the reason i write. i love you, jd. rip.

[Stew21]

Very sad.

thanks for everything, JD.

[Hemingstein]

Something strikes me as being extremely sad about this:

In 1999, New Hampshire neighbor Jerry Burt said the author had told him years earlier that he had written at least 15 unpublished books kept locked in a safe at his home.

"I love to write and I assure you I write regularly," Salinger said in a brief interview with the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate in 1980. "But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it."

I hope his children publish the works...

[Stew21]

I've merged the three threads into one in the Remembrances forum.

[KTC]

i have a huge collection of his short stories in a box in the bottom of my closet. dozens of them. i visit that box often.

man...this is crushing.

[Jersey Chick]

RIP. :(

One of my favorites.

[Magdalen]

Well, Jenny's a sweet young body, Jenny's seldom dry,
Draggled her petticoatie, comin' through the rye.
If a body meet a body comin' through the rye,
If a body kiss a body, need a body cry?

All the lassies have their laddies, Nane they say, have I;
But all the laddies smile at me, Comin' through the rye.
Well, Jenny's a sweet young body, Jenny's seldom dry,
Draggled her petticoatie, comin' through the rye.

If a body meet a body, comin' from the town,
If a body kiss a body, need a body frown?
If a body meet a body, comin' from the glen,
If a body kiss a body, need a body ken?

If a body meet a body comin' through the rye,
If a body catch a body, need a body cry?
All the lassies have their laddies, Nane they say, have I;
But all the laddies smile at me, Comin' through the rye.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I was surprised to learn he was still alive.

[William Haskins]

links to all 13 of salinger's 'new yorker' stories, clip of MSNBC's obit, more coverage:

http://authorscoop.com

[Stew21]

I was just coming in here to send them over to AS. :)

[Wise Child]

I thought that he was so reclusive that his death was never going to be reported. I seemed to like Franny and Zooey and Nine Stories better than Catcher In The Rye.

[blacbird]

I read the same story Heminstein quoted. Whether these manuscripts exist or not is one question. Another is, if they do, whether they will ever see the light of day. If they do that, I hope they aren't lunatic ravings from a man having descended into the OCD abyss that trapped Howard Hughes for the last decades of his life. The obsession with silence and isolation doesn't make me hopeful.

caw

[KTC]

I love Hapworth.


I'm going to hug my Franny tonight.

[callalily61]

:(

[Albannach]

Not sure if it's appropriate to post--but JD Salinger just died.

[CACTUSWENDY]

May he RIP. 91.....such a long life.

[lkp]

I wonder if he continued writing during his long, silent period...and if so, whether any more works of his will appear in print.

[Kisatchie]

Here is some information:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584170,00.html

[jasonc_22]

His daughter says he never stopped writing, and that he even filed things in such a way that someone looking at his files would know what he considered ready for publication and what still needed review.

[Bookewyrme]

My cousin just informed me of this a few minutes ago. RIP.

[Birol]

New York Times (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/s/j_d_salinger/index.html) article.

[The Lonely One]

Did Salinger want to publish anything else? I remember hearing that he didn't. In that case, I'd prefer whoever owns his estate abide by his wishes.

Either way, RIP.

[William Haskins]

links to 22 of salinger's uncollected stories, including his first-ever published story:

http://authorscoop.com/2010/01/28/more-salinger-stories/

[Ken]

... enjoyed Catcher. Surprised so many others did as well. Usually my tastes are at odds with others. Salinger managed to bridge the gap. Impressive feat, and one that makes his departure rather personal. RIP :-(

[BigWords]

A sad day. :( There must be more of his work somewhere. I can only hope that his unpublished writings aren't destroyed...

[mario_c]

Something strikes me as being extremely sad about this:

In 1999, New Hampshire neighbor Jerry Burt said the author had told him years earlier that he had written at least 15 unpublished books kept locked in a safe at his home.

"I love to write and I assure you I write regularly," Salinger said in a brief interview with the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate in 1980. "But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it."

I hope his children publish the works...That is an exemplary curmudgeon and rugged individualist. They don't make 'em like him anymore. Vale.

[blacbird]

"I love to write and I assure you I write regularly," Salinger said in a brief interview with the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate in 1980. "But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it."[/I]

Yeah. And it helps when you've produced the ultimate backlist bestseller that makes you millions of dollars and you never have to worry about producing another word that anyone else ever reads.

Let's be realistic: I don't celebrate J.D. Salinger's passing. But he lived 91 years, more than most of us can hope to do. Peacefully enjoying whatever personal demons interested and amused him. The last half of it, and more, he gave nothing to anyone, other than maybe his closest relatives. That's okay, too, I suppose, but "literary lion"? Like Harper Lee, he was the literary one-trick pony. None of his meager subsequent work would have achieved much notice, without the phenomenon of Catcher.

Mailer's line about him never having left prep school seems apt. The New Yorker and the literati employed by the NY Times mostly haven't ever done so, either. So they eulogize him in terms Italians do Dante.

His work is interesting and valuable. He had quirky and unusual influence. I can buy all of that. Long term, he's not one of the best American fiction writers of the past century, even by "literary" standards. Perhaps he could have been, but he chose not to be, a choice I can respect, but a choice. His window of accomplishment was short, and self-truncated (barring some miraculous work to be released posthumously).

caw

[Tin Man]

Well-put.

[fringle]

Well I hope the children respect his wishes and keep his writing safely at home where he wanted in. On the other hand...

[Jamesaritchie]

He supposedly had a safe full on new manuscripts. Be interesting to see if it's true. If he did, they'll be published. If I remember right, this is why he kept writing, but stopped submitting.

[Phaeal]

It's funny-sad, the first thing I've heard from people hearing this news is: "Will his new MSS finally get published?" Not, "Oh, that's too bad!"

Like the real Salinger has been locked in that safe for so many years.

Mr. Salinger, the Fat Lady salutes you!

[Charlie Horse]

One of my biggest inspirations. R.I.P. J.D.

[cray]

RIP, JD.

[Manuel Royal]

Perhaps The Onion has the best story: Bunch of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger (http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bunch_of_phonies_mourn_j_d)

[blacbird]

Well I hope the children respect his wishes and keep his writing safely at home where he wanted in. On the other hand...

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

caw

[Jamesaritchie]

Well, I do consider him a literary lion, and I liked his work considerably more than Mailer's or most of teh other writers of that ilk. Catcher remains one of my favorite novels, and I've read it more times than I care to admit.

I liked all his work, and if he doesn't seem to roar as loud as some other writers of his generation, I believe it's because he knew how to be quiet, something Mailer, Capote, and Vidal never learned, and because he didn't continue to publish quality writing. But then, neither did they.


But I've read many articles about Salinger over the years, and it seems he wanted his work to be published after his death. At least most of it.

[William Haskins]

i've embedded an excellent CBC piece on him with some fairly recent footage of him.

http://authorscoop.com

[KTC]

I love the CBC. Thank you, William.

[blacbird]

Catcher remains one of my favorite novels,

As it is mine. Similarly to To Kill a Mockingbird. But in the big scheme, I don't consider Harper Lee a "lioness" of literature. She wrote one damn fine book, not a mean achievement, but beyond that, nothing. Salinger wrote one damn fine book, not a mean achievement, but beyond that, a little more, but not much.

I liked all his work, and if he doesn't seem to roar as loud as some other writers of his generation, I believe it's because he knew how to be quiet, something Mailer, Capote, and Vidal never learned, and because he didn't continue to publish quality writing. But then, neither did they.

Arguable, I suppose, but aside from In Cold Blood, none of the names you mention are among my favorite writers, so I can't comparatively judge. Cormac McCarthy is famously quiet, in regards to public appearances and interviews, but continues to produce for publication. Offhand, it seems to me the most comparable writer to Salinger would be Updike (whom I don't much fancy, either). I'd argue that, among his contemporaries, Kurt Vonnegut is a far more important fictioneer than Salinger. Faulkner was still writing very fine work (The Town, The Mansion, The Reivers) during Salinger's cometary passage through the literary skies. John Knowles, in A Separate Peace, produced the best novel I've ever read centered on eastern prep school society, and nothing else of note that I'm aware of. Flannery O'Connor busied herself, contemporaneously with Salinger's output, producing small perfections of fiction while battling a debilitating terminal disease. Joseph Heller produced an equally iconic and influential first novel (Catch-22), followed by a long silence, and then a sequence of pretty good work until his death a few years ago. Saul Bellow wrote novels that garnered a Nobel Prize. William Styron wrote a sequence of novels almost certain to be regarded as classics. Philip K. Dick struggled for thirty years and only near his sudden and untimely death did the literati begin to see his importance; he is still ascending in literary esteem, posthumously. The American writer probably most influenced by Salinger's disaffected Catcher may have been Jack Kerouac. Point being, there were a lot of other American fiction writers out there putting stuff before the public while Salinger malingered in his New Hampshire cave, purporting to be writing. Maybe he was:

But I've read many articles about Salinger over the years, and it seems he wanted his work to be published after his death. At least most of it.

If true, then he comes off as something of a phony himself, doesn't he? No matter, though. I suspect we'll find out in the next couple of years if that safe contains anything important, or no.

caw

[William Haskins]

but beyond that, a little more, but not much.

this, i think, unfairly minimizes a great deal of publicly released writing on (and more than "not much" genealogical blueprinting of) the glass family.

besides, the historical gravity of a writer is often less the amount of work and, more often (and often more fairly), the significance of work.

[blacbird]

the historical gravity of a writer is often less the amount of work and, more often (and often more fairly), the significance of work.

I agree with this, too (example, Franz Kafka), but I also get the sense that my comments have not clearly expressed what I intended.

Obviously, I'm in a minority here in my opinion of J.D. Salinger's achievement and importance. Denigrating either of those things was never my intent. I do feel he is overrated, in the American literary world, at the expense of some other very fine writers. And some of that feeling is generated by a degree of frustration at the "legend of J.D. Salinger" that has grown like a sinister fungus over the last half-century.

In real terms, he "died", literarily, in the mid-1950s, and we all know how some "dead" authors gain status posthumously. Now, Salinger had one of these rare fabled debut novels, so I don't exactly maintain that's the reason for his adulation.

And, yes, William, it isn't a matter of quantity, exactly. I wasn't claiming that, and I see how my previous comments could have been interpreted that way.

BUT, J.D. Salinger did leave the scene having produced a relatively small body of work centered about a relatively small (but literati-trendy) milieu. Whatever he wrote (for his own enjoyment) subsequent to that remains a mystery, perhaps to be resolved, perhaps not. But if his writing for his own enjoyment involved ever deeper depths of the Northeastern Prep School society, I very much doubt there's a lot in that infamous safe that will be very exciting except perhaps to editors of the New Yorker. Maybe he expanded his focus a lot in the half-century succeeding his self-imposed exile. But it's kind of hard to see anyone managing that from a hermitic New Hampshire farmhouse; he seems to have chosen to be a non-violent Ted Kaczynski, disdainful of contact or interaction with messy human society.

J.D. Salinger was a young man with extraordinary artistic capabilities. After a flash of extraordinary glory, he chose to hide those "in a bushel", according to the Biblical parable. I can (and do) admire what he did produce; I've read it all. We are to admire his silence? Is this like admiring the three minutes of silence recorded, as an artistic statement, by "musician" John Cage?

If so, can Salinger's half-century of solitude be regarded as the ultimate expression of "minimalism"?

caw

[William Haskins]

If so, can Salinger's half-century of solitude be regarded as the ultimate expression of "minimalism"?

caw

no, it was an expression of recoiling from celebrity culture, in addition to a broken heart, some degree PTSD, a spiritual hunger that, rightly or wrongly demanded solitude and, by most accounts, the privacy to pursue his fictional universe without the distractions of the market and of critics.

only time will tell if he continued to write, and at what level.

either way, his published catalog speaks for itself, and he certainly had no obligation to continue publishing or make himself available as a public figure.

if history footnotes him over that, i'm sure he would have felt it was worth it.

[AnonymousWriter]

RIP, JD.

I love Catcher in the Rye.

[KTC]

Salinger wrote one damn fine book, not a mean achievement, but beyond that, a little more, but not much.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVED Catcher...loved it. But it was my least favourite Salinger work. He left so much more than Catcher. So much more.

[CNmoon]

Catcher in the Rye...Eh it was alright. Nothing astounding but a good read. Rest in peace Salinger...or don't. I'm pretty sure where ever you are(I know sometime later you'll be in a hole or in cinders) you'll be unhappy, just like you want to be.

[Cassiopeia]

I will forever be in awe of this man. Catcher touched my youngest boy and reached out to him in a way that other books failed to.

Salinger wasn't just a writer, he was a mentor, and a voice of reason that examined humanity without excuse or equivocation. He will be greatly missed.