Who here besides me mourns the death today of J. D. Salinger?

I am inconsolable, but that should go without saying.

This is the first I’ve heard about his death, googling the news now. Today is a very sad day, he will be missed.

The Catcher in the Rye was the only book I enjoyed in high school. He will be sorely missed.

I’m affected.

I’m also waiting for the estate to publish his unreleased work, which is supposed to be like fifteen books or something.

Edit: And just an addition: I know it’s cool or whatever to either bash or claim indifference to Catcher, or to ignore it, or to focus on his other work to look better read or something. But as far as I’m concerned Catcher is the most perfect novel I’ve ever read (and I don’t care that that’s ungrammatical) and easily his best work and obviously his most important work. And yeah.

That book was certainly influential. But I never read any of his other works. Rest in peace.

@erichw1504 I am with you…almost. I also enjoyed The Stranger by Albert Camus.

I hope his family doesn’t sell the writes of Catcher in the Rye to a movie studio. That would suck so bad.

Catcher was one of the only two books that I liked reading when I was in high school.
I can’t say that I’ll “miss” him, but it is very sad.

Also. Zelda Rubinstein, the cute little psychic from Poltergeist, died yesterday.

I’ll be the odd ball and say, meh (sorry, Gail). I didn’t like Catcher in the Rye (actually, I hated it as I imagined Holden was a shiftless loser). Thus, I am ambivalent about Salinger, and not particularly moved by his death (then again, I’m not moved by any celebrity’s death, so…)

WHAT!? Oh, goodness.

I somehow managed to avoid the seemingly obligatory reading of Catcher in the Rye in high school, and only got around to reading it a few years ago. I have to say I was completely underwhelmed. I developed no sympathy at all for Holden no offense, @holden; he was self-absorbed and… oh, I see @shilolo had the same impression.

@shilolo and @Harp: Have you read “Franny and Zooey” or J.D.‘s short stories*? I enjoyed them much more than “Catcher,” and I did say “his work had and has a disproportional influence on millions.”

* “Nine Stories,” and “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.”

“Howard Zinn died today too.”

I liked Catcher, but I do think it’s overrated. I’m not saying that to be “cool”, that’s just what I honestly think. Of course I can’t deny the influence the book had and it was definitely different from anything else I’ve read, but I pretty much hold the same view @Harp has, though not quite as strong. I had some sympathy for him, but just not as much as most people do. I think in some ways he did come off as the “spoiled brat” that people make him out to be. :\

@gailcalled I might consider trying some short stories, but I’d be reluctant to invest time in another novel. I’m still resenting the time I spent on Catcher.

@Harp: The short stories and the novellas can’t be read in isolation, unfortunately. They are about different characters in the same family. Perhaps try “Franny and Zooey.”

@Harp start with A Perfect Day for Bananafish.

@gailcalled If by influence you mean, forced to read a disaster of a book, then yes, he influenced my life. Mostly, I was shocked that his book was promoted (by my English teacher, and others) as some sort of awesome reflection of teenage angst when I simply thought it was poorly written and not a reflection of my life.

Salinger had a huge effect on me in my autisticish youth, which I spent mostly in guarded shock. Especially “Franny and Zooey”. Holden C. reminded me intensely of my brother’s adorable friend Alex Shoumatoff, so I had sympathy for him. Yes, he was annoying; so was Alex. But darling.

But Salinger disappeared from the human community so long ago (as a person, not as a writer) that I feel like sorrow over his departure is inaccessible. Did it, I think, years ago.

On the other hand, Howard Zinn! Now I’m crying a little bit. The passing of an age I belonged to.

@Shilolo: It didn’t strike a resonating chord with me, either. But I appreciated the style; and I did really enjoy “Franny and Zooey.” I believed that it first appeared in The New Yorker; that is where I read it, in any case.

“Franny and Zooey” is one of my all-time-favorites. Sad—though, it wasn’t like he was producing new works, right?

@holden: The problem with reading just “Banana Fish” is that it assumes you know somthing about Seymour Glass. That info is obtained from “F and Z.”

@andrew; Salinger is quoted (somewhere) as saying that he never stopped writing. There may well be archival material that is worth publishing. I found his biography fascinating, if nothing else.

He seemed to have had that off-beat personality similar to David Foster Wallace and Hunter Thomson.

@gailcalled Perhaps, with all that free time I have, I’ll pick up Franny and Zoe. Though, like @Harp I’m disillusioned by my past forced exposure to the extent that it would take much to make me read him. Strangely, I found Joyce much more confusing, and yet, I would read Joyce again.

@Harp
Of course in retrospect it seems less than stellar but for its time it was groundbreaking.
The novel was among the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005 as chosen by Time.

Franny and Zooey at Yale.

Catcher was not in the curriculum when I was in high school. “Relevance” wasn’t invented until I was in college. So I read (and do not regret reading) nothing more recent than Silas Marner, Great Expectations, and Vanity Fair. Nonetheless I do regard the passing of Salinger as an occasion to be marked with all due ceremony. Perhaps I will read the book now in his honor.

His physical death means little except to his immediate family, since he removed himself from the literary world so long ago. I found his work interesting, but it didn’t have the effect on me that Hermann Hesse’s writings did.

@Jeruba: Like you, in HS I also read Silas Marner, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Dickens, and some of Shakespeare’s comedies. “Catcher” would have been a welcome change.

A point to keep in mind was that “Catcher” was written in 1951, when there was nothing comparable for kids like Susanc and me. The next literary shock-of-the-familiar was when Philip Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint” was serialized in Esquire, New American Review, and Partisan Review. Everyone I knew (and I was living in Manhattan at the time) was abuzz and waiting eagerly for the next installment.

I have no strong feelings or thoughts about him. I am glad that he wrote this: “Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.” ~Catcher in the Rye Ch. 24

“That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive. ”

“fuck you”~

I also can’t say I’ll “miss” him, but it is sad, as Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books I’ve read. He was a talented writer.

This is quite possibly the most clever “tribute” I have read in a long time.

@buckyboy28: It is a moderately clever parody of Holden’s stream-of-consciousness but not terribly original. Like trying to imitate James Joyce… doomed to mediocrity.

Thank God for questions like this and Fluther…just got back from the my brother’s house…one more screaming kid and mind rotting sitcom and I think I was going to suggest a game of Russian Roulette.

I do. As a teenager I found his book to be very emotional and powerful.

I found Catcher very affecting when I read it as a teen; I tried it recently as a possible selection for teaching and couldn’t stand it. I agree with those who favor Franny and Zooey and the other short stories, but Catcher certainly limned a new character type for its time. I don’t have a personal feeling for Salinger except as a quasi-mythic figure, but his passing is another nail in the coffin (so to speak) for the cultural icons of a generation.

Well said, @janbb.

@janbb

Another nail in the coffin? Just because an author is no longer relevant to a generation does not mean they are any less significant. We don’t often look to Plutarch anymore either but it doesn’t make his contribution any less valuable.

@SeventhSense Oh, I just meant physically gone, not unimportant. It’s odd when you get tio a certain age (previously noted gray feathers) and all the names you grew up with -Norman Mailer, William Buckley, J.D. Salinger, Izzy Stone – are dead or dying.

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was twelve or thirteen. I never quite liked it, but I do think it influenced me slightly, in that I managed to go through adolescence without ever becoming too Holden-like. Holden was something of a check to my personality.

Since it is one of Andrew’s all-time favorites I read Franny and Zooey. I just finished it an hour or two ago, so perhaps I shouldn’t be answering so soon, before the book has had a chance to settle in my mind a bit, but I am.
I liked it. I feel like I would have liked it more if I had read it two years ago.

I mourn his death.

@petethepothead: One of the famous scenes in Zooey occurs when he describes a list of the contents of the medicine cabinet. Did that strike you? When it was written, it struck us all.

Do read the short stories, to find out more of the Glass family, if you have some time.

G

@gailcalled How are you? Good question!

Salinger was one of my favorite writers. I mourn his loss of course but it is hard to miss a writer who stopped publishing so long ago. While Catcher was my first exposure, my favorites were the Glass family stories and some of the others in Nine Stories. My favorite might be “For Esme with Love and Squalor”.

I actually love that it’s quite easy to read all of Salinger’s work. Though they say he’s been keeping manuscripts in a safe for years, there might have not been more to him that was worth writing. Salinger is not perfect, but his sentiments are. That’s how I like my writing.

Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker piece was basically about how Salinger influenced American writing by allowing it to be more emotional (In contrast to Hemingway, who first made it harder edged).

I also read this week Updike’s criticism of Salinger written in the 60’s for the first time- with Updike saying that Salinger loved his characters too much, such that they were unreal and not held up to public censure- that he “Gave them more love that God himself would have given them”.

I could never put my finger on it but I think he may be right. But I think that’s one of things that I love about his writing most- perhaps it is a bit of fantasy in a way- but is such a moving fantasy. Gopnik also makes some good points about Salinger’s description and powers of observation- words are hardly wasted and he has a method of distilling everything into it’s most telling and deserving detail.

I might come back and post some links to this stuff.

@rovdog I, too, read Adam Gopnik’s piece and found it quite moving.

@rovdog: So nice to see you back in town. Do stay. We need more literary voices.

Which issue of the New Yorker did the Gopnik piece appear? I can read it at the library.

His children complained that he was a lousy father and loved his fictional children more than he did them.

@petethepothead Fall asleep at the wheel again?

@gailcalled It is the current issue; I imagine it’s dated February 8.

@gailcalled: Good to be back (I know I’m kind of in and out, for my excuse at least I’ve been basically back and forth from India the past 2 years, with limited internet access, but it’s probably not good enough.)

you can read Gopnik’s piece here:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2010/02/08/100208ta_talk_gopnik

actually he did a nice interview on Charlie Rose too where he sort of rehashed this but also made a few other good points. One of the interesting ones regarding Salinger’s seculsion is that he not the kind of writer you expect to be secluded at all. I think that’s sort of right on. For instance if you told me J.M Coetzee was a hermit I would believe you easily.

here’s Updike criticism from 1961!

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/13/specials/salinger-franny01.html

@Gail: No, it didn’t particularly strike me. What about it did all of you find so striking? Perhaps it’s that Salinger’s influence has already spread enough that I’ve come across the essence of that particular scene already in some other form.

I have plenty of time, as well as copies of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction and Nine Stories. (Half way through the first one now.)

@janbb: I do that a lot. I usually have so many tabs open that I forget I’m composing somewhere.

@petethepothead So I noticed.

@petethepothead: At the time of the first publication of “F and Z,” the use of the medicine cabinet’s contents as a metaphorical trope was new and exciting. Now, I suppose, it’s been done a million times.

From a customer review at Amazon; written in 2004.

(Before leaving the bathroom, make sure you note Salinger’s precise description of the medicine cabinet’s contents – there are some telling details there).

If you have time to waste, google “Zooey-medicine cabinet” and see the number of hits.