'Catcher In The Rye' Author J.D. Salinger Dies

WCCO.com ^ | 1/28/10 | AP

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

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.

Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.

[ClearCase_guy]

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

[Dajjal]

I highly recommend searching up a copy of Salinger's last published short story: "Hapworth 16, 1924".

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1965/06/19/1965_06_19_032_TNY_CARDS_000276654
"ABSTRACT: Seymour Glass, age 7, writes a letter to his parents, his sister Beatrice (Boo Boo) & his twin brothers Walter and Waker. He is at a children's camp with his brother Buddy, who is 5. At this time, their mother is 28 and she and their father are touring as a stage team. This letter is on an adult level. Seymour advises his parents, expresses views on God, people and writers. He & Buddy have been reading adult literature for some time. He sends along a list of books he'd like to have sent from the public library, along with his estimate of each of the writers. He foretells the future: Buddy will be a writer working from a room that looks like the one he always dreamed about; he, Seymour will live to the age of 30."

[Borges]

Bunch Of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger

CORNISH, NH—In this big dramatic production that didn’t do anyone any
good (and was pretty embarrassing, really, if you think about it),
thousands upon thousands of phonies across the country mourned the
death of author J.D. Salinger, who was 91 years old for crying out
loud. “He had a real impact on the literary world and on millions of
readers,” said hot-shot English professor David Clarke, who is just
like the rest of them, and even works at one of those crumby schools
that rich people send their kids to so they don’t have to look at them
for four years. “There will never be another voice like his.” Which is
exactly the lousy kind of goddamn thing that people say, because
really it could mean lots of things, or nothing at all even, and it’s
just a perfect example of why you should never tell anybody anything.

[ClearCase_guy]

That’s funny as hell.

[Fledermaus]

Oh no...what are all those hidden CIA assasins going to key off now?

[LibertyRocks]

My oldest daughter (Izzy_Box) loves you now! LOL I’ve yet to read CITR, but she has read it numerous times. She thanks you for your input on this thread! [I’m typing this response for her because she is busy working on a drawing at the moment, and she asked... :) ]

As for my own comment on this thread: Prayers for Salinger’s family, and may he Rest in Peace.

As for those who are convinced that reading this book turns kids into rebels without a clue — only if their parents have failed in their jobs in the first place. One doesn’t need to fear ANY piece of writing if one has taught their children critical thinking skills...

[GOP Poet]

excellent. Thank you!

[NoRedTape]

Except that's the other Salinger, no J.D.

"Catcher in the Rye" was pure brilliance. RIP J.D. for such incredible creativity and humor.

[Daffynition]

Sorry ....you didn't "catcher" my smiley, rapier wit and incredible creativity and humor in my post.

I realize I posted an image of Pierre. ;)

[andy58-in-nh]

You know, I missed that entirely. Wilde-ly amusing of you.

[the scotsman]

Sorry, but I think Joyce was a grossly self-indulgent novelist and his novels drove the postmodern novel into a literary cul-de-sac that some would argue it never recovered from. Joyce and his fans, imo, confuse self-indulgence for erudition. And his novels crippled the novel with what the writer Colin Wilson has called ‘the narrow vision’.

Greatest of the last 100 years? Better than Steinbeck, Bennett, Hemingway, DH Lawrence, Faulkner, Orwell?. I cant agree at all.

And to suggest either AF or 1984 has no great lyrical use of prose, again I cannot agree. Many of the famous lines from both novels have a (dark) lyrical beauty and immense power. Subtlety and density. Yet lean and empassioned. Those lines are perhaps the most descriptive yet spare lines of 20th Century literature.

[Borges]

Joyce was not a Post-Modernist. He was quitessentially Modernist. ‘Portait of the Artist As a Young Man’ is the prototypical 20th century ‘maturation’ novel and Ulysses is the great modern epic. And his shorts stories are among the greatest in the language and his command of English prose unmatched in the 20th century.

You’re projecting your strong feelings on what Orwell was talking about to the quality of his writing. He may have been ‘right’ but 1984 is quite crude. I’ve never heard anyone cite Orwell for poetic language.

[Clemenza]

I enjoyed Finding Forrester, but would like to remind everyone that the character called "Terence Mann" in the film version of Field of Dreams was actually JD Salinger in Kinsella's original novel.

[Clemenza]

Andy, I will disagree with you about Bonfire. It was THE novel of New York in the 1980s, and, unlike "Bright Lights, Big City" or "Money," still holds up very well. The characters are on the money (especially Sherman, Peter Fallow, and Reveran Bacon) and it works as both satire and a critique on the double sided nature of New York culture (the Morloch and Eloi personified in the Bronx/Manhattan).

Wolfe's other fictional work (Man in Full, Charlotte Simmons) is awful, I agree.

[Clemenza]

The best thing I can say about the highly overrated Thomas Pynchon is that 1. he mentions my hometown (Malverne, NY) in “Vineland” and 2. He did a cool cameo on the Simpsons a few years back.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’m probably one of the few people who actually enjoyed the film version of “Bonfire.”

[Petronski]

I did not know that.

[the scotsman]

Agreed, but the novels were hugely influential for the post-modernist movement. IMO not in a constructive way. And again, I will have to disagree on Ulysses. For me, THE most overrated 20th century novel. I find Dubliners and Portrait far more interesting and readable than it or Finnegan. Which for me is even worse than Ulysses.

As to Orwell, 1984 is crude is the sense of its setting, a novel intentionally without almost any light or hope. I believe the use of language by Orwell in 1984 is brilliant, not poetic in the traditional sense, but darkly poetic in its ability to capture the sheer hopelessness of its setting and message.

Animal Farm?......I believe to be IT a work of sheer brilliance. Never has a story of around 85 pages been able to convey irony, hypocrisy and scathing inditement of power as well as Orwell did with AF.

[Borges]

It's certainly the most influential novel of the century but the Post-modernists were rebelling against writers like Joyce. It's an epic on the head of a pin. A summary of Western Culture from Homer to World War I. Every section is different so if you don't like one there's always the next.

[andy58-in-nh]

Clemenza:

You know what? You're right. Upon reflection, I'm going to take back at least part of what I said about Bonfire of the Vanities. As you suggest, several of Wolfe's characters really were quite well drawn: Sherman as one of the "Masters of the Universe", and the Reverend Bacon as an archetype for Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson (the "Justice Brothers") as notable examples.

Wolfe also managed to capture the zeitgeist of New York City in the 80s, reflecting a cultural environment that I recall from the three years I lived there (1985-88).

One of the things that admittedly turned me off was the film made from Bonfire, which was so awful (in more than my opinion) that it had the effect of spoiling the book for me. I know that's not fair to the author. At the same time, I wish Wolfe had crafted at least a single character possessed of redeeming qualities (his attorney was perhaps the best of the bunch, but if I recall, he managed to get Sherman McCoy off the rap by fraudulent means as well. Everyone in the story was pretty rotten - McCoy, his wife, his mistress, the DA, the Mayor, etc.

I'll consider the possibility that what I perceived as an unrelieved negativity of the characters just wore on me, as at the time I was miserable, living in a cramped (and by "cramped "I mean I had to turn sideways to get into my bathroom shower stall) studio apartment on the Upper East Side. The good that came out of it was that I decided soon thereafter to go back to Boston, where I met my wife and got married. So perhaps I owe the guy in the white suit a drink, after all. ;-)

- Andy