JD Salinger

JD Salinger died last week. Now, I don't pretend for a moment to have the ability to properly address his genius, his significance to American culture, or what he meant to millions of his readers. But, if you'll indulge me for a bit, I can tell you what JD Salinger meant to me (and it's certainly possible, although admittedly disturbing on some level, that others have similar feelings about the guy's writing).

The first time I became familiar with Salinger was, like most folks, as a teenager. Catcher In The Rye was never assigned in the American Lit class I took as a Junior (although to Mr Williamson's credit, he did assign Gatsby and Huck Finn, and those are 2 of the best books ever written in the English language). I stumbled onto Salinger by complete accident. I was bored one day during a free period and killing time in the library (I'd check out the USA Today Sports Section in there most days) and saw a copy of Catcher In The Rye on a shelf. I picked it up. I remember being seduced by its maroon cover. And then I started reading it. And I couldn't put it down. What struck me then was how honest the book was. Honest about everything. Here was one messed up kid who couldn't get anything going for him, at least anything that he really wanted. And he didn't know what to do or who to turn to. He tried to get on board with the conventional things that society deemed important. But, he couldn't get any of it right. He liked the idea of lots of things, but not the reality. And that is exactly right. All the stuff that looks good, the stuff that seems too good to be true (happiness, a fulfilling job, a hot babe who doesn't drive you crazy, a close knit family, man being kind to his fellow man) - it is. Now, I had these feelings myself from who knows when, but I'd never experienced any kind of book or whatever else that expressed those feelings. Of course, Holden Caulfield is, like life itself, tragically hopeless. The best you could ever hope for is to run completely away from society and live out in the woods somewhere. But there's nowhere left to run. We're all stuck. Stuck trying to make sense of something that doesn't have any rhyme or reason to it. I reread Catcher about 10 times over the next few years and have revisited it maybe 10 more times the last 15 or so years. And my reaction to it has never changed. The thing is, I keep hoping, every time I read it, that Holden will get in touch with Jane Gallagher. And he never does. He's doomed. I'm doomed. We're all doomed...

I could also say something about Salinger's short stories. But I'll just mention one of them. And you guessed it, that story is A Perfect Day For Bananafish. My man Seymour Glass. Devastating. When you read the story, it almost makes you suicidal. But it's all true. The guy does what his family, and by extension society, tells him to. And he blows his brains out.

When I was in college, I took a class where we read a number of post WWII novels (it was taught by Lee K Abbott , a fine short story writer in his own right). And we were assigned Catcher for the class. On the day we discussed the book, I remember thinking - Oh no, I'm the only one in here who gets it. And of course, that's garbage. What I really started to fear as the discussion went along was that I was the only one who was fixated, in a not so healthy way, on Holden Caulfield. And I didn't say too much. I let the smelly, commie, hippie types talk about the book in some detached, fake intellectual way. I remember the last little thing I said during that class. It was this, "Can any of you get me Jane Gallagher's phone number?"

Of course, Salinger disappeared to a small town called Cornish, NH in the 50's. He quit publishing his stories in the mid 60's. And he never gave interviews. He didn't want to explain himself. He just wanted to be left alone. And that, I can relate to. There has been quite a bit of speculation about how many stories or novels Salinger has written the last 45 years and if they'll be published now that he's dead. And I gotta tell you, I sure hope not. I'm worried he might have backtracked from his worldview. I would be very hesitant to read anything "new" at this point. Doing so might ruin his previous work. And that would be depressing as hell. But knowing the way life works, I bet it'll happen. Just watch...

I'll get back to the normal silliness next time.

Peace