'Catcher in the Rye' author J.D. Salinger dies

Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2010-01-28 23:32

R.I.P., Mr. Salinger. Article here. Excerpt:

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.

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

"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight — and concern."

Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing — more than 60 million copies worldwide — and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams: to never grow up.
...
In 2000, daughter Margaret Salinger's "Dreamcatcher" portrayed the writer as an unpleasant recluse who drank his own urine and spoke in tongues. Actor Matt Salinger, the author's other child, disputed his sister's book when it came out and labeled it "gothic tales of our supposed childhood."

"He was a caring, fun, and wonderful father to me, and a tremendous grandfather to my boys," he wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.'

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How did he advance men's rights?

He obviously had a stupid daughter that is trying to sell a sensationalized book about him but other than that?

I just ain't getting it.

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Submitted by Luek on Fri, 2010-01-29 19:26

I can be fairly accused of some sentimentality here and so if you say I am abusing my editorial position then I find myself guilty. But I need a rationalization so I will give one up. What did strike out to me is this:

'"The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight — and concern."'

If you never read this book, you may not know what that statement is about. A recurring theme in The Catcher... is the sense that Holden's parents are pretty much neglecting him. He drinks and smokes at age 15 and they don't seem to care or even may not know. They are not even in the book as I recall except on the phone. He gets thrown out of one private school after another and they are pretty much just shunting him around until he is 18 when they can wash their hands of him. It's clear he is unwanted by anyone around him but yet has so much personal potential and a huge heart but with little or no way to express it.

Tons of essays and books and Ph.D theses trying to interpret this book have been written over the years. So I'll add mine. I think the point Salinger was trying to make here was that nothing so poorly serves children than institutional systems of management that, when lacking parental intervention, just plain process kids in and out of them and leave them at dead ends. So in the case of males, then, what is the state of affairs now? Is there anything like what girls have in today's schools and school systems to compare with where boys are at?

At least Mstr. Caufield came from money. Maybe he could have used that after sort of getting it together (on his own of course, with no guidance from his folks or the schools that threw him out) to be something other than a lounge lizard. But most boys then and now don't have that option.

Are we creating a nation of Holden Caufields? Well really, we should be so lucky. We're making a nation of Holden Caufields that don't have the money or means to even be lounge lizards nor even realize what is happening to them.

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2010-01-29 21:35