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J.D. Salinger R.I.P.

By Michael Scherer | @michaelscherer | January 28, 2010 | +

“D.B. asked me what I thought about all this stuff I just finished telling you about. I didn’t know what the hell to say. If you want to know the truth, I don’t know what I think about it. I’m sorry I told so many people about it. About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Stradlater and Ackley, for instance. I think I even miss that goddam Maurice. It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” –Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 26

Catcher was published in 1951, and continues to sell tens of thousands of copies a year. Its American author Jerome David Salinger died Wednesday at the age of 91. The New York Times has a great obit here.

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  • deconstructiva

    MS, thanks for the news + link. RIP, JD. The one comparison in NYT obit to Howard Hughes might be waaaay more accurate than we’d admit. Both fled publicity at their heights (why? as if we’ll ever know), although Hughes kept working / making money in seclusion, esp. in Las Vegas.

  • sacredh

    I first read Catcher in the Rye as a high school freshman for a book report. The literature teacher handed me CITR, Animal Farm and Huxley’s The Doors to Perception. He told me read all three and take my pick for the report. I turned in all three. He was evil like that. How could you choose?

  • stuartzechman

    Thank so much for this, Michael Scherer.

  • homerhk

    The joy of JD Salinger and Catcher in the Rye is that you read it at 15 and think that you’re the only one that gets it and then you get to 20 and realise that everyone else gets it too.

    genuine lump in my throat on this news.
    thanks Michael.

  • sacredh

    Good comment. You only scratch the surface at 14-15. Even 20 might be a little early to really appreciate it.

  • apollyon07

    Wow homer I thought the same thing when I read it. I was a junior in high school at the time.

  • apr2563

    Catcher in the Rye was banned from my high school. My English teacher told us “read it”. I found a copy. Read it. I was forever grateful to my teacher. She also told us to read Hemingway, Falkner and Steinbeck, other authors banned at my school. That was in the good old days of the 50s.
    She was terminated the next year but in the end she won by challenging us and introducing us to great works. If your still around. thank you Ms Hanley.

  • apr2563

    Correction: Faulkner

  • mortalfool

    Ha ha. Very good comment about your lit teacher. Die-hard readers will get it.

  • Paul-no not that one

    If you are interested a brief overview of the bans.
    .
    http://www.euronet.nl/users/los/censorhistory.html

  • jcapan

    Ah, sadly, censorship is not limited to the quaint and distant past:
    .
    http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_W_dictionary23.466f8d4.html

  • apr2563

    Thanks Paul. It is interesting to see how intolerance and ignorance is not confined to one generation.

    The 50s were so oppressive. I was in high school at the tail end of the McCarthy era and the peak of the John Birch society. Teachers had to take loyalty oaths. Besides Ms Hanley, we had another teacher, Mr. Koppel, who was Jewish and had escaped Germany in the late 30s. He taught a class on current events. He was a brilliant teacher. Hard to like but boy he taught us a lot. Because he taught us different forms of government, including Communism, he became a target of our school board. As was Ms Hanley, he was terminated. This was happening in a Seattle suburb, not considered a hot bed of Conservatism.

    It shows we have to be vigilant.

  • billiecat

    And then you re-read it at 40 and realize that you just wish Holden would shut the hell up.

  • sacredh

    We have a library in our home. Some teachers have a life-long influence, others just collect a check.

  • kathy

    I too had a teacher like that, and there’s no doubt my life is different as a result. We had an after school lit group and did all of Salinger, among other things.

  • kathy

    I came here looking for this thread this morning. Thought it would be Joe who wrote it (I’d still like your reflections, Joe K.) but thanks, Michael for posting it.

    It was Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roofbeam, Capenter that most changed me, not CITR.

    Hard to put into words.

  • kathy

    This is a story many of you would find interesting, about Salinger’s nonreclusive life in his hometown of Cornish, NH.

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