“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like getting into it, if you want to know the truth.” Holden Caulfield, first sentence of Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger.

J.D. Salinger died of natural causes on January 27th, 2010, at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.  For a thorough obituary, read the NY Times, Charles McGrath, January 28, 2010, by clicking here.

Like every American who attended school in the US, I was assigned Catcher and the Rye.  Thankfully, I did read it.  I am grateful to my teacher (I don’t remember which one), and J.D Salinger, I attribute my love of reading to Catcher and the Rye.  To be 13 years old, and introduced to Holden Caulfield is a gift.  It is unfortunate that the rebellious existence of a Holden Caulfield character trait can be found in most teenagers.  This may contribute to a handful of people, like a colleague and friend of mine that attended Gordon Tech, from meeting Holden Caulfield at this fleeting time, when they can relate perfectly.

I hope Catcher in the Rye is still required reading for teenagers, and is being downloaded by one to an Amazon Kindle as I type this.

In my opinion, most other books by Salinger do not hold up as well.  9 Stories, and Franny and Zooey come to mind.  Was Catcher in the Rye such a tough act to follow that Salinger eventually chose not to publish again?  That the enormous burden of greatness created a shadow which drove Mr. Salinger into what he is perhaps most famous for?  Seclusion.

Mr. Salinger has made himself famous, for being a fiercely protective recluse.  Now that J.D. Salinger has passed away at 91 years of age, this too, will pass, and he will be returned to fame and much deserved respect for what is far more fitting, he was responsible for a Great American Novel, Catcher in the Rye.  J.D. Salinger is a great American Novelist, like Twain, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald.

J.D. Salinger was an American writer.  He was also an American soldier in World War II.  He served with the Counter-Intelligence Corps of the Fourth Infantry Division, whose job was to interview Nazi deserters and sympathizers, and was stationed for a while in Tiverton, Devon, the setting of “For Esmé — with Love and Squalor,” probably the most deeply felt of the “Nine Stories.” On June 6, 1944, he landed at Utah Beach, and he later saw action during the Battle of the Bulge.

In 1945 he was hospitalized for “battle fatigue” — often a euphemism for a breakdown — and after recovering he stayed on in Europe six months past the end of the war, volunteering for Denazification duty. He married a German woman, very briefly.  Her name was Sylvia, Mr. Salinger’s daughter Margaret has said, but Mr. Salinger always called her Saliva.

Mr. Salinger was private, reclusive, and human.  He invited Joyce Maynard, an 18 year old Yale freshman, into his world in 1973.  They had a 10 month long affair, and she went on to publish a memoir about him.  “Mr. Salinger was controlling and sexually manipulative,” Ms. Maynard wrote, “and a health nut obsessed with homeopathic medicine and with his diet” (frozen peas for breakfast, undercooked lamb burger for dinner).

Joyce Maynard believes he had at least two novels written and locked away in a safe.  She revealed that he never stopped writing about the Glass family.  His office was lined with shelves of notebooks devoted to the Glass family.

Salinger’s daughter Margaret also wrote a book about him. This book was condemned as exploitive by her brother Matthew.  Ms. Salinger said that her father was “pathologically self-centered and abusive toward her mother,” and to the homeopathy and food fads she added a long list of other enthusiasms: Zen Buddhism, Vedanta Hinduism, Christian Science, Scientology, and acupuncture. Mr. Salinger drank his own urine, she wrote, and sat for hours in an orgone box.

Mr. Salinger is survived by his wife Ms. Colleen O’Neill and children from a previous marriage to Claire Douglas, son, Matthew, and daughter, Margaret, as well as three grandsons. His literary agents said in a statement that “in keeping with his lifelong, uncompromising desire to protect and defend his privacy, there will be no service, and the family asks that people’s respect for him, his work and his privacy be extended to them, individually and collectively, during this time.”

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody.” Holden Caulfield, The End of Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger.

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