I heard the news on NPR radio yesterday while driving home in my car. JD Salinger died at the age of 91. Did we know this man? Hardly, but I remember Holden Caulfield, the young protagonist of Catcher in the Rye. It gave my generation our loner preppie attitude, but did little to prepare us for later events that would inform our lives … the civil rights struggle, the assassinations of Kennedy, King, and Kennedy, the Vietnam war, and the never-ending epoch of Tricky Dick.
The voiceover who read the obituary was accompanied by Professor Phony of No-Ho University, whose real names I can’t recall for good reason. “How exciting,” intoned the Professor, “this opportunity to find unknown stories that [Salinger] may have written for himself.”
How dreadful, I thought, to wish someone dead in the interest of academia and necrophilia, to sneak into a deceased man’s underwear and sniff his posthumously defenseless crotch.
About a writer’s relationship with his characters, who lives more vicariously through whom? A fictive character thinks the unthinkable, achieves the unachievable, does the impossible, and travels through space-time defying all laws of the Universe. When the time comes to wave a final goodbye at the dock, perhaps the more fitting tribute is to remember the hero, and give the recluse his due.
If anyone bothers to ask, I would prefer to be remembered as Octopüß and keep my shell middens hidden.
But you have to admit he was a very strange man. His papers are locked in a vault - thousands and thousands of them - so it will be interesting to know what's in them, without sniffing his underpants of course. I always enjoy your imagery.
ReplyDeletetnlib, the one advantage a cephalopod has over our bivalve and univalve cousins, we leave nothing behind except our last meal.
ReplyDeleteEugene O'Neill's will stipulated that his last play "Long Day's Journey into Night NOT be published until 25 years after his death. His wife, Carlotta, however, disregarded his wish, and arranged to have it published and produced on stage 4 years after O'Neill's death (it won a Pulitzer Prize).
ReplyDeleteWe'll see how Mr. Salinger's wishes are carried out.
Personally, I have a tremendous respect for Mr. Salinger.
ReplyDeleteHe gave us the novel, Catcher in the Rye, and did not expect to be worshipped or become a media star.
He left us alone to focus on his creation.
I do not know how I feel about if he has other creations in a safe or vault someplace.
Could we be fair to those creations in light of our expectations?
Which might explain why he locked them up in the first place.
It's hard to trust writers' feelings about their work. Kafka, for an obvious instance, wanted the whole lot burned.
ReplyDeleteI hate secrets anyway.
Wow, I remember being assigned Catcher in the Rye in high school english. How many of us could relate on some level to Holder's angst?
ReplyDeleteAs I got older I discovered more layers to the story, including Holder's rather juvenile, self-absorbed drama and his ability to wallow in his discontent funded by his upper class family.
In short, I out grew Holder and perhaps that is just what Salinger had in mind - maybe not.
Holder and Salinger probably had much in common and while writers tend to want to keep control over their works, even posthumously (ie Kafka wanting his works burned and O'Neill wanting to wait 25 years), I think Fogg is right - publish what is there if it is any good.
Deconstructing a person's life after they have died is a tough job, sometimes with unpleasant surprises and sometimes just sadness. I've had to do this several times over the last year, and none have been comfortable or pleasant.
I look around and realize, this person is dead and has no need of worldly things.
Makes me appreciate every breath I take and every new day in which I awake. It also makes me want to clean out all the nooks and crannies in my house so my kids won't have to deal with it.
Thank you, everyone. Very fair critiques ... all.
ReplyDeleteI was almost going to mention something about loner, self-indulgent preppies but hesitated because preppies mirror the decadence of their negligent, self-indulgent parents.
I reserve my ire for Professor Phony and the mourners in the window-draped room who, at the moment of death, turn into frenzied looters.