J.D. Salinger Dies. Options

[Chester]

Above all his other work I am a great fan of his 9 stories----as the review said--he captured the true voices in a way we seldom get to read. It is very much like eavesdropping and there is a human quality to the printed words that border on the magical--as if flesh and blood and breath are living off the page. I also agree with ------Huckleberry Finn---Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye as the most demonstrative books to come out of the american experience.

[Mimi]

Artists who are painfully shy always fascinate me...it shows me that they create more for themselves than for an audience. When I say that I write for me and if others like it fine but I write for me I often get criticized, but in the end I guess it is kind of self preserving to say that you write for yourself because you aren't exactly sure if others are going to like what your write, but in not caring if they do...it is freeing and should be okay. RIP Salinger...now you truly do have your art to yourself...and it won't matter if what he left on this earth is dicovered...he won't know whether or not people dig/dug it...depending on what you believe or don't believe about the afterlife.

Thanks, Lynn.

I Like the way you call it "painfully shy" because shyness can be extremely painful, and more than that, misunderstood and very real, and has had many psychological studies. I suppose there are reasons behind what has nearly destroyed many of the victims. Being bullied in school, perhaps with a learning disability, or being brilliant yet living on the wrong side of town, and forced to integrate with others out of their league. But on the other hand, sometimes people are just born that way. Just as some are born gregarious. I've always believed both acting and writing took you into another space, and in that way, it took place of the "you" that you see yourself. Take Ingred Bergman, extremely shy as an only child, who acted out her fantasies. Beautiful, intelligent, no real problems, yet shy, and yet able to discard this disease in placing herself in another character.

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye, and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

-------------The Catcher in the Rye------J.D.Salinger


Mimi

This post has been edited by Mimi: Feb 9 2010, 07:29 AM

[Mizterious]

OMG you guys! It's snowing sideways in Chicago and has been for hours. The flakes are piling up at a nerve-racking pace. But - oh the quiet, quiet, quiet. Sleek, a duststorm of snowflakes, (how can each be unique?) the entire city a padded cell. The wind is also kicking up on hind haunches and the vroom of snowblowers echo through the building canyons. Oh! There are the geese swimming by in a tightly knit flock, who come back (the little sheebas) to Fulton River to date and mate. Two have already placed dibs on tall wooden pilings at Kinzie Bridge, pilings from one hundred years ago that for some reason, maybe used to guide the heavy barges through and under, still survive. Last summer a barge hit our river retaining wall. Only thing bent was the wrought iron railing, chewed and spit out. (OMG it's almost a white-out at this moment - that is some serious snow! What's happening out east today? Anyone?)

Isn't shyness interesting? I was shy as a youngster. I had some wild and seriously not fun times with several family members which shut me up for a long time. In fact, I did not speak all of my third year! I think writing is a splendid activity for shy people. I also think actors are usually shy folk (as Mimi mentioned). It's all very fascinating.

Catcher was the first of its kind. A paradigm shift/tipping point novel. Unfortunately, it seems to me, most young people (from mega wealth - people are too busy making money!) are neglected (Nanny Diaries) and abandoned into Boarding Schools. Look at Prince Charles! He has spent a great many words on complaining about his Mom's lack of nurturing.

So!

Prince Charles, David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, Paris Hilton, all Eastern Prep School kids, Libbit (Ice Storm), oh man, it's snowing! These real and imagined characters, all Holdens to some degree.

As for Salinger. He lived to be 91. He was doing something right! Maybe reclusives live longer? Is there a study somewhere? Eat your vegetables?