J.D. Salinger

PBS has just aired a two-hour documentary on J.D. Salinger, the best-selling author of The Catcher in the Rye … originally published in 1951 … and his book sales have once again soared … see: Twin Cities Link.  This documentary revealed many aspects of this writer’s life I had not known … his military service… his first marriage to a German agent … his writing for the New Yorker … his penchant for young girls … his two children by his second marriage … his egomania.  But it really didn’t explain why his first book, The Catcher, was his only true mega- success … see The Daily Beast Story.

As a high-school tutor west of Boston, I have had to reread this book and discuss it with a few of my students … and, in my opinion, it doesn’t hold up well in today’s society.  Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, spends most of this novel’s verbiage railing against the establishment and its icons … puritanical morality, honoring one’s parents, good sportsmanship, hard work, scholastic achievement, and even, believe it or not, diversity.  Good stuff for a kid of the 50’s and early 60’s, but Holden’s targets have now been relegated to the trash heap of modern society.  Most of his dragons have already been slain.

So Salinger’s obsessive desire for the privacy of rural New Hampshire … with his occasional sought-out ego burnishing by the literati set … had it seems some perceptive rationale. Maybe he understood that his ideas would not really age well.  After his passing last year at age 91, I am still left wondering the fate of his second wife and children.  For more of his life story see: IMDB Entry.