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A big deal and the passing of an icon, to be sure, but I always thought The Catcher in the Rye was pretty overrated.

wilson wrote:A big deal and the passing of an icon, to be sure, but I always thought The Catcher in the Rye was pretty overrated.

At least Terence Mann still lives:

I had no idea he was still alive. Then again, I'm not a fan of his work so his being alive or not isn't something that I would've paid much attention to.

colchar wrote:I had no idea he was still alive. Then again, I'm not a fan of his work so his being alive or not isn't something that I would've paid much attention to.

He lived as a hermit in rural New Hampshire for something like the last three decades of his life. There are at least rumors that he was interested only in writing for himself, but that he catalogued and preserved everything for his family to do with it what they pleased upon his death. Could be interesting...his short stories were held in pretty high regard for at least a time. I'd probably check them out if any ever surfaced.
Of course, this is not as cool as the current pursuits of Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes (which I love). Supposedly one of the main reasons he quit doing C&H was because he found the fanatical fan base off-putting. Like Salinger, he supposedly just wants to make art for himself. So he gets up in the morning, draws whatever he wants to draw for the day, and then burns it.
This is again apocryphal, but as my thesis advisor Carl always says, "Apocryphal means that if it isn't true, it should be."

wilson wrote:There are at least rumors that he was interested only in writing for himself, but that he catalogued and preserved everything for his family to do with it what they pleased upon his death. Could be interesting...

The plot thickens...
http://www.accessatlanta.com/celebritie ... id=thbz_hm

Interesting read! I sit back and wonder why sometimes people of such talent and capability go into seclusion and "seem" to live a life of a hermit. Why did the "Catcher in the Rye" force him to seclusion, anyone know?

cl15876 wrote:Interesting read! I sit back and wonder why sometimes people of such talent and capability go into seclusion and "seem" to live a life of a hermit. Why did the "Catcher in the Rye" force him to seclusion, anyone know?

I think there's something telling in the themes of that book itself. Holden Caulfield speaks repeatedly of the "phonies" with which he believes himself to be surrounded, and I think it's safe to say that Salinger felt the same way about the real world. Soon after Catcher's publication, he spoke of the publishing world as an unpleasant, one might say invasive one. As I mentioned before, he said he derived only inward pleasure from writing, and he apparently found the process of sharing (let alone disseminating) his writing objectionable. I find this selfish and strange, but it was his life. In my eyes, it's still more illustration that the myth of the tortured genius is not so much of a myth.