Waiting for Salinger

JD Salinger died today at age 91, which came as a bit of a surprise, since I had no idea he was still alive.

The first time I read Catcher in the Rye was last August, which was too bad, since I suspect that if I had read it much earlier (read: when I was still filled with gripping teenage angst and disenchantment), I would have loved it. That being said, there is no question it’s a classic, and that Salinger is a phenomenal writer. He also hadn’t published anything since the mid-60s, which is why I assumed he was dead, and why I’m so excited to see what happens with his unpublished work. On one hand, it almost certainly exists, but on the other, some authors have a habit of wanting their work destroyed after death (see also: Vladmir Nabokov’s Original of Laura), and hopefully Salinger doesn’t fall into the later category. Though that doesn’t necessarily mean their wishes will be respected (see also: Vladmir Nabokov’s Original of Laura).

Christopher Tayler writes, in the Guardian,

“Salinger’s silence since 1965 has invited a lot of speculation. Like Thomas Pynchon, but perhaps less deliberately, he turned himself into a cardinal symbol of the cultural refusenik in an age of non-privacy: someone famous for not wanting to be famous.

What was doing for all that time? Was he writing? And, if so, can we see it? We will perhaps get some answers soon. All the same, it’s hard not to hope that he left behind some insoluble legal-literary tangle. Apart from the potential for disappointment, finding out the truth would be like Godot showing up.”

On the other hand, in Salinger’s 1974 interview with the New York Times, he said,

“There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. … It’s peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure. … I don’t necessarily intend to publish posthumously, but I do like to write for myself. … I pay for this kind of attitude. I’m known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I’m doing is trying to protect myself and my work.”

Which seems a little ambiguous. And so far, the best news from various publishers is, “No comment.”