"Gin a body meet a body" J.D. Salinger dead at 91

I loved Catcher in the Rye... I loved Franny and Zoey.... They all were just amazing pieces of literary genius.
I hope they take that big vault of his writings though and just burn it up. Something about reading something no one ever wanted you to see likes that just makes me feel wrong.

 

I disagree, sure it's it's invading his privacy but he's worm meat now it doesn't matter. His books and ideas can help the world, or at the very least add to the canon. Kafka didn't want his books published either but he co-spawned an entire genre of modernist literature post-humorously.

 

I am not sure how many of you have seen Igby Goes Down, but it is a very good movie that was supposedly based on Catcher in the Rye. If you haven't seen it I encourage you to check it out.

 

Supposedly for the past however many years, he has been writing and categorizing his work as such:

1) Not finished
2) Publish as is if I die
3) Publish with editing

So if we believe the sources (his daughter, I believe), he has multiple works that he considered ready-to-be-published.

 

Ed Zachary.

I own it, I recognize it's value in the American Literative Canon, but I thought it was a piece of shit.

 

We had to read this Junior year in High School. At the time I thought it was the best thing to happen to literature. I still consider it one of my favorite books. Judge me as you will.

 

The Onion's take:
Bunch of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger.

I only read Catcher once, and it was quite a while ago, but I did call it my favorite book for a little while. I still consider it a classic.

 

Accounts vary about the number and condition of his unpublished manuscripts, but his daughter's memoir seems to suggest that he wasn't one of those "burn it all when I die" authors, he just hated the hassle of publishing and had already secured a lifetime income in royalties. But, who knows what has changed since the memoir, what his will says, what his agent says, what his kids and wife say, what happens with his stuff at Princeton, etc. Look at what happened with MLK and Arthur Miller's papers. I really hope that his later writings get published in a timely manner.

Its sad that PTSD can so fuck up some really awesome people. R.I.P. J.D.

 

Apparently he labeled manuscripts with colourcodes such as "ready to publish when i die" and "edit first then publish"

 

As I got older I got away from Catcher in the Rye, but I read it twice in high school, once for a class. My favorite book, really, was Franny and Zooey. I loved, loved, loved that bastard Franny. That guy could make me laugh.

Impressionable soul that I am, I really liked Salinger's work because they were so imitable. It was so easy and natural to rub off on his voice and his prose, and they could instill in you a real youthful energy. I guess the real irony is that that makes me a phony and in fact a point of scorn for Holden Caufield, but hey, that's literature.

 

Was sad news to me. Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book of all time, and my oldest son is named Holden after (of course) Holden Caulfield. I actually get really sad, shocked and confused when people ask me how I got his name, and then give me a puzzled look when I tell them it's from that book- as though they've never heard of it.

Others who HAVE read it have said I was setting myself up for disaster by naming him that. So far.. sort of true. Very stubborn, strong willed 2 year old I have.

My one fear now is life imitating art, because my Holden has a younger brother as well. A younger brother who right now is pretty damn sick (so say the doctors. He's happy as can be, just won't eat).

 

That's like naming your kid Orenthal James or Adolf or Mark David Chapman. Keep a watchful eye for when he starts calling people phonies.

 

One of my "friends" named his new son Holden, after the J.D. Salinger character. I sincerely hope that the new Holden isn't as much of an asshole as the character, or his parents, for that matter.

 

From Lamebook.com:

 

This is kind of off topic, but has anyone read Catcher in the Wry? The Bob Uecker biography? It's actually very entertaining.