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tatters
Thumbing through a copy of Ian Hamilton's 1988 book "In Search of J.D. Salinger", a VERY unauthorized biography that Salinger went to court (in PERSON, no less!) to try to prevent from being published. (Salinger did win a court ruling that prevented Hamilton from being able to include any of Salinger's unpublished letters in the book.) It ends up being both a biography AND a book about Salinger's attempts to prevent publication. Very good reading if you're fascinated by recluse types. That's just the thing, really. Salinger WANTED you to be fascinated by his silence, by his mystique. His story is the literary equivalent of a guy like Bob Dylan going into seclusion right after "Freewheelin'", and NEVER returning! A stunt like that would have sold an awful lot of "Freewheelin'" albums, and it DID sell an awful lot of copies of Catcher. See, I think this "recluse" act was a very deliberate, very calculated ruse to MANUFACTURE the kind of mystique that would sell books, and provide the unprolific author a steady income for life without ever having to publish ANYTHING during the last 45 years.
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ccQuote
tatters
Thumbing through a copy of Ian Hamilton's 1988 book "In Search of J.D. Salinger", a VERY unauthorized biography that Salinger went to court (in PERSON, no less!) to try to prevent from being published. (Salinger did win a court ruling that prevented Hamilton from being able to include any of Salinger's unpublished letters in the book.) It ends up being both a biography AND a book about Salinger's attempts to prevent publication. Very good reading if you're fascinated by recluse types. That's just the thing, really. Salinger WANTED you to be fascinated by his silence, by his mystique. His story is the literary equivalent of a guy like Bob Dylan going into seclusion right after "Freewheelin'", and NEVER returning! A stunt like that would have sold an awful lot of "Freewheelin'" albums, and it DID sell an awful lot of copies of Catcher. See, I think this "recluse" act was a very deliberate, very calculated ruse to MANUFACTURE the kind of mystique that would sell books, and provide the unprolific author a steady income for life without ever having to publish ANYTHING during the last 45 years.
do you believe this or are you just imitating Helter? I can't tell...
I think his reclusiveness was real, as real as his misanthropy. Did anyone really buy his books for his reputation as a recluse?--I would say not, but rather for his reputation as an "important" writer.
Catcher in the Rye is a good young adult novel, that's about it. His other stuff is nearly forgotten.
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tatters
Q: Mr. Salinger, when was the last time you wrote any work of fiction for publication?
A: I'm not sure exactly.
<snip>
Q: Maybe an easier way to approach this is, would you tell me what your literary efforts have been in the field of fiction within the last 20 years?
A: Could I tell you or would I tell you? ... Just a work of fiction. That's all. That's the only description I can really give it.... It's almost impossible to define. I work with characters, and as they develop, I just go on from there.
Now if that's not a guy yanking everyone's chain, and TRYING to wrap himself up in a shroud of mystery, I don't know what is.
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swiss
So sad....but he lived a long life, not far from my brother's place in NH.
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misterfriasQuote
swiss
So sad....but he lived a long life, not far from my brother's place in NH.
In the 1960s, he would often cross the Connecticut & eat at Nap's Lunch, a now-defunct burger joint in Windsor, VT. My uncle used to see him there all the time. Supposedly, JD liked to talk to high school students, just not the media.
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tattersQuote
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tatters
Thumbing through a copy of Ian Hamilton's 1988 book "In Search of J.D. Salinger", a VERY unauthorized biography that Salinger went to court (in PERSON, no less!) to try to prevent from being published. (Salinger did win a court ruling that prevented Hamilton from being able to include any of Salinger's unpublished letters in the book.) It ends up being both a biography AND a book about Salinger's attempts to prevent publication. Very good reading if you're fascinated by recluse types. That's just the thing, really. Salinger WANTED you to be fascinated by his silence, by his mystique. His story is the literary equivalent of a guy like Bob Dylan going into seclusion right after "Freewheelin'", and NEVER returning! A stunt like that would have sold an awful lot of "Freewheelin'" albums, and it DID sell an awful lot of copies of Catcher. See, I think this "recluse" act was a very deliberate, very calculated ruse to MANUFACTURE the kind of mystique that would sell books, and provide the unprolific author a steady income for life without ever having to publish ANYTHING during the last 45 years.
do you believe this or are you just imitating Helter? I can't tell...
I think his reclusiveness was real, as real as his misanthropy. Did anyone really buy his books for his reputation as a recluse?--I would say not, but rather for his reputation as an "important" writer.
Catcher in the Rye is a good young adult novel, that's about it. His other stuff is nearly forgotten.
There's a passage in Hamilton's book, I'll try and look for it tomorrow, where it's established that Salinger himself believed much of the fascination with his small body of work was due to his reputation as a recluse. He even made statements to that effect in the court documents. It's kind of a Syd Barrett type of situation. The intense interest in his work is due, to a large degee, to the fact that there is so little of it.
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Sir Craven of Cottage
If JD Salinger had never existed John Lennon would still be alive - not confrontational , just an observation
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Edith Grove
Still, you can see why Salinger's approach to creativity – one unrepeatable work of brilliance, followed by decades of crabby silence – might appeal to past-it rock stars. Salinger published his last work in 1965. You wonder if just occasionally the Rolling Stones, the Cure's Robert Smith, Lou Reed, or any other artist doomed to churn out albums of diminishing quality long after the creative fires have sputtered out, wish they'd made a similar decision, and quit while they were ahead.
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Rockman
Melbourne AGE - 30 January 2010
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Rockman
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slew
tatters - One of the reasons I admire Lennon is because he was NOT a phoney he had conviction. I am on the opposite end of the spectrum but I can respect someone when I feel that they are being honest and have conviction though I always wonder how he wrote Imagine no posessions and he died with an estate estimated at a value of 235 million dollars but I believe he believed in what he was doing.
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misterfriasQuote
swiss
So sad....but he lived a long life, not far from my brother's place in NH.
In the 1960s, he would often cross the Connecticut & eat at Nap's Lunch, a now-defunct burger joint in Windsor, VT. My uncle used to see him there all the time. Supposedly, JD liked to talk to high school students, just not the media.
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misterfrias
In the 1960s, he would often cross the Connecticut & eat at Nap's Lunch, a now-defunct burger joint in Windsor, VT. My uncle used to see him there all the time. Supposedly, JD liked to talk to high school students, just not the media.