dead J. D. Salinger

[Canadian Paul 97]

Here is a kinda recvent photgraph of him.

 

Whoa, where'd you get THAT?

[RonPrice 0]

I have posted this piece that found its origins in Salinger, just to place one of the issues that his life raises on this thread. As someone who was a teacher for 30 years and as someone who is more than a little aware that many know little to nothing about Salinger, I post this item here. I was 8 when Catcher hit the market and it was many years later that I frist read that book.

____________________________________________________

WITHDRAWAL AND RETURN

 

Many writers, artists, poets, people in the world of culture and the arts, go into seclusion after their early successes. In a radio program today, Arts Today, two such writers were mentioned: J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon. Others go into seclusion later in their careers. It is part of a general pattern which the historian Arnold Toynbee calls "withdrawal-and-return." Others call the axis along which specific changes or rhythms take place 'approach-and-separation.' Sometimes the artist will withdraw and never return. Sometimes he will return or approach in a more moderate way than he had originally. I have, recently, withdrawn or separated from quite an intense milieux of employment and community work and I have returned in a moderate way. The pressure of the times predisposed me to go inward. This process works in solitude and is, for the most part, not observable to others. Insight comes from an inner gestation, a Socratic wisdom associated with knowing yourself, a personal growth. Reversal brings drama, change, intensification, landmarks on a personal quest. -Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, 29 March 2001.

 

Shocking public events

have inspired this poetic,

catastrophic happenings

to someone born in 1944,

to someone who tried

to find the Kingdom

come with power

and has now seen

nearly half a century

of its slow establishment

around the world.

 

Here are enough themes

to occupy the time, energy

and genius of a dozen historians,

the inspiration from another realm,

a most wonderful and thrilling motion,

fifty years of it, drying out my

intellectual eyes with a series of

barren fields and psychically

winding my mind with a new fertility

that surpassed all that I had experienced

in life and filled my days

with a revivifying breath

or I would have died in

the wasteland without a wimper.

 

Ron Price 30 March 2001

[Boudicca 702]

Welcome back, Mr Price!

 

Good to see you.

 

I trust you're coping with the door handles these days, as you seem to be fairly settled.

 

All the best.

 

Bou

[Life Begins at 5 o'clock 7]

Why Salinger? Has he had any health scares? Aside from being a recluse he doesn't seem to have any other odd/dangerous habits. If the powers that be were set on picking an auther a better choice - to me - would have been Kurt Vonnegut, a smoker, chronically depressed, who complains that everyone he knows has been dying off. Not to long ago I read someplace that he had tried to kill himself again. Don't have a link for it unfortunately, but suicide seems to be something he makes a stab more frequently than most people.

[Canadian Paul 97]

Why Salinger? Has he had any health scares? Aside from being a recluse he doesn't seem to have any other odd/dangerous habits. If the powers that be were set on picking an auther a better choice - to me - would have been Kurt Vonnegut, a smoker, chronically depressed, who complains that everyone he knows has been dying off. Not to long ago I read someplace that he had tried to kill himself again. Don't have a link for it unfortunately, but suicide seems to be something he makes a stab more frequently than most people.

 

One need not understand or even accept the Death List, only tolerate it.

 

As we found out with Richard Pryor, the list occassionaly works in mysterious ways.

[Life Begins at 5 o'clock 7]

Point of order, writing doesn't indicate health, it's not like being a musician or entertainer. Since it's much more sedentary you can still do it long after your physical prowess has departed. Stephen Hawking is an example.

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

Don't knock Stephen Hawking, he pulled a new woman when all he had to offer was a little head movement and the limited reflexes in his fingers, well that and a few million in the bank.

 

Incidentally, writing well does indicate something about good health in that your brain is still firing on all six. The way I see it, writers often stay interested and motivated into old age and that fires their immune systems when others just waste away. Something must be firing Kurt Vonnegut's immune system if he's publishing a book after 71 years as an unrepentant smoker.

[Tomb raider 9]

He explained two friends from his children's generation "rescued" him by persuading him to write again.

"They did for me what Jesus did for Lazarus," he said.

"I really was so dead I stunk, but now here I am back here at the age of 83."

 

 

Wow, it seems that Vonnegut almost turned out to be a miss for the list!

[Life Begins at 5 o'clock 7]

Don't knock Stephen Hawking, he pulled a new woman when all he had to offer was a little head movement and the limited reflexes in his fingers, well that and a few million in the bank.

 

He's got the habit of getting into abusive relationships. I hear he's going to appear on the Jerry Springer Show soon. "You beat me and I'm cheating in another dimension" I believe is the theme.

[beebee 1]

Don't knock Stephen Hawking, he pulled a new woman when all he had to offer was a little head movement and the limited reflexes in his fingers, well that and a few million in the bank.

 

He's got the habit of getting into abusive relationships. I hear he's going to appear on the Jerry Springer Show soon. "You beat me and I'm cheating in another dimension" I believe is the theme.

 

 

 

i was going to make a clever, but rude remark here. but i won't, which is not like me at all.

 

sh was on star trek-tng once.

 

if he goes on jerry springer his iq will drop, like a million points, won't it?

 

apparently, he has an album out now, too

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

To those of you unfamiliar with the great man's rap works I think the following review posted on Amazon might prove useful.

 

This stuff is frickin hilarious, Its just a load of rap about science but spoken in computer language (i.e. Hawking language)

 

You have to hear it to comprehend its full hilarity so i seriously advise you to get it or at least download a few tracks first.

 

Especially liked "Fu** The Creationists" and "Entropy" very clever

 

If Steve ever gets bored studying black holes, there's always going to be a place for him in the music industry - 'Big up' MC Hawking

 

Sadly Amazon offers a clip of every track except the real winner: 'F**k the Creationists.' One track: 'Crazy as F**k' includes the totally sublime line...'My dick is twice as long as my attention span.'

 

Highly recommended and a current favourite at MPFC Towers.

[Bennett_Cerf 2]

I recall the first time I read Catcher In The Rye. It was not a particularly well written book and I must admit that I subsequently used it for fireplace kindlestart a few pages at a time.

[Guest LilMimi]

Well we had a big author death with Mickey Spillane. Now if only we could get J.D. Sallinger to be a DL author success.

[Holy Diver 0]

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was 16 I think. The book really clicked with me, and I really quite enjoyed it. In fact, I didn't realise it was set in the 50s until someone told me. The book seemed to reflect so many feelings and experiences that felt familiar to me. Although ultimately nihilistic, and not exactly a happy ending, I found the book quite cathartic and enjoyed it a lot. Sadly, that is the only book I've really enjoyed by Salinger. 'The laughing man' wasn't bad, but it wasn't brilliant by any standards. JD Salingers career seemed to climax with 'Catcher in the Rye' which is a shame seeings as it's one of the first books he wrote.

 

If he's any good at being a recluse, then he might already be dead without our knowledge...

[Tempus Fugit 214]

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was 16 I think. The book really clicked with me, and I really quite enjoyed it. In fact, I didn't realise it was set in the 50s until someone told me. The book seemed to reflect so many feelings and experiences that felt familiar to me. Although ultimately nihilistic, and not exactly a happy ending, I found the book quite cathartic and enjoyed it a lot. Sadly, that is the only book I've really enjoyed by Salinger. 'The laughing man' wasn't bad, but it wasn't brilliant by any standards. JD Salingers career seemed to climax with 'Catcher in the Rye' which is a shame seeings as it's one of the first books he wrote.

 

If he's any good at being a recluse, then he might already be dead without our knowledge...

Yep he's the Orson Welles of fiction writing. He peaked so young and the rest was downhill. It must be a bugger trying to live up to your own reputation.

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

Somebody once described him as the best mind that never left grade school, in other words a superb writer with the maturity of an adolescent.

 

Maybe the forty year silence is the longest artistic strop in history.

[Magere Hein 1,400]

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was 16 I think. The book really clicked with me, and I really quite enjoyed it. In fact, I didn't realise it was set in the 50s until someone told me. The book seemed to reflect so many feelings and experiences that felt familiar to me. Although ultimately nihilistic, and not exactly a happy ending, I found the book quite cathartic and enjoyed it a lot. Sadly, that is the only book I've really enjoyed by Salinger. 'The laughing man' wasn't bad, but it wasn't brilliant by any standards. JD Salingers career seemed to climax with 'Catcher in the Rye' which is a shame seeings as it's one of the first books he wrote.

 

If he's any good at being a recluse, then he might already be dead without our knowledge...

Welcome to DeathList Forum, Holy Diver.

 

I haven't read Catcher in the Rye, but I did read Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, all fine books.

 

regards,

Hein

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

Aye, Nine Stories has some corkers, especially 'Banafish' the opener and 'Teddy' the final story, both appear to end on suicides.

 

Wonder of John Hogan's reading it for a little light relief in his psychiatric ward.

[Alphonsin 1]

Wonder of John Hogan's reading it for a little light relief in his psychiatric ward.

 

I'd say this was more likely:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Balcony-Stories/dp...TF8&s=books

 

Or in his more reflective moments:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jumping-Through-Cl...TF8&s=books

[Banshees Scream 110]

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was 16 I think. The book really clicked with me, and I really quite enjoyed it. In fact, I didn't realise it was set in the 50s until someone told me. The book seemed to reflect so many feelings and experiences that felt familiar to me. Although ultimately nihilistic, and not exactly a happy ending, I found the book quite cathartic and enjoyed it a lot. Sadly, that is the only book I've really enjoyed by Salinger. 'The laughing man' wasn't bad, but it wasn't brilliant by any standards. JD Salingers career seemed to climax with 'Catcher in the Rye' which is a shame seeings as it's one of the first books he wrote.

 

If he's any good at being a recluse, then he might already be dead without our knowledge...

 

 

I haven't read Catcher in the Rye,

 

regards,

Hein

 

It's a strange book, told from the main charectors point of view 'Holden' - He is an emotionally disturbed teenager and is very confused. An example would be him paying for the company of a hooker but instead of sex, just small talk. Or how he describes most people as being 'Phoney' it is a condition among a certain age which at a subconcious degree, could be rather popular.

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

Cheers Alphonsin, maybe Mr Hogan listens to The Fall whilst he's reading his copy of Balcony Stories.

[Alphonsin 1]

maybe Mr Hogan listens to The Fall whilst he's reading his copy of Balcony Stories.

 

Indeed. Or perhaps Tom Petty's Free Falling

Or Out The Window by Violent Femmes?

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

I think Ozzy Osbourne's 'Suicide Solution' is in heavy rotation on his iPod today.

[Banshees Scream 110]

Lot's of people who claim to be able to relate strongly with Holden Caulfield have problems with depression. I relate to Holden, but that's because I'm still a teenager, and am still looking for things in the adult world, that I perceive should be there, but aren't. Catcher in the Rye is my all time favourite book right now, because I can relate to so many of the themes in it, the death of innocence, being untrusting of adults, the desire to run away from the world, are all things that most teenagers experience, so it's no real wonder so many people love the book. It's letting go of that teenage phase that some people find difficult, and often ends up causing severe social problems (eg Mark Chapman, and John Hinckley Jr) they see the book as a justification for holding on to that perception of the world, which is inappropriate as they become adults, because they are in effect have to become what they mistrust; adults.

 

I believe the base of Holden Caulfield's problems were that his older brother died of leukemia, it was what led to his near emotional breakdown. If that happens to a person, especially a young person it could effect there mental state beyond knowing. It affected him socially, to the point where he could not understand reality, and it made him a hypocrite, but only to the eyes of others. I think many people can relate to his feelings, in the book I remember some part where he didn't get along with his roomate, but would actually hang out with him because there was nobody else to hang out with. He was so caught up in his head he wasn't even aware of what was going on around him. I believe that when a persons hope never becomes what they dream, they lose touch with everything. The genius that JD Salinger brought was he he gave us a concept of reality, and just as we all live anger and sadness and happiness, we may have lived this, and he put it into pages.

[maryportfuncity 10,645]

The base of Holden's problems - to summarise to a great extent - is that his creator - Salinger - possesses the greatest mind never to leave school, sort of thing. It's just as much a book about J.D's fears as it is about a fictional character.