Atleast for my generation, he definitely was a cult when we were
adolescents - holden caulfield was my cyber id/password for many years
:)
Though now my favorite now is Franny and Zooey - I have tremendously
enjoyed Catcher in the Rye - when I read it - it had assumed almost
biblical proportions to many of my peer group in school
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/28/jd-salinger-dies-catcher-rye
JD Salinger dies, aged 91
Catcher in the Rye author JD Salinger has died of natural causes at
his home in New Hampshire
* Buzz up!
* Digg it
* Chris McGreal in Washington
* The Guardian, Friday 29 January 2010
* Article history
JD Salinger
JD Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, 1951. Photograph: AP
JD Salinger, who shocked one generation and inspired another with a
classic novel of teenage rebellion, has died at home in New Hampshire,
aged 91.
The writer, who avoided publicity and did not publish an original work
over the past 45 years, was the creator of Holden Caulfield, the
delinquent, alienated antihero of The Catcher in the Rye, which became
required reading for generations of teenagers after its publication in
1951.
But in recent years his reputation was tarnished by two accounts, one
by a former lover and the other by one of Salinger's daughters, who
painted him as a controlling and unpleasant eccentric.
The Catcher in the Rye was praised by the New York Times on
publication as "an unusually brilliant first novel". But while an
instant hit with many, who related to its tale of adolescent angst and
adult hypocrisy, it was met with alarm in other quarters. Some school
boards made it required reading. Others banned it amid protests from
parents over swearing – including the frequent use of "goddam" and,
more rarely, "fuck" – as well as the bad example they believed
Caulfield set.
Four years after the novel's publication, Salinger expressed
disappointment that the book, which he acknowledged was based on his
own upbringing, had met with some hostility.
"I'm aware that a number of my friends will be saddened, or shocked,
or shocked-saddened, over some of the chapters of The Catcher in the
Rye. Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all of my best
friends are children," he wrote in 20th Century Authors. "It's almost
unbearable to me to realise that my book will be kept on a shelf out
of their reach."
John Lennon's murderer, Mark Chapman, cited The Catcher in the Rye as
an inspiration for the killing in 1980.
Salinger published other books, including the well-received Nine
Stories and Franny and Zooey, before he became an almost total
recluse. His last published work, Hapworth 16, 1924, was printed in
the New Yorker in 1965.
Ten years ago, it was revealed that Salinger had a secret cache of
about 15 novels which had never been published. In his last interview,
in 1980, he said that he wrote only for himself.
His literary agent Phyllis Westberg declined to comment last night on
whether the novels still exist, or are likely to be published.
In 1986, Salinger won an injunction against the publication of a
collection of his letters. During the case, which went to the US
supreme court, he was asked what he had been working on for the
previous 20 years. "Just a work of fiction," he said. "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."
Salinger was born in New York on New Year's Day 1919. His father, of
Polish Jewish origin, became wealthy importing cheese and meat; his
mother posed as Jewish, and he did not find out that she was not until
after his barmitzvah. He had his own troubled history in various
schools until he was dispatched at 15 to Valley Forge military
academy. There he began writing at night using a torch under his bed
covers and published his first story in a fiction magazine in 1940.
He submitted a number of stories to the New Yorker which were
rejected, including one called I Went to School With Adolf Hitler. But
the magazine did accept a later story about a disaffected teenager
called Holden Caulfield, the first time the character appeared.
In 1942 he was conscripted to fight in the second world war and took
part in the Normandy landings. He married a German woman while serving
with the occupation forces after the defeat of Hitler. They moved to
America but the marriage fell apart. Salinger took up Zen Buddhism.
He found fame disagreeable, and the year after the publication of his
most famous novel he left New York City for the town of Cornish, New
Hampshire. There he remarried, to Claire Douglas, had two children,
and then divorced in 1967.
In 1998, the writer Joyce Maynard published an account of her
eight-month affair with Salinger in which she described his
controlling personality. Two years later, one of his daughters,
Margaret, wrote that he was a recluse who drank his own urine and
spoke in tongues.
--
Bobby Kunhu http://community.eldis.org/myshkin/Blog/
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