J.D. Salinger, You Goddam Phony

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, for a guy who's supposedly dead, you've been in the news an awful lot.

And for a guy who mostly hid out in his hermit hole, coming out on occasion to scream at trespassers, get eggs and coffee and shoot the shit about the weather at the local place in town, and gawk at the girls at the high school, you've been getting a lot of how ya' doins by all those folks who you probably wouldn't give the time of day.

Seems to me that all that talk of phonies (I mean, who talks like that?) seems, how should I put it? hypocritical now that you're back on the literary circuit. When's your next book coming out, anyway?

I keep seeing folks on the train reading your previous work. As if you're going to rehash that old tripe! I mean aren't the Glass family pretty much half empty at this point? Off to the vapor, with you Zooey. And don't forget to send Esme a bit more squalor, Seymour. Bananafish, bah!

Jerry, you've found a new family to write about, right? The people of New York became boring long ago. But what's been going on down at the Cornish, New Hampshire, Post Office? What have you been listening to down at the barbers where you get your ponytail waxed? No, that probably wasn't you, actually. But it coulda been.

I don't know, Jerry, I think you've probably got it all wrong. You actually can't stay locked in the 1950s and '60s. Literature needs to breath or else it gets really dusty. But then that might have explained your penchant for younger women. Keeps us young, they say. But, Jerry, you were 91 years old when you died! Goddam, that's pretty friggin old.

Still, you did ok, man, God love ya. Maybe it's all right that you might have new works come out as long as you don't have to deal with the media freak show that would have occurred if you'd actually had them appear during your lifetime. Maybe your kids will go into seclusion in your stead if new works by you emerge from your Cornish cave.

Hey, stranger things have happened.

Ad Astra, Jerry

By now, you've probably heard that J.D. Salinger has died.

Rest in peace, you old curmudgeon. It's a goddam shame.

My thoughts go out also to my high school English teacher, Robert Kaplow (who wrote the novel that became Me and Orson Welles). I remember how hard he took it when Welles died. I can only imagine how much tougher it is for him now that his biggest literary hero has typed The End.

Salinger 2009?

I can't help but wonder why the New York Times posted someone's book report on J.D. Salinger. Ok, perhaps that's unfair, but would this recent article — a fairly lengthy one that appeared on the final day of 2008 — have been published if it weren't the end of the year?

Now, it's true that Salinger's birthday was on Thursday; he turned 90 on New Year's, so an argument can be made that there's a news hook to attach to the piece. But otherwise, it's primarily a review of Salinger's last published short story. At times, the piece seems eager to poke at Salinger, to prod him as though he might start publishing again.

But honestly, what's the point? He's 90 and whether he's healthy and vital or old and infirm, he has made his place in the world of literature. If there is anything of his to publish after his death — and I suspect there will be — then why hustle in that new era of regard for Mr. Salinger.

There will be at least three periods of Salinger: his active writing, during which he penned some of the greatest short stories and wrote The Catcher in the Rye, where he developed at least one of the most enduring characters in American literature; his quiescence, during which Salinger was an enigma; and his literary resurrection. We don't know what will come of this next life. For sure, there'll be new devotees who emerge. He may come to redefine American literature again. Or he may show that he has been truly a hermit and his work has not advanced but merely rehashes his Glass families foibles, leaving Salinger like some sad scientist who can't turn away from his samples to see how the real world is changing.

Of course, I will read the next Salinger – living, dead, somewhere between or above. What writer wouldn't? Goddam, he's J.D. Salinger! But the thing about great literary writers is that they survive forever, regardless of when their bodies start to decompose. It's their minds that zombies like me devour.

So, I suppose I've answered my own question — the one about the book report and the Times. Because there's other people like me out there who love to read about J.D. Salinger, even if he hasn't published a word in four decades.

When Cheeky Is Passé

I was a bit surprised by a description of A Catcher in the Rye in this piece by Joe Queenan. He referred to the "passé cheekiness" of the book that is almost universally lauded as the perfect coming of age novel, the mot juste of the self-important American teenager. While I enjoyed the book the one time I read it, it didn't quite strike me as that; I thought perhaps I'd missed something. Maybe I did. I preferred A Perfect Day for Bananafish, myself.

The article is about the torment of summer reading assignments, especially as they are inflicted upon teenage boys. I enjoyed some of my summer reading, and I obviously still read a lot today.

Please share your most hated, most loved summer reading assignments.