In 1961, seven years after J.D. Salinger began his lifelong, self-imposed exile from public life, John Updike described the author as "a uniquely relevant literary artist." Whether Salinger thought Updike's statement was a compliment or a slight is irrelevant. Criticism, publicity,...
[more]In 1961, seven years after J.D. Salinger began his lifelong, self-imposed exile from public life, John Updike described the author as "a uniquely relevant literary artist." Whether Salinger thought Updike's statement was a compliment or a slight is irrelevant. Criticism, publicity, or praise -- Salinger despises it all.
Born and raised in Manhattan, Jerome David Salinger started out in literary life writing impeccably crafted short stories for publications like The New Yorker. However, it wasn't until his novel "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951) introduced America to the irresistible teen angst of Holden Caulfield that Salinger became a celebrity. The novel made waves with its masterful construction of speech. Salinger's use of realistic language stunned critics and enraged "moral crusaders," who were shocked by Caulfield's liberal abuse of four-letter words. Salinger's alienated adolescent is an antihero, rejecting the mainstream as a corrupt institution, both deadened and deadening.
The innocence of uninitiated youth and the ugliness of adult society are recurrent themes in Salinger's work. 1961's "Franny and Zooey" (one of several texts about the fictional Glass family) frames a young woman's internal crisis with America's mid-century spell of paranoid isolationism and repressive conservativism. Once again, characters' speech patterns are key, as dialogue is the driving force behind the narrative progression.
Salinger's work is very much a product of its time; the early 1960s saw an America that was preoccupied with the psychological, placing emotion before action. In his review of "Franny and Zooey," John Updike firmly placed Salinger at the center of the new, shy America: "His fiction in its rather grim bravado, its humor, its morbidity, its wry but persistent hopefulness matches the shape and tint of present American life."
For his own part, Salinger had no interest in being at the center of anything. In 1953, he retreated to Cornish, New Hampshire, soon refusing to publish any new work. Though he insists that he continues to write, his last printed words came out in 1965 (a New Yorker piece called "Hapworth 16, 1924"). Meanwhile, his vehement attempts to protect his private life have often backfired: his 1980s court battles to stop the publication of his biography simply generated more unwanted attention. Salinger can occasionally be seen in public, attending court depositions or visiting his two children, but one suspects he will valiantly resist the American cult of personality to the bitter end.
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