JD Salinger R.I.P.
Nope, not a spoof thread.
JD Salinger, the Recluse's Recluse, died today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/28/jd-salinger-dies-catcher-rye
Yeah, I know half of you think Catcher in the Rye is overrated. I loved it when I was younger, and still do today.
Plus Franny and Zooey is brilliant.
That's all I got for now...
Oh, I am incredibly saddened. I'm crying so hard right now. He lived to 91 which is decent, but I'm freaking out sad.
Is it weird that as soon as I heard the news on the radio I thought "must get on Cult to announce..." then typed as fast as my spindly little fingers would manage? Then wore my Salinger mask and pulled the boulder over my cave hole and vowed not to come out for a decade?
That's weird, right?
Yes.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Franny and Zooey is one of my favorites.
It's strange, because he was one of those people that - even though we barely heard a peep out of him for years - it was comforting knowing he was still around.
Damnation.
*takes off mask. Rolls back boulder.*
WTF !!
r.i.p.
that sucks, though. i kind of hoped he would one day come into the light a little and chill out on people. but then again, i talked with charles portis yesterday and though he's a nice enough old guy, he's not exactly cheery. so i was fooling myself hoping because i love the little bit of work he has out there.
__________________________________
play hard, like it's work to be done.
Oh dear Christ almighty.
I do not know if I should exist in a world without the likes of him.
I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape. - Sartre
yeah but now we'll get to hear some of his secrets most likely.
After Howard Zinn yesterday, just who will fuel my teenage angst now that I'm 22.
This is horrible. My goal of taking a road trip to New Hampshire and meeting him is now ruined. 
He was such a good writer. I personally prefer "Seymour, and Introduction and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters."
At least some more of his work will be published now.
All I want to know is, who's next!
I'm betting it's Tom Wolfe.
There is hope, but not for us.
Are the scissors broken in your house, son?
The silver lining is that now you won't be going to New Hampshire. 
Technically this doesn't make a big difference since his public profile will stay the same (nonexistant) but it was nice knowing that he was still out there.
I think I'll accuse a stranger of staring at my feet in tribute.
Now there's nothing to stop a CitR movie. Fuck.
It's not easy having a good time.
Even smiling makes my face ache.
Guys... What if Palahniuk dies? Would we even be allowed to be here anymore???!
Now there's nothing to stop a CitR movie. Fuck.
Except for all the years of legal battles, yes!
Wow, I hadn't heard about this. Howard Zinn came to my university several years ago as a guest of the history department and a gave a presentation that I attended in a packed auditorium. He and a small clutch of professors strolled past me on campus some hours before. I guess they were giving him the tour. Some of us made jokes about his travel itinerary, because on either side of humble little Morehead State University, he was due at places like Harvard and Cambridge.
VP - Workshop Dog
Now there's nothing to stop a CitR movie. Fuck.
Except for all the years of legal battles, yes!
Watch it get made by Disney and leave out all the drinking, profanity, and sex and get changed completely except for the carousel and ending analogy. And star Zach Effron. I'm just assuming the worst so I can't be overly disappointed, 'cause it's gonna happen now. Hollywood probably has a zillion Catcher scripts that couldn't go into production b/c Salinger was so stubborn. Whoever inherits those rights will sell out before they wait too long and it becomes public domain.
"[B]eing good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it and sometimes break in two." - Ray Bradbury
Wow, I hadn't heard about this. Howard Zinn came to my university several years ago as a guest of the history department and a gave a presentation that I attended in a packed auditorium. He and a small clutch of professors strolled past me on campus some hours before. I guess they were giving him the tour. Some of us made jokes about his travel itinerary, because on either side of humble little Morehead State University, he was due at places like Harvard and Cambridge.
I'm pretty distraught over Zinn, as "celebrity" deaths go. I admire Salinger's work but his creative output (at least the stuff up for public consumption) ended before I was even born. Zinn just gave a speech about the situation in Haiti a week ago! And he was still actively involved in anti-war efforts. American academia needs a thousand of him.
There is hope, but not for us.
“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”
“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”
“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”
I loved JD Salinger. I loved his writing, and I loved how he finally had the courage to be absolutely nobody.
I used to place my hand on a copy of Nine Stories when I would swear my word to something, because, unlike the christian bible, that book really meant something to me. Swearing on Salinger was more important then swearing on the word of god.
I often felt that no one would ever be able to describe growing up as well as he did. I know I certainly haven't found anyone to match him in describing my own experiences of adolescence. Through his words, he rang out with the perfect tune, without ever sounding like "young adult" fiction (a genre I truly despise). Salinger wrote books for the weird kid growing up. For the kid that was too weird, and too smart to know that they shouldn't be sitting on their bed reading a goddamn book when they are at the peak of raging teenage hormones, and youthful beauty. Even if we did leave the house to participate in the world, we always brought our books. I always had Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, or Raise High the Roof Beam with me.
With those, or Catcher in the Rye, I never felt alone, because someone had the same voice as me. Someone else was too smart, too vulgar, and too angry. Someone else felt like sitting in the bathtub for days at a time, denying their potential and refusing to create, just like I denied mine, and refused to act on creative impulse. Other authors have spoken to my heart, Tom Robbins is one of those, but JD Salinger spoke to that part of me that I don't always want to look at, but have to. He spoke the the loser, procrastinator that's equally afraid of failure as she is of success. And when Mr. Salinger spoke to me through written pages, I never felt that he was judging me, or those like me, just that he was saying he knew we were out there, and this is what we were like.
He was one of my heroes. I wanted to write like him. I wanted beautiful abbreviated stories that said just enough to flow from my hand. I wanted to be able to rock the world in under 300 pages. I wanted to be able to change lives, just like he changed mine. Hopefully, one day, I will.
When I was a little girl I dreamt of making a documentary of all of my favorite living authors, he was top on my list. I planned on going to New York and taking a walk to the subway with Vonnegut, maybe grabbing a bagel and walking to the post office. From there, I would go to New Hampshire. I had elaborate schemes as to how I would get the infamous recluse that was Salinger to open his doors to me, and maybe get him to have a short chat. It's a shame I'll never get to meet him. It's almost like his passing is forcing me to acknowledge that my adolescence is behind me, and that I have to be a big girl now. But, if there is one thing I've learned in almost 20 years of being literate, it's that you never have to grow up all the way; and if you have, you obviously weren't listening well enough.
I loved JD Salinger, I loved his writing,and I loved how it made me feel. It's the first time I can remember where a celebrity death has made me cry. I'm a literature nerd, and I loved this man that achieved his own perfection. I loved him so much that I wish I could throw him in a river.
He wrote every day of his life, or so the story goes. Much of it was stacked up and labeled as "publish after death" or "never publish".
He also drank his own urine.
Weird guy. Shit could he write.
So whos left? Richard Matheson is so old and frail he can't sign books anymore. Harlan Ellison is getting on his years too. Jack Vance is ancient. Soon we'll be left with only Terry Goodkind and Neil Gaimen.
I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape. - Sartre
I changed my mind, I think it's gonna be Updike.
There is hope, but not for us.
I do not know if I should exist in a world without the likes of him.
Second to that! I felt the same with the passing of Vonnegut as well. I fear for my heart when Robbins or Palahniuk go. I don't know if I could take it.
It damn well better not be Pynchon.
My brother just told me that Updike died a year ago yesterday.
I think this means that I killed John Updike.
There is hope, but not for us.
I was just reading this last night:
http://www.momentsintime.com/J%20D%20Salinger.htm
Franny and Zooey was easily one of the greatest books I've ever read. I'll have to re-read it in his honour.
YOU FOOL, you just cast a curse on him!
thanks for sharing.blackhawk tactical pants.
— Spambot
"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon
“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”
“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”
I loved JD Salinger. I loved his writing, and I loved how he finally had the courage to be absolutely nobody.
I used to place my hand on a copy of Nine Stories when I would swear my word to something, because, unlike the christian bible, that book really meant something to me. Swearing on Salinger was more important then swearing on the word of god.
I often felt that no one would ever be able to describe growing up as well as he did. I know I certainly haven't found anyone to match him in describing my own experiences of adolescence. Through his words, he rang out with the perfect tune, without ever sounding like "young adult" fiction (a genre I truly despise). Salinger wrote books for the weird kid growing up. For the kid that was too weird, and too smart to know that they shouldn't be sitting on their bed reading a goddamn book when they are at the peak of raging teenage hormones, and youthful beauty. Even if we did leave the house to participate in the world, we always brought our books. I always had Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, or Raise High the Roof Beam with me.
With those, or Catcher in the Rye, I never felt alone, because someone had the same voice as me. Someone else was too smart, too vulgar, and too angry. Someone else felt like sitting in the bathtub for days at a time, denying their potential and refusing to create, just like I denied mine, and refused to act on creative impulse. Other authors have spoken to my heart, Tom Robbins is one of those, but JD Salinger spoke to that part of me that I don't always want to look at, but have to. He spoke the the loser, procrastinator that's equally afraid of failure as she is of success. And when Mr. Salinger spoke to me through written pages, I never felt that he was judging me, or those like me, just that he was saying he knew we were out there, and this is what we were like.
He was one of my heroes. I wanted to write like him. I wanted beautiful abbreviated stories that said just enough to flow from my hand. I wanted to be able to rock the world in under 300 pages. I wanted to be able to change lives, just like he changed mine. Hopefully, one day, I will.
When I was a little girl I dreamt of making a documentary of all of my favorite living authors, he was top on my list. I planned on going to New York and taking a walk to the subway with Vonnegut, maybe grabbing a bagel and walking to the post office. From there, I would go to New Hampshire. I had elaborate schemes as to how I would get the infamous recluse that was Salinger to open his doors to me, and maybe get him to have a short chat. It's a shame I'll never get to meet him. It's almost like his passing is forcing me to acknowledge that my adolescence is behind me, and that I have to be a big girl now. But, if there is one thing I've learned in almost 20 years of being literate, it's that you never have to grow up all the way; and if you have, you obviously weren't listening well enough.
I loved JD Salinger, I loved his writing,and I loved how it made me feel. It's the first time I can remember where a celebrity death has made me cry. I'm a literature nerd, and I loved this man that achieved his own perfection. I loved him so much that I wish I could throw him in a river.
That is truly beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing that.
Agreed, Mirka.
This is a great line:
You beat me to it! I was just talking about Catcher in the Rye too.
I have Franny and Zooey sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.