Author J.D. Salinger Dies at 91

J. D. Salinger, whose 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye became one of the most controversial novels of the Cold war era, has died at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.

What can anyone say about Salinger that hasn't been said before? Not a thing! How many teenagers of the 50s and 60s discovered that they weren't alone in wandering through the darkest hours of their individual dark nights of the soul when they found themselves at the side of Holden Caulfield? Only God knows, and he isn't talking. How many other writers found inspiration in Salinger? Far too many to count. How many writers tried to capture, or brazenly copy, Salinger's genius? Too damned many.

Salinger was unprepared for the storm of controversy generated by Catcher, and found it bizarre that his book would alternate between being banned in some school libraries but, a year later, be on that same school's required readings list. A few years after its publication, he reflected on his sadness over that controversy.

"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... It's almost unbearable to me to realize that my book will be kept on a shelf out of their reach..."

J. D. Salinger wrote other novels and short stories, of course, but he was the victim of his own talent. Everything else he wrote was always judged in comparison to Catcher, and everything else he wrote was found lacking. In that respect he once sympathized with Orson Welles: what do you do after Citizen Kane?

In addition to, and perhaps as a reward for, introducing a generation to the virtues of doubt and cynicism, Salinger was made the anti-hero of W.P. Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe, which was later adapted as a screenplay and became the 1989 blockbuster Field of Dreams (If you build it, he will come"). In Field of Dreams, the character of reclusive novelist Terrence "Terry" Graham (James Earl Jones) is modeled on Salinger.

Salinger is reported to have told a neighbor that he had written twenty other novels but had deliberately locked them away inside a safe in his New Hampshire home and vowed that they would never see the light of day while he was alive. If that is indeed true, perhaps only in his passing from this life will his true talent as a writer be recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Salinger.