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| Yes | 28% | 43 votes | Total: 155 votes | |
| No | 72% | 112 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesWe are on the verge of one of the greatest literary events in American history.
Prediction: J.D. Salinger dies and his publisher releases several previously unpublished works, including at least three novels and a huge number of short stories. It will be unprecedented - perhaps the greatest literary news story of the century. The world will instantly find itself blessed with a huge number of masterful creations from one of America's greatest writers.
Why does this make sense?
1- From all accounts, Salinger is the ultimate artist, from an early age driven to write. He has surely been writing since he stopped publishing after Seymour: An Intro and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. He has no choice in the matter.
2- His reclusive lifestyle should not be taken as contempt for humanity. He is very religious and, as his writings reveal on every page, he has a deep love and compassion for the world. He WANTS to share his creations. He just can't handle the attention while he is alive.
3- Most importantly, in his daughter's memoir, she relates how he let her visit his work study only once in her entire life. During that brief visit, he opened a file cabinet drawer and revealed to her several completed works.
For years, I have been flummoxed by the lack of discussion about this in the literary world and the world at large.
You heard it here first!
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Personally, I hope most of the new work continues the Glass family saga, explored previously in Franny & Zooey, Seymour: An Intro & RHTRBC, and several short stories.
Perhaps we will get another long letter from one of the family members exploring Seymour's suicide in Bananafish, hinting at Salinger's intent and resolving this most curious mystery.
Was Seymour driven by some unknown demon? (Nah ...) Did he end it all because he was just so goddam happy, and it was the perfect moment? Is his death the Great American Zen Koan - it's absurdity spurring us to abandon our linear thinking? A "direct pointing to the soul of man"? Or, did Seymour just think the gun was a novelty cigarette lighter and was scratching an itch? Okay, that's too much.)
Myself, I want Salinger to live another twenty-five years, like a Zen master from the old days, healthy and wise, writing haiku to the moon. His few published works have given me great pleasure in my life and I am more than satisfied. At the same time, I can't help but anticipate.
Thank you, Mr. S.!
Learn more about this author, M. Stone.
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No
Salinger set out to write a "work of fiction"; which with various short story collections he did. But this work of fiction he aspired to turned out to be "The Catcher In The Rye" & with what conflict & strife transpired after that, I think, is the reason J.D. Salinger will never publish another piece after this his 88th year.
He once said that one of the most valuable loans given to a writer during his crafting years are anonymity & obscurity. For his life until "The Catcher In The Rye" this was true. He had short story collections published in book form and literary journal, but he was allowed his portmanteau by these not being anything more than kept narratives with splendid plots & characters that moved seamlessly from the facing stories they were bound between. Come "Catcher" though, and he was now faced with New York Times Book Reviews, critics hailing the book a landmark and an atrocity equally, but ultimately he was yoked to the paraclete he despised: celebrity.
The man went about writing of his life as a boy: honestly, unabashed, gangly. He hoped others would recognize their own youth and that high-school students would as well feel a talking of their own lives. But with the advent of teachers being fired for using the book as a teaching tool, banning the book completely for a spell in foreign locales & schools, a parent scrutinizing the book for numeration of curse words, I believe Salinger underwent entropy from all the chaos and retreated back to a sealed-in life he was familiar with before "Catcher."
He wanted a private life twined with a writing career that allowed him to publish his independent thoughts & mind-scenes. The last bit of whittling down the man happened in my opinion when Ian Hamilton, a British critic, set about scribing a biography of Salinger complete with private letters intended to be intimate correspondance between Salinger and his communicants Hamilton obtained. Salinger attempted to block by suing but ultimately the lawsuit failed and the book was published. It seems Salinger wanted nothing more to do with publishing his work and continuing his voice to a society that seemed bent on turning the man inside-out & scraping him clean of viscera that continues to his day and beyond.
Learn more about this author, Paul Skyrm.
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