Of all the Salinger obituaries, the one in the Onion is probably the most fitting – a great CitR parody with an undercurrent of truth. How did this guy build a monumental rep on the basis of one novel, a couple of novellas, and a handful of short stories? Simple: he became a mystery man, a legendary recluse. This got him a page-and-a-half in the NYT? The only photo they had to run was his old CitR jacket portrait, which he insisted on having removed from later printings. The appreciation on the editorial page added: “His half-century of solitude and silence was a creative act in itself, requiring extraordinary force of will.” Which I think is a total crock; the guy was just an introvert and wanted to be left alone.
But let’s face it: for Salinger to have been able to quit writing and go live on 90 acres in New Hampshire he had to have made just oodles ’n oodles of money with Catcher in the Rye. And for a book published in 1951 based on the author’s experiences in the 1930s to have stayed in print this long – well, that has to tell you something too. What it tells you, I think, is that people who grew up revering Holden Caulfield as the epitome of rebellion ended up teaching and foisting the book on new generations of readers, for whom Holden was maybe not as cool as he was for their teachers. Not as cool as Harry Potter, I’d wager.
That leaves Thomas Pynchon as reigning literary recluse, and when he goes we’ll get to see his Navy photo in the paper unless Melanie Jackson coughs up a more recent family snapshot. The price of celebrity is privacy. And for those who wish to safeguard it, no excuses are necessary.
But let’s face it: for Salinger to have been able to quit writing and go live on 90 acres in New Hampshire he had to have made just oodles ’n oodles of money with Catcher in the Rye. And for a book published in 1951 based on the author’s experiences in the 1930s to have stayed in print this long – well, that has to tell you something too. What it tells you, I think, is that people who grew up revering Holden Caulfield as the epitome of rebellion ended up teaching and foisting the book on new generations of readers, for whom Holden was maybe not as cool as he was for their teachers. Not as cool as Harry Potter, I’d wager.
That leaves Thomas Pynchon as reigning literary recluse, and when he goes we’ll get to see his Navy photo in the paper unless Melanie Jackson coughs up a more recent family snapshot. The price of celebrity is privacy. And for those who wish to safeguard it, no excuses are necessary.
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