J.D. Salinger Shall Return

We're almost finished July and as yet there are still no new J.D. Salinger books being released! I heard they'd be released by 2020. Get a move on you slow pokes! Before everybody who wants to read anything new by the man is dead. We're assured by Salinger's son, who whets fans' appetites with promises of more news of the Glass family and even Holden Caulfield, yet for a decade has obdurately left us with the extant stories, that he is working "as fast as he freaking can." Not a chip off the proverbial block. If he'd said, "as fast as he Goddamn can," he'd have been more convincing.

Short of world war, global catastrophe or Jesus' return, the long awaited release of a half century of my favourite author's writing should prove to be the most significant event in the latter half of my life. And like most major events in my life, it has been tantalizingly delayed. Read into that what you like.

Imagine if J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter, maybe the first two, then waited 50 years to finish the series. Choose an author: Tolkien just wrote "The Hobbit;" George R.R. Martin just wrote "A Song of Ice and Fire;" Stephen King just wrote "Carrie," "Salem's Lot" and "The Shining;" Tom Robbins only wrote "Another Roadside Attraction;" what if Shakespeare only wrote "Taming of the Shrew" and a couple of "Henries?" … and then spent 50 years writing in seclusion keeping us in excruciating suspense? Well that's just how I roll, folks. You should know that about me by now. I happened to choose as my favourite author, the most frustrating bastard a fella could possibly have chosen. Thanks for that Jerry!

Oh, how can I stay mad at old J.D.? Given all his eccentricities as a person, not the least of which was his reclusiveness, a trait I have termed in my own life "leave-me-aloneliness," he has written one HELLUVA first act! I have an endless list of questions about what lies ahead! But that, I gotta believe, is the method to all Salinger's madness. Some authors, like John Kennedy Toole, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac, Emily Bronte may have died before their greatest works were written. So they're dead. There's no way of knowing. There's a satisfactory finality in that. It's a bit frustrating but whatareyagonnado?

With Salinger, his greatest work may have existed unpublished for 50 years! FITTY YEARS! It's WORSE than if he had died! I could have enjoyed it for fifty years. Well, the world could have. I wouldn't have discovered it till college but a good thirty years of my favourite book could have been denied me already! In this way it will almost be a relief if when all of his new/old stuff is released, it absolutely stinks, but I am almost positive it won't. I think he was just rounding into top form when he "went away." Why do I think this? There is so much the average person doesn't know about the few writings of this Prospero with a pen! I don't want to get myself all worked up only to have to wait another year, but it's so hot today, I could anonymously drink Tom Collins' with the family of the bride my brother just left at the altar. < Probably the funniest of Salingers' short stories in which Buddy, Seymour Glass' brother, and sole representative of his family to make it to his wedding, invites infuriated members of his would-be wife's family to his apartment for drinks after they learn that Seymour got cold feet. (In the end Seymour and Muriel elope only to have Seymour blow his head off on his honeymoon after a girl from his hotel pretends to see a rare bananafish Seymour had made up) There is just so MUCH! So with nothing better to do, on a day unfit for man or bananafish, I suppose I'll catch you up a bit if you'll allow me. Beware lest you too become an unsatisfied fan held hostage by his family.

I suppose we should start with "Catcher." Everybody knows "Catcher in the Rye" and thinks since it is so well known, it's the best thing he ever wrote and the best he ever will. You're not a true fan if you do. If you are, you'll understand that this novel is just an aside, a mere footnote, a book written by the second best writer in the Glass family, Buddy Glass. Much like his hero and contemporary, who he met, shared "Catcher" with and received rave reviews from, Ernest Hemingway, Salinger's short stories are his strong suit. I didn't even like Hemingway's books. Being intentionally wooden does not translate to "macho" or cleverly stylistic in my opinion. Many, including Salinger, would disagree. But I DID like Hemingway's short stories. And I include "The Old Man And The Sea" as just a long short story. The aforementioned "Raise High The Roof Beams Carpenters" was also a long short story. Call it a novella if it makes you more comfortable, but both these guys were aces at the short story!

Most of us know the shady reports of several killers, most notably Mark David Chapman, who assassinated John Lennon then read directly from the book during his hearing. Robert John Bardo, Lee Harvey Oswald, and John Hinkley (HEY a guy with only two names!) who either murdered or attempted to murder Rebecca Schaeffer, JFK, and Ronald Reagan respectively, have also been linked to the book. Ironically its largely overlooked theme of finding joy (Phoebe, Holden's sister) amidst the suffering of life make this book less doom and gloom than people think. But it probably needs to be tempered with the knowledge of some eastern philosophy that the BEST writer, nay poet, nay SEER of the Glass family, Seymour (who really does see more) exudes. In short, don't read "Catcher" till you've read "Nine Stories" "Seymour an Intro," "Roofbeams," "Franny and Zooey" and "Hapworth 16 1924." And there are several more stories that are harder to access that might shed some light on the whole story. For instance, I sincerely hope that the short story only available at the Princeton library entitled, "The Last and Best of the Peter Pans," a story about Vincent Caulfield, Holden's older brother, discovering that his mother had hidden his draft card is included in the new writings. He's angry but his mother mentions brother Kenneth who has already been killed in the war. Holden is briefly mentioned and there is a reference to babies crawling off a cliff. The mother was trying to protect her child. The title, "Catcher in the Rye" is from an old negro spiritual that goes, "When a body catch a body runnin' through the rye." And it's about kids running through grain higher than their heads toward a cliff, but they can't see. They need a "Catcher."

Ah ha! See how it all starts to come together? In this body of work, you are constantly feeling like a detective trying to piece the story together. Like, for instance, the part about Seymour being kicked off the radio show, "It's a Wise Child," for saying the Gettysburg Address was basically dishonest. He contended that 51,112 men were casualties at Gettysburg and "if someone had to speak at the anniversary of the event, he should simply have come forward and shaken his fist at his audience and then walked off-that is, if the speaker were an absolutely honest man." I am, however, quite certain John Wilkes Booth (why do so many assassins have three names?) did NOT read "Catcher in the Rye." But could this have contributed to the other killers' interpretation of Salinger's writing that triggered their murder attempts? Again, ah ha!

I got interested in Salinger by reading "Nine Stories" in high school. It is the best way to start your J.D. Salinger journey. I have three times given my copy of "Nine Stories" away. It is a book that SHOULD be given away if my reading of it is accurate. Like Waker, one of the Glass twins, gives away his expensive, brand new bike. His twin brother Walt, the college boyfriend of Eloise Wengler, was described in "Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut," (from Nine Stories) as the sweetest, funniest man she ever knew. Walt was killed in WWII. Waker spent WWII in a conscientious objector camp and went on to become a Carthusian Monk.

In another story, the narrator, Buddy Glass, goes to a college in Montreal to teach art by correspondence. He overstates his qualifications in his resume and changes his name from John Smith to John De Daumier Smith claiming family relation to Picasso. There are two spiritual epiphanies in the story, a common theme in Salinger, linking banal things like bedpans and shoe lifts to visions of God. I was the only one in my class to put forth a conjecture that John DeDaumier Smith might be J.D. Salinger (same initials) and that Buddy (this is commonly believed/known) represents J.D. Salinger in the Glass family. Hence, Buddy (JDS) was the author of "Catcher in the Rye." This is suggested in "Seymour an Introduction." He considers himself a phony like DeDaumier Smith. Probably one of the reasons behind the seclusion.

Webb Gallagher (Buddy) Glass is the author, narrator, and protagonist in some of the short stories. "Teddy," from "Nine Stories," is probably his best. Sometimes more than one at the same time. As such, I expect a buttload of new stuff from Buddy when and if this treasure trove of new JDS material is released. I consider him to be the translator for Seymour. Sometimes Seymour is on another level and can't be understood by any but those who know him best. Like the story with the wedding party in which, after a few Tom Collins' Buddy proceeds to tear the guests a new one (except for the ever agreeable short old man who is funnier than any Shakespearean comedic plant) for their ignorant disparaging of such a great man. I sometimes feel I need Buddy as a translator. He admits many times in his writing to be regrettably down-to-earth in comparison to his other-worldly brother, but it's that which makes him more loveable. Perhaps this is a modesty in Salinger that few experienced from the man himself.

And Seymour! The greatest of all Salinger characters by far! Holden just might, MIGHT, be in the top 5 in my opinion. Only because, as Seymour advises Buddy while teaching him to shoot marbles, he's aiming too much. In other literary advice he says that Buddy needs to write more from his heart. This, ostensibly, is what Salinger loved in Hemingway and what he tried to make "Catcher" a largely unsuccessful attempt at. So now that you know it was written by Buddy, a good, but not evanescent artist, you know "Catcher in the Rye" was written intentionally second rate. Which is why, way back at the start, I said you need to know more about Salinger if you consider "Catcher" his best work.

I've heard, and of course there is no way to verify this, but, I've heard there may be an appearance made by Seymour in these new writings FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE! How can I NOT get excited about that? Not like "Hapworth," a bit of a contrived letter from camp from a guy who despised letter writing, written by Seymour and posthumously discovered by Buddy, there may be some kind of story related by the now dead Seymour! Not sure how but I bet Salinger could have done it in a not-too-suspend-your-disbelief kind of way. Like maybe telepathy between Buddy and Seymour? Buddy learns to meditate? They touch upon a meditative state of "satori" or that state of pure consciousness that is to be with God before He said, "Let there be light." The family are all versed in world religion and mysticism. In Everything really. They began training early. In "Raise High the Roof Beam" we see Franny says she remembers Seymour reading a Taoist allegory to her while she was an infant. This allegory, parenthetically, I retold from memory as my speech at my best friend Gilbert's wedding. It's about judging horseflesh so I'm not sure how flattering his wife Jeanne considered it, but to this day I know no man more worthy a judge of seeing beyond the surface and looking to the heart of someone. That was the message of the allegory.

So you see why I'm excited. I've read everything I can from Salinger and I've seen wisdom, action, mysticism, religion, politics, personal relationships, inciteful social observation, the list goes on. This is why Salinger is my favourite. And this is why I am champing at the bit to read 50 years more of his work! It could contain almost anything. Or maybe they (not so disappointingly) just find some other lost writings of Seymour the eldest. The sage. The seer. Why oh why are they withholding this from me???

Well there, I've gone and done it. I've gotten too excited. Now I'll have to re-re-read some Salinger to calm me down. Over the years I've found re-re-re reading his stuff to be soothing. Succor in times of trouble. lol Again, maybe this was his purpose. Some writings are meant to be read more than once. I would absolutely qualify almost everything Salinger wrote as re-reading necessity. Which is why I'm going to finish up this post and do some re-reading.

Contrary to several highly unstable individuals, I always feel comforted when I read J.D. I hope you, my readers, can come to an understanding of him that is similar. This will probably prepare you for the greatest reading of your lives! If it ever gets out there!

Patience Grasshopper. The new stories will arrive when the time is right.

What? Seymour? Who said that? Old Kung Fu guy?

I want to tell you more but I fear I have said too much. Go now, Grasshoppers and read of the Great Oracle Jerome David Salinger. I challenge thee.