J.D. Salinger

Post #114: On the Brain

Things you should be watching

Screen-shot-2013-09-11-at-8.41.48-AMAs you well know, I’ve had J.D. Salinger on the brain lately, as has the publishing world, what with the release of Shale Salerno and David Sheild’s biography, Salinger, soon to accompanied by a documentary film of the same name. Both, I should add, have absolutely gotten their asses kicked in the media, showered with bad reviews, skepticism, and mucho doubt. Metacritic shows an average score of 40 (out of 100) for the film and among 40 plus reviews on Amazon, the book is averaging three stars (out of five). Okay, maybe not a total ass kicking, but a good tongue lashing anyway. I’m nearly done with the book, by the way, and will chime in on my perception of its merits shortly. After that, I promise to let go of this subject matter for at least a few posts.

But I digress. I’m actually here because Stephen Colbert (pictured above wearing Holden Caulfield hunting cap) recently dedicated his entire show to doing his second book club (the first was on Gatsby) on J.D. Salinger and The Catcher in the Rye. It’s hilarious. And insightful. You should watch it. The best part of it is when Colbert is interviewing Tobias Woolf about Catcher and they start disputing what’s better, the short stories or Catcher, and Colbert, defending the stories as Salinger’s best work and seemingly unable to help himself, starts quoting Buddy Glass from memory. It’s awesome. It can be watched here. You should do so.
Toodles.

Post #111: J to the D

Things You Should Be Reading

JD Salinger Portrait SessionPardon me while I majorly geek out for a second.

But, holy crap, am I excited.

It seemed like a foregone conclusion that eventually we’d get word of what the hell J.D. Salinger had been writing and putting in a safe all those years. I mean, of course there were going to be posthumous books. That’s books, plural, friends. We all knew it. It was just a matter of when. Numerous sources, including Salinger himself, attested to the fact that he’d been writing on a daily basis since the 60’s but had just lost interest in publishing and was now writing only for himself. Kind of a reverse Emily Dickinson. And since he seemed not to have been using his writing as kindling, the fair conclusion is that he wanted his writing not only found, but published, as he must have known it would be. But since Salinger died in January, 2010, it’s been awfully quiet about the matter and I was starting to get a little worried.

Until now.

Word is that several new Salinger books could be coming, starting in 2015

91NYZ4jdiFL._SL1500_David Shields and Shane Salerno, authors of the forthcoming Salinger biography called, creatively, Salinger, make the claim. They say that one of the books could feature Holden Caulfield and another further stories about the Glass family, which Salinger often wrote about. Another could probe deeper into Salinger’s experiences in World War II, also a common topic in his published writing.

This is the part where I start foaming at the mouth and screaming “YES!” loud enough to scare the neighbors.

Sure, in an ideal world, it would be awfully cool to see some work that ventured into new terrain or introduced different characters.  Find out what Salinger thought of the world as it changed around him. But we’ve been waiting a long ass time for this moment, and I, for one, will take whatever I can get.