Mysterious ways of J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger could be considered one of the greatest, and most contrevertional authors of our time. We only know limited things about him and his work. He has been pushed off into the woods due to betrayal by his loved ones, and people close to him. Negative criticism of his work has also contributed to making him leave. Not to mention the biggest factor which made him want to be left alone, phoniness. These are the reasons that I believe why he wants to be left alone and not give interviews, this is also what fuels the press to keep chasing after J.D.

To give a brief biography of what J.D. did up until his name was heard of, here’s how it all started. In 1934 J.D.’s father (Sol) enrolled him in Valley Forge Military Academy (Hamilton 18). After that in 1937 he went to Vienna and Poland briefly with his father to learn about the cheese and ham importing business(French 1). In 1938 he then went to Ursinus College in Pennsylvania where he wrote movie reviews in the college paper(French xiii). After this he was drafted to the army in 1942, and then discharged in 1945 (French xiii ). His first book was then published six years later in 1951 (French xiv).

I think that the most important and interesting factors of Salinger life happened after 1951 with the publishing of Catcher in the Rye. It wasn’t until this point in the writers life that he really started to feel the all the criticism rush in. This is what I feel, along with all the deception that started to come in convinced him to move to Cornish, New Hampshire only two years after the book was published(CLC 1421). Everyone wanted to talk to the man who wanted to talk to no one.

Salinger has now lived in Cornish for almost 42 years (CA 1572), and I feel that all the fiction that he’s written gives us hints why he lives there, not wanting to be bothered. In the interview given by Herriges, Salinger tells him “Well, I don’t know what else I can tell you. Everything I have to say is in my fiction.” (129). This statement leads me to believe the some of Salinger’s characters are autobiographical, and there views are actually how he feels towards the world that we live in.

I think that the main thing that is illustrated by his use of putting his feeling in his chara...

... middle of paper ...

... Hamilton from publishing a biography about him, Salinger claimed that quoted and paraphrased without his permission (Crinton 1). Another problem was that Hamilton was trying to quote unpublished letters of Salinger (Gold 1). It took Hamilton over 5 years to get his biography on Salinger just right so he could legally publish it without any problems (Hamilton 8-13).

All of these things pushed Salinger into the woods, but I couldn’t see him coming out of the woods anytime soon. He left society to get away from it all and things seem to have only gotten worse. He doesn’t want to be bothered by people, yet they are constantly coming to Cornish looking for him. Can you imagine what it would be like if he lived in heavily populated city, the media would be pounding down his door!

I feel like I understand why he doesn’t want to talk to the media, it seems to represent everything that he is against. Reporters are just trying to get their jobs done, most of them that try to come to J.D.’s house probably don’t really even care about him. They are just trying to get a big story to boost their career.