Another great one has died and the world is a little weirder and lonelier knowing the great writer who brought us Holden Caulfied has breathed his last.
If INTERN was having one of her "acute paranoia" moments (which she is *totally* not), she would see an OBVIOUS AND SINISTER connection between the fact that Salinger died on the same day as Apple revealed its new iPad. (That, and the freaky weather, which Apple also controls).
Mournful!
So sad... :-(
ReplyDeleteIf *I* was being paranoid I would wonder why these great authors always die *just* after I talked to someone about them... It happened with Madeleine L'Engle, too. Oh, and Douglas Adams. Maybe I should just not talk about authors I like anymore...?
Salinger was a great writer who made me really depressed in high school, just as the snow is really getting me down today. And then it will melt away.
ReplyDeleteHolden Caulfield needed to think less and fish more.
ReplyDelete"weirder and lonelier"... not me, you should see the collection of *calamities* between my ears!
Yep, snowin' in Arkansas too!
Haste yee back ;-)
Yep, we lost another great.
ReplyDeleteI posted an RIP to him yesterday.
I know he lived a long life, and hadnt published anything since before I was born, but it is still sad to lose a great writer.
Holden is one of my favorite characters.
Have a great weekend writer friends.
Peace out,
Lola
It sounds like he was in good health to the very end, and he had forty years of peace and quiet, writing just for the sake of writing. Don't know what else I could've wished for him. I just wish I'd been able to say thanks.
ReplyDelete...I smell a conspiracy...
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ReplyDeleteI heard he never cared for the attention he recieved because of the novel, but I wonder if he ever realized how many people he influenced with it.
ReplyDeleteMyself included.
Having read much by and about Salinger, I'd suggest he suffered from a personality disorder, probably avoidant personality disorder "characterized by a pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation, and avoidance of social interaction." Wikipedia: Avoidant Personality Disorder.
ReplyDeletePersonality disorders, for that matter, seem more prevalent in writers than in the general population. Say, greater than ten percent, perhaps as high as fifty percent, where general population prevalance of disorders is closer to ten percent. A dozen or so major classes of personality disorders fit each, or in combinations, of many of the influential writers of recent times.
The one-percenter rule applies. Add 'em up and they come out to at least ten percent. Writers seek catharsis, coping mechanisms, ways to express ourselves that we are unable to express in our everyday ongoing life tragedies and comedies.
I'm inclined to believe that everybody's crazy. The only person I'm unsure about is me. Though I'm more and more convinced I ain't right either. I'm an outlying outrider ranging on the peripheries of the core normal.
So anyway, Salinger made it out relatively intact, all things considered, a writer to the end. I celebrate his passing with a memorial epitaph: With his boots on, upon his shield, may he be carried home to enjoy a peaceful repose in the company he loved best.
ooo good point, I didn't even think about that...
ReplyDelete& thank you THE INTERN sooo much for your response to my story!! I really appreciate it!! xoxo
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ReplyDeleteGood point about the anxiety disorder, anonymous. I've read a good deal about that, as in Betsy Lerner's book, and Ralph Keyes wrote that E.B. White, who hid out on a farm, was the same way and avoided crowds at all costs.
ReplyDeletePlus, Salinger was deeply affected by the war, and that might have played into it as well.