J. D. Salinger dies at 91

[MacCruiskeen]

'Catcher in the Rye' author J.D. Salinger dies

By HILLEL ITALIE
AP NATIONAL WRITER

Last updated January 28, 2010 10:12 a.m. PT

NEW YORK -- J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.

Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H. [...]

http://www.seattlepi.com/artandlife/140 ... ource=mypi

R.I.P.

Him and Howard Zinn in one day...

[brainpanhandler]

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”

-J.D.

[MacCruiskeen]

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

- Franny, in Franny and Zooey

It's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.

- Holden, in The Catcher in the Rye

Where I lived at Pencey, I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms. It was only for juniors and seniors. I was a junior. My roommate was a senior. It was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pencey. He made a pot of dough in the undertaking business after he got out of Pencey. What he did, he started these undertaking parlors all over the country that you could get members of your family buried for about five bucks apiece. You should see old Ossenburger. He probably just shoves them in a sack and dumps them in the river. Anyway, he gave Pencey a pile of dough, and they named our wing after him. The first football game of the year, he came up to school in this big goddamn Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and give him a locomotive - that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, he made a speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down on his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God - talk to Him and all - wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phoney bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs. The only good part of his speech was right in the middle of it. He was telling us all about what a swell guy he was, what a hotshot and all, then all of a sudden this guy sitting in the row in front of me, Edgar Marsalla, laid this terrific fart. It was a very crude thing to do, in chapel and all, but it was also quite amusing. Old Marsalla. He damn near blew the roof off.

http://www.nbu.bg/webs/amb/american/5/s ... tcher3.htm

[DoYouEverWonder]

I guess it would be a good time to pull out my old copies of his books to read again.

How come the suckie people never die?

[MacCruiskeen]

J. D. Salinger's last interview (unwilling and unwitting), in 1980.

Instructive.

[JackRiddler]

Goddam.

Raise high the speculations, riggers: Are we going to get a dozen unpublished novels, some following the Glass family saga all the way to 9/11 and beyond (with a running joke of them laughing at Updike's tripey Rabbit books), and including an unexpected thriller where Salinger blows the lid off the deep state starting with the Chapman-Hinckley handlers' abuse of "Catcher in the Rye" as a mind control device?

Or, as per his shortly to be announced final wishes, do we get to see grainy film from 1987 of him feeding 2800 double-spaced typed pages into a small bonfire at his New Hampshire farm?

Even as I recoil at the sight of Ackley clipping his toenails right next to my goddam bed, I'm hard pressed to think of greater influences on my life among people I've never had the pleasure of meeting than Howard Zinn and J.D. Salinger.

[MacCruiskeen]

Goddam.

Raise high the speculations, riggers: Are we going to get a dozen unpublished novels, some following the Glass family saga all the way to 9/11 and beyond (with a running joke of them laughing at Updike's tripey Rabbit books), and including an unexpected thriller where Salinger blows the lid off the deep state starting with the Chapman-Hinckley handlers' abuse of "Catcher in the Rye" as a mind control device?

Yes!

Or, as per his shortly to be announced final wishes, do we get to see grainy film from 1987 of him feeding 2800 double-spaced typed pages into a small bonfire at his New Hampshire farm?

No! Please.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if he had had his own Max Brod lined up to do just that after his death, and to do it dependably and without qualms (i.e., a well-paid lawyer).

That last interview with him... Only Beckett has been more icily polite and more studiously uninformative.

[beeline]

I wonder if he drank his own urine this morning. I love the guy's work, but he was batshit crazy.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I wonder if he drank his own urine this morning. I love the guy's work, but he was batshit crazy.

Just for being interested in Yoga and Zen and drinking his own pee? You got some low-ass standards for "batshit crazy" -- hell, you got low standards for just plain "crazy."

[MacCruiskeen]

I wonder if he drank his own urine this morning. I love the guy's work, but he was batshit crazy.

Just for the record (and from the same link):

In 2000, daughter Margaret Salinger's "Dreamcatcher" portrayed the writer as an unpleasant recluse who drank his own urine and spoke in tongues. Actor Matt Salinger, the author's other child, disputed his sister's book when it came out and labeled it "gothic tales of our supposed childhood."

"He was a caring, fun, and wonderful father to me, and a tremendous grandfather to my boys," he wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Drinking your own urine is both more dignified and less crazy than pissing it out on graves.

[wha?]

"In 2000, daughter Margaret Salinger's 'Dreamcatcher' portrayed the writer as an unpleasant recluse who drank his own urine and spoke in tongues. Actor Matt Salinger, the author's other child, disputed his sister's book when it came out and labeled it 'gothic tales of our supposed childhood.'

'He was a caring, fun, and wonderful father to me, and a tremendous grandfather to my boys,' he wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press."

--from the same article beeline had a link to.

[wha?]

errr, you beat me to it. what Mac said.

[beeline]

Yoga, no, Zen, no. Pee drinking? Yes.

Actually, I know he's batshit crazy from reading his work. It's no secret most of his stuff is semiautobiographical--the Glass family being his siblings. You can freely act as amatuer shrink and diagnose all of them as you wish. I go with manic-depressive/bipolar types.

Furthermore, if the account by his daughter is to believed, and the guy was speaking in tongues and drinking his own pee...well, what a wonderfully secluded household that must have been.

Just because the guy wrote A Perfect Day For Bananafish, about the best short story ever, does not make him any less of a weirdo pee-drinker in my eyes.

[beeline]

Well, I'l buy all you guys a round of pee the nest time I see you in the lounge!

Actually, I have some right here....

[MacCruiskeen]

Yoga, no, Zen, no. Pee drinking? Yes.

Actually, I know he's batshit crazy from reading his work. It's no secret most of his stuff is semiautobiographical--the Glass family being his siblings. You can freely act as amatuer shrink and diagnose all of them as you wish. I go with manic-depressive/bipolar types.

Furthermore, if the account by his daughter is to believed, and the guy was speaking in tongues and drinking his own pee...well, what a wonderfully secluded household that must have been.

Just because the guy wrote A Perfect Day For Bananafish, about the best short story ever, does not make him any less of a weirdo pee-drinker in my eyes.

You're a prince, you know that? A real prince.