A Tribute to a Legend - J.D. Salinger

I remember finishing The Catcher in the Rye for the first time and afterwards going to J.D. Salinger's wikipedia page to learn more about him. I like to use wikipedia to read up on authors, bands, etc. so after I had loved The Catcher in the Rye so much, it was only natural that it sparked my interest in this extraordinary author. The first thing I remember when his page uploaded was seeing that extremely famous photo of him in the top right hand corner, the one that I keep seeing on all over the internet today. Perhaps the only photographic portrait of him, this is the photo that would come to represent him to me. That sharply dressed young man with his hair slicked back looking off into the distance. He had a nice face and the photo screamed '1950s' to me. There was always something about it that seemed to jump out at me. I can't put my nose on it, but something always stood out about it, from the first time I saw it. I guess, it did seem peculiar to me that this was the photo chosen for his profile, as most other profile pages on wikipedia had a more recent picture, but as I would soon learn, Salinger was rather famous for his seclusion, and that just might be the most recent picture of him. It may even be one of the only ones the public has of him. The next thing I so clearly remember is that under that representative photo were the facts:

Born Jerome David Salinger

January 1, 1919 (aged 88)

New York City, New York

United States

And I remember seeing that and thinking "He's still alive!" After all, I knew that The Catcher in the Rye had been written in the '50s, which seemed like a long time ago to me, and most of the authors of the books I read (mostly 20th century literature) were dead. So, the fact that he was still alive surprised me, especially considering how old I thought he was. I was amazed. I even talked to people about how old he was. I also thought it was pretty cool that his birthday was on New Years.

As I later learned, he was perhaps just as famous for how reclusive he was as he was for writing The Catcher in the Rye (the best book I had read at the time, and presently tied for my favorite of all time with The Great Gatsby). I later wondered if he died a while ago and no one knew yet. After all, he pretty much stopped being in the public's eye after Catcher, with the exception of the occasional lawsuit (God, love him), the last one having been a while ago. I happily assumed that I would never know and would probably find out, one day, 20 years from now, that he had obviously died a long time ago. Over the last 2 and a half years, I would occasionally check his page, again, when I was feeling bored. I remember coming on at the start of the new school year (this year, fall '09) and seeing that in May 2009, he was, in the process, of suing some Swedish writer for trying to write a sequel to Catcher. How pleased was I! He was still alive, after all. It made me pretty happy, to see he was still going at it, suing any of the idiots in his way trying to ruin Catcher for me.

And I guess that's why when I got on the computer today and brought up Safari, I was so shocked when I saw that famous photo of him I had first seen years earlier and a headline that said 'J.D. Salinger Dead at 91.' My mouth dropped open, my body froze and I literally said out loud, "What?!" I started to feel very hot, suddenly, and had trouble seeing things. It shocked most, considering we hadn't heard anything in so long and it's not like we knew he was ill, but for me it was even more shocking, considering the little wikipedia anecdote I had lived through. I had come to believe he would be immortal, and he was just making news a couple of months ago. But now he died. I couldn't believe it.

I had finished the marvelous book About a Boy by Nick Hornby, a couple days ago, and a large part of the book takes place the day Kurt Cobain dies. It kind of goes through how the world reacted and in particular, one teenager, who he had affected so much that she wanted to get drunk because she was so upset. I remember reading that, just a couple days before today, and thinking how I don't think the death of a pop star could affect me in the same way, for the rest of my life. After all, Elliott Smith had already died, and though I'm closely connected to my music, I felt like the most a sudden celebrity death could make me feel was a minor sadness. Sure, I would be sad that they died, but I wasn't willing to get drunk over it, or let it take over the next couple months, as a lot of famous pop star deaths have (John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson). Now, obviously, J.D. Salinger wasn't a pop star, but finding out that he's died now, seems like a bad joke. I knew that I would live to see his death one day, but I didn't think it would happen like this, and not today. Somehow, it has really affected me, to the point where I feel like I do just wanna stop everything and mourn his death.

Don't worry, I didn't drink anything (except an A&W), but I did take the rest of the night to sit in the hot tub and read my old, beaten down copy of Catcher. I know now that I will keep this forever. Reading it makes me miss Holden, and Salinger, and I can't believe that our world has lost the man who put these words to paper. This great talent, the greatest talent. This man has had such an affect on my life, more than most of the 'phonies' I meet in person, that I can't believe his time has passed. He is be the greatest artist that will die in my lifetime. He really understood the world, terrible as it is, but I can't help but feel like he's the only one who got it. I got pretty upset today with our Pep Rally at school, which made me realize how much I hate these people. It was the typical high school, cliquey bullshit and I was thinking, 'Were still doing this? I thought this was over in middle school and people would start to grow up now. This is just so the 'cool kids' and the jocks can feel better about themselves.' I thought the seniors and the juniors were supposed to be more sophisticated, but watching them today made me realize that the majority of them are the same amount of douches that most of the kids in my grade are. I don't know what brought it on, but it all came to me, and for some reason, it seems connected to Salinger's passing. That's how confused, isolated Holden saw the world, which I can relate to so much.

The Catcher in the Rye will stand down as one of the greatest books ever written, certainly the only one that so perfectly captures how we, humans, think, but it's also one of the most beautiful and I'm gravely sorry that J.D. Salinger is no longer with us. I'm sad that he hated the publicity so much to shield his work from us, but I understand why he felt that way. How could he not? And he had every right to keep it to himself and I respect that. It's a rotten world and I can't blame him for not letting us in on his masterpieces. There's talk about releasing all the unpublished material he wrote during his seclusion, which I'm against if those were not his wishes, however I'm sure I'd love them. He apparently broke his hip in May of last year, but had been doing fairly well, until a recent decline in health starting after the New Year. I'm sad that he's passed, but apparently his death was not painful and of natural causes, and he had been healthy all these years. I'm glad that if he had to go, that was the way, because that really is the best of ways, and he deserves it. After rereading Catcher tonight, I decided that the next best way to honor him, would to be to write about him on this blog, because that's what he would've done. Write. And Salinger, my promise to you, is that is what I will continue to do. Thank you, for everything.

Love,

Marc Hansen

R.I.P.