I'm almost hesitant to jump into the massive collection of stories about J.D. Salinger's death last week. So many good articles have been written about the literary genius whose last days were spent in isolation in New Hampshire...away from the probing eyes of the public. Most of those articles were by people who either knew him, knew a lot about him, or did a pile of research over the past week to learn more about him. I am none of the above.
I'm just one of those aging alums of a college program that included The Catcher in the Rye on its reading list. I was captured and held hostage by Holden Caulfield, the 16-year-old who dared to do things about which I could only fantasize. In an art class (Painting Watercolors 101) I created my only watercolor worth saving. It was a scene depicting Holden and his less-than-successful experiment with a prostitute. My instructor said the painting was less than mediocre, but it revealed my deep respect for the person of Holden Caulfield.
As I have aged, the memory of Holden has faded to the point that I have decided to read the book again with new, but less than 20/20 eyes. I wonder if I will reconnect with Holden in the same way? Highly unlikely!
A young cleric friend of mine was smitten with Holden Caulfield to the point of establishing a branding of his theological and pastoral ministry around him. People my age thought he was "off a little" but soon realized that he had tapped into the hearts and minds of the young people with whom he was working in a brilliant way that none of them could even come close. When I heard about Salinger's death the other day the first thing I did was to research the email address of that no-longer-fresh-out-of-seminary cleric and express my condolences. He and Holden are inextricably tied together in my memory. Wasn't that a Holden Caulfield kind of thing to do?
Physical death has brought an end to the life and career of Salinger, but I am one of those who wonders if the past few decades of isolation in New Hampshire have been a desert of writing for him. Or...is there a chance that a body of hidden literature will find its way out of New Hampshire to capture our hearts and minds again the way it did when a younger Salinger presented the world with a library of unique fiction? I love to think so.
Another product of the same era which touched me in a special way was the soundtrack of the off-Broadway production Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. The title was as captivating as the great music. I thought of it when I sat down to write this post and chose to capture its title to memorialize the death of Holden Caulfield's creator. Maybe, just maybe, there is more of this story to come.
Graphic Credit: http://thethingsyousaid.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/quarter-life-crisis-a-study-part-two/
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