Mr. Salinger was controlling and sexually manipulative, Ms. Maynard wrote, and a health nut obsessed with homeopathic medicine and with his diet (frozen peas for breakfast, undercooked lamb burger for dinner). Ms. Salinger said that her father was pathologically self-centered and abusive toward her mother, and to the homeopathy and food fads she added a long list of other exotic enthusiasms: Zen Buddhism, Vedanta Hinduism, Christian Science, Scientology and acupuncture. Mr. Salinger drank his own urine, she wrote, and sat for hours in an orgone box.
But was he writing?
The rest of the Salinger obituary, interesting throughout, is here.
I never “got” Catcher in the Rye, despite reading it as a teenager, but I liked some of the short stories.
Frozen peas for breakfast and undercooked lamb burger for dinner? I can understand being obsessed about your diet, but how do you get from one to the other?
A life of privacy protected by copyright.
“In 1937, after a couple of unenthusiastic weeks at New York University, Mr. Salinger traveled with his father to Austria and Poland, where the father’s plan was for him to learn the ham business. Deciding that wasn’t for him, he returned to America…”
My goodness…and what if ham had emerged victorious?
Bill,
If he had been more into ham, it might have been _The Catcher in the Ham and Rye_,
.
Barkley,
Excellent, but we should probably put it to bed…’Franny and Sooie’ popped into my head way too quickly
Hence why we should attend to the net impact people make rather than who they are. E.g. MLK — adulterer, but we should focus on the amazing things he did for the US.
The only thing I can remember about Catcher in the Rye is that it made me laugh a lot. But then so did the works of P G Wodehouse – and there are a lot more of them.
Holden Caufield is sufficiently annoying so as to obscure Salinger’s great writing in “The Catcher in the Rye.” If you read “The Catcher in the Rye” and didn’t get why Salinger is such a big deal, read a few of the Glass Family short stories. “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” may be the best short story ever published by “The New Yorker”.
It’s interesting that Louis Auchincloss also died yesterday. He was one year older, wrote many more books and lived a very public life, but he’ll receive only a fraction of the attention.
“The Catcher in the Ham and Rye”
“Franny and Sooie”
“A Perfect Day for Bananafish and Frozen Peas”
We’re on a roll here….
Who conducted his engram audits?
House calls. For the wealthy recluse.
I have no idea why, but whenever the subject of Catcher in the Rye comes up, I always think about this bit from Seinfeld:
Elaine: Did you read the whole thing?
Kramer: Oh! yeah.
Elaine: Huh . So What’s it about?
Kramer: Well it’s a story about love, deception, greed, lust and…unbridled enthusiasm.
Elaine: unbridled enthusiasm…?
Kramer: Well , that’s what led to Billy Mumphrey’s downfall.
Elaine: Oh! boy.
Kramer: You see Elaine, Billy was a simple country boy. You might say a cockeyed optimist, who got himself mixed up in the high stakes game of world diplomacy and international intrigue.
Elaine: Oh! my God.
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