J.D. Salinger
I am slowly reading through his published works, and hope to find his unpublished works as well
I am so attatched to some characters such as Holden Caulfield who may be the fictional love of my life, or the dysfunctional Glass family, even Sergeant X and Esme.
Is it me or typical things like youth and family that makes me relate to his writings?
In a generation where imagination has been slaughtered by the brainwashing of mtv and book that are made into films leaves no room for one to think and decide for themselves.
I connect with the characters and have my own ideas of them and their lives and I am glad Salinger has not allowed any of his works to be adapted to film since the adaptation of Uncle Wiggily in Conneticuit, because I know instantly that I would no longer see Holden in the same light.
The picture of Holden in my head with his red and grey hair and his camel hair coat and red hunting hat, or Franny Glass sitting with Lane in a booth at a restaurant smoking a cigarette, I don't ever want to lose those precious images to some half rate actor portraying them.
In no means do I want to go and contradict myself here, so wait it out for a second..
I love how many people have been influenced by his writings, Wes Anderson, who is a directing genius is rumored to have supposedly based the Tenenbaum family on the Glass family, in Down at the Dinghy, Boo Boo Glass's married name is Tannenbaum! And Max Fischer in Rushmore on Holden. I wonder if my friend Holden was named after Holden Caulfield. Mary Hudson, a character in The Laughing Man oddly reminds me of Margot Tenenbaum....."She had on her beaver coat, she was smoking a cigarette, and she seemed to be looking in the direction of our game." Things such as Holden's comfort in the Natural History Museum in New York, and how Richie and Margot runaway and live there. These films are so similar to Salinger's writings yet so different that it doesn't ruin my imagination, because it is not direct, it may as well be a coincidence I could go into extreme detail in how my life connects to the events in these stories but I just might keep them to myself for now...
or am I thinking to much into it?
“Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”-Mr. H. Caulfield
"Holden, after all, isn't unhappy because he sees that people are phonies; he sees that people are phonies because he is unhappy." -from an article I read comparing Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and other authors who write the alternative coming of age novel.....
