J.D. Salinger Dead At 91

J.D. Salinger

I read J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye a few times many years ago. And then I read it again last year.

As a youthful reader I liked the story and completely agreed with heroic young Holden Caulfield's every thought and action.

As a more judicious and experienced older man I found the story to be an excellent (but at the same time a mildly ho-hum) description of how the undeveloped mind of an American man-child can be (and usually is) so overwhelmingly wrong... and yet be so absolutely positive that he (and he alone) is intuitively right about so many things.

According to an EW news brief J.D. Salinger once said:

"There's a marvelous peace in not publishing, Publishing is a terrible invasion of privacy...I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."

Like Salinger, I too love to write and am fearful about the fame and fortune that successful authorship might bring along with it. But unlike Salinger I write not just for myself...I feel the need to know that others are reading what I write.

Here's what Stephen King had to say about J.D. Salinger, just after Salinger's death.

That's really about all I want to say about this subject at this time.

"What a wonderful life I've had!

I only wish I'd realized it sooner.:

--Colette