Read of the Town: Salinger

I was going to leave my "Read of the Town" posts to Fridays but realized a book everyone is talking about can happen any time. The Robert Galbraith book, The Cuckoo's Calling, comes to mind. Therefore, I'll post these as I see fit and whenever I hear of or see a book being read by the masses. Of course this may not be a current book either. The Great Gatsby when it was made into a feature motion picture comes to mind.

I write these as a reminder to myself of a book I might want to visit a book store and buy as well as for you my avid reader, to find something you might be interested in. I don't normally advocate reading the "bestseller" or what everyone else is reading, but every now and again there is something worth taking a peak at, even if it happens to be popular this season.

With all that said and out of the way, recently there has been some buzz about a certain author and the extensive research done into his life. Elusive as he may have been in life, posthumously, some secrets told and untold have been discovered. The author in question is none other than J.D. Salinger. The man who wrote one of the classic books of all time Catcher in the Rye.

  

J.D. Salinger has made his way back into the households of fans and newcomers alike. Unfortunately he has not made his way into my household or even my many bookshelves for that matter. I've never read nor had to read Catcher in the Rye. Although I have heard of him through that title being mentioned from time to time in other books I've read and movies I've seen I can't say I've wanted to read that book. I remember vaguely picking up a copy my mom brought home of Catcher in the Rye but not finding any interest in it whatsoever. It seemed like a "boys book" and I just couldn't relate to Holden at all. But curiosity never goes away and the fact that many are fascinated by the idea there may be MORE books he wrote that will be published next year, fascinates me as well. I am easily fascinated when it comes to the large and vast world of literature.

Of course this book is out as a tell-all book and sort of a companion to the movie that premiered this past Friday. I probably won't see the documentary that's supposed to be quite fascinating. I have been using that word a lot this post haven't I? Fascinate...lovely to say and ponder about...

Anyway, the poster leaves much to the imagination and I'm sure if I was a Salinger fan as I'm sure many still are, it would entice me to want to rush to a small intimate theater somewhere in the LES (Lower East Side of Manhattan for those not familiar with New York lingo) and watch it with my fellow Salinger-ites(??).

Will you be buying the book or seeing the movie? Have you already? Are you a Salinger fan? If so, tell me what it is about the writer or even the man that makes him admired, appreciated, and considered one of the best of his generation and even of this one?

Summary:

THE BOY WHO BECAME A REBEL. THE REBEL WHO BECAME A SOLDIER. THE SOLDIER WHO BECAME AN ICON. THE ICON WHO DISAPPEARED.

Raised in Park Avenue privilege, J. D. Salinger sought out combat, surviving five bloody battles of World War II, and out of that crucible he created a novel, The Catcher in the Rye, which journeyed deep into his own despair and redefined postwar America.

For more than fifty years, Salinger has been one of the most elusive figures in American history. All of the attempts to uncover the truth about why he disappeared have been undermined by a lack of access and the recycling of inaccurate information. In the course of a nine-year investigation, and especially in the three years since Salinger’s death, David Shields and Shane Salerno have interviewed more than 200 people on five continents (many of whom had previously refused to go on the record) to solve the mystery of what happened to Salinger.

Constructed like a thriller, this oral biography takes you into Salinger’s private world for the first time, through the voices of those closest to him: his World War II brothers-in-arms, his family, his friends, his lovers, his classmates, his editors, his New Yorker colleagues, his spiritual advisors, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Their intimate recollections are supported by more than 175 photos (many never seen before), diaries, legal records, and private documents that are woven throughout; in addition, appearing here for the first time, are Salinger’s “lost letters”—ranging from the 1940s to 2008, revealing his intimate views on love, literature, fame, religion, war, and death, and providing a raw and revelatory self-portrait.

Salinger published his last story in 1965 but kept writing continuously until his death, locked for years inside a bunker in the woods, compiling manuscripts and filing them in a secret vault. Was he a genius who left the material world to focus on creating immaculate art or a haunted recluse, lost in his private obsessions? Why did this writer, celebrated by the world, stop publishing? Shields and Salerno’s investigation into Salinger’s epic life transports you from the bloody beaches of Normandy, where Salinger landed under fire, carrying the first six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye . . . to the hottest nightclub in the world, the Stork Club, where he romanced the beautiful sixteen-year-old Oona O’Neill until she met Charlie Chaplin . . . from his top-secret counterintelligence duties, which took him to a subcamp of Dachau . . . to a love affair with a likely Gestapo agent whom he married and brought home to his Jewish parents’ Park Avenue apartment and photographs of whom appear here for the first time . . . from the pages of the New Yorker, where he found his voice by transforming the wounds of war into the bow of art . . . to the woods of New Hampshire, where the Vedanta religion took over his life and forced his flesh-and-blood family to compete with his imaginary Glass family.

Deepening our understanding of a major literary and cultural figure, and filled with many fascinating revelations— including the birth defect that was the real reason Salinger was initially turned down for military service; the previously unknown romantic interest who was fourteen when Salinger met her and, he said, inspired the title character of “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor”; the first photographs ever seen of Salinger at war and the last known photos of him alive; never-before-published love letters that Salinger, at fifty-three, wrote to an eighteen-year-old Joyce Maynard; and, finally, what millions have been waiting decades for: the contents of his legendary vault—Salinger is a monumental book about the cost of war and the cost of art.