On JD Salinger...And Others

For decades, J.D. Salinger acted as a kind of de facto spokesman for young America. It's easy to see why. Salinger's most famous work, after all, was The Catcher In The Rye, an ode to teenage disillusionment. Not only did generations of readers relate to Holden Caufield, the book's bitter narrator, they related to Holden's creator, as well. Salinger, it seemed, was one of them.

But was he?

If reports are to be believed, the ultimately reclusive Salinger had a less than healthy attraction to younger women. No, he wasn't a criminal or a predator. He was just kind of...creepy. When he was fifty three he had an affair with an eighteen year old girl. What's more, his last wife was a full four decades younger than he was. You get the idea.

Yet you don't need to love the author in order to love the work. You simply have to be drawn to the words on paper. Sure, a part of that writer may be similar to a part of you (writers put a lot of themselves into their work, after all), but the similarities will most likely end there.

I love Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Shakespeare, for instance. Yet, upon his death, Shakespeare left his wife with “his second best bed.” Whatever a second best bed was, I very much doubt the poor woman was thrilled with it being willed to her. As for Fitzgerald, he was a raving alcoholic who was more likely to make a fool of himself than to write a masterpiece. And Hemingway? Well, Hemingway was...just kind of a jerk.

Yet I like what these guys wrote and actually connect to at least some of what they had to say. The point is you sometimes have to separate the person, or at least parts of that person, from the work. This doesn't just pertain to authors, either, The same goes for actors, musicians, athletes and (gasp!) politicians. By accepting the good stuff and tossing the bad stuff aside, we can get the most from people we might otherwise want to avoid.