What do people think of JD Salinger?

[Emerald Hill]

Catcher in the Rye - bad

Franny and Zooey - good

Nine Stories - good

RHTRBCASAI - okay

The thing is, his magnum opus is probably his worst work. It's obviously aimed at 15 year olds, roughly, but I read it when I was 25. It's angsty and dull. His other works are good, both stories about various people, and short stories and novellas about the Glass family. He had some talent, I'll give him that.

[ktm5124]

He certainly had talent. I most adore his short story "For Esme - With Love and Squalor" - I think this is, as a critic once called it, a "minor masterpiece". Catcher in the Rye didn't leave a strong impression, except for the title. I haven't read it for a while though. I remember liking parts of Franny and Zooey, and although I liked Raise High the Roof Beam when I read it in high school, I now don't think all that much of it in hindsight.

I think the best way to characterize Salinger is that he was a man with both talent and delusion. His delusion that everyone was a fraud out to get him interfered with the quality of his work. He had a very flawed worldview, and this works to the disadvantage of any artist. But he did have a talent for rearranging this flawed perspective into something beautiful. I think the way to approach Salinger is to look for the artist in the art. He is the unreliable narrator behind all his works - not consciously so, but quite unconsciously.

[sixsmith]

I think the best way to characterize Salinger is that he was a man with both talent and delusion. His delusion that everyone was a fraud out to get him interfered with the quality of his work. He had a very flawed worldview, and this works to the disadvantage of any artist. But he did have a talent for rearranging this flawed perspective into something beautiful. I think the way to approach Salinger is to look for the artist in the art. He is the unreliable narrator behind all his works - not consciously so, but quite unconsciously.

Many artists are comprised of talent and delusion but I don't think the latter always serves to constrain the former. On the contrary, delusion (broadly speaking, cf clinical delusion) is often a handmaiden to originality and creative rigour. I know, for example, that some of my favourite cantos in The Cantos give voice to Pound's less wholesome notions: his wrong-headed fanaticism, at least in part, informed the power of his work. Mailer was a narcissist with a siege mentality (surely equal to Salinger's) but it was these qualities that informed his hypnotically ill-at-ease prose. Would Mishima's meditations on death be as powerful if he himself didn't possess an unhealthy fixation with it? I think that often the job of the artist is, to borrow your fine words, to turn a flawed perspective into something beautiful.


The thing is, his magnum opus is probably his worst work. It's obviously aimed at 15 year olds, roughly, but I read it when I was 25. It's angsty and dull. His other works are good, both stories about various people, and short stories and novellas about the Glass family. He had some talent, I'll give him that.

Your characterisation is probably more accurate than you realise. Teenage life is a combination of angst and dullness: inertia interspersed with unexplainable dread. What makes Catcher more broadly relevant is that adult life is no different. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm taking the Facel-Vega for a Saturday drive...

[RaoulDuke]

I've only read The Catcher in the Rye and knowing of the hype surrounding it before reading I was more than a little disappointed upon reading it.

I think a lot of the reason it is well regarded is that it was the first book to really bring the disillusioned, angst ridden, alienated teenage character into the forefront of modern literature and the modern conscience. The character of Holden Caulfield, which was blisteringly original, is now a stock character in fiction, which shows the importance of the book.

I can definitely appreciate that the book was ground-breaking and important when released but those things in themselves don't make it a good read today. They don't make a book timeless; it's the way the writer strings together words and sentences and the way they use imagery, construct characters and postulate ideas that dance off the page and into the reader's head in a way that strikes a chord with them that does that; and that's what I thought was lacking.

But as I said, I've only read The Catcher in the Rye, so I'm in no position to pass judgement on his other work or Sallinger as a writer overall. Franny and Zooey is on my 'to read' list, but currently quite far down - is it worth boosting up?

[MarkBastable]

It's obviously aimed at 15 year olds.


No - it's not. It's about a teenager, but it's not intended for teenagers, specifically. Not unless Robinson Crusoe is aimed at castaways, and The Call of the Wild is intended for dogs.

[dfloyd]

It was one of the first book I read after I determined to read real literature and stop reading Mickey Spillane. I remember all the books Holden Caufield talked about, especially The Return of the Native, my first introduction to Thomas Hardy. So the books Holden talked about became my first reading list. I have never reread the novel, but I should now. I know when I read it when I was 22, I liked it a lot, along with Nine Stories. A Perfect Day for Banana Fish was my favorite from that book of short stories. I can't really comment on 'Catcher' since its been so long since I read it, but in the 1950's it was more popular than Lolita, probably because Lolita was and is a much harder read.

I should also read 'I, the Jury' again. Spillane wasn't all that bad.

[FrankMarcopolos]

He's one of my faves, and a master craftsman, IMO. Catcher is full of symbolism, and if you read it only literally, you miss so much of its intended impact. His other collected work is similarly constructed. "Teddy," "Esme," and "Bananafish" are masterpieces, and my favorites of the other stories.

The thing about Salinger is that he either grabs you emotionally with his style, or he doesn't. If he does, you'll love his stories, and if he doesn't, then you probably won't enjoy them, or feel the need to invest the time necessary to dig beneath the surface to appreciate his symbology, motifs, and morales.

[Cygnus X-2112]

I just read Catcher in the Rye last month actually. I find that the book was decent, but to be honest it's so hyped up. Nine Stories is definitely a better read.

[TurquoiseSunset]

The only book of Salinger that I've read is Catcher...and I hated it. That being said I can't say he's horrible in general because I haven't read any of his other books. I probably won't either, Catcher was way too painful.

[leif aricson]

I'm a bit odd, in that I've read Nine Stories, Franny & Zooey, and Roofbeam, but never Catcher in the Rye.

My impressions of Salinger is that he is an amazing short story writer and created some of the best dialogue I've read in literature. I don't know a lot about his personal philosophies or anything with Catcher, but "Bananafish" and the "Franny" stories are particularly touching and I often find myself rereading them. Very quick, digestible works that can leave a long, satisfying aftertaste.

[antiprefix]

Nine Stories is also my favorite work of fiction of his. The unreleased collection of twenty-one of his stories, available online and comprised of short stories scattered about in publish magazines, is my favorite. The stories available therein are bracing, energetic, inventive and I highly recommend them.

[kelby_lake]

Catcher in the Rye is overhyped and the angst gets pretty annoying. It's not the worst book I read but it was a disappointment overall.

[Ristshot]

Catcher in the Rye is THE love it or hate it book. Personally I loved it, more so than anything because he really captures the way people speak and the phase that a lot of teenagers go through so well. It's also one of the best sustained narratives I've ever read.

Franny and Zooey, in my opinion, is his masterpiece. It's more demanding than Catcher in the Rye but if you really take the time to understand why Franny goes through what she does and the Glass family's responses to her "religious crisis", you are rewarded. "Zooey" is definitely his masterpiece as you go back and reread it you understand how the intro makes sense that it is both a love story and a mystical story. His treatment of the doctrinal vs syncretic religion with the damaged Glass family gets better every time I read it.

Besides his two big novels, I also like to throw "A Perfect Day for a Banana Fish" into his best narrative. Really connects two unrelated points together. Overall though, Salinger really was a case of genius and insanity. Who knows what else he wrote up in Cornish, NH before he died.