The Curious Case of One J.D. Salinger

"Fame is a fickle friend, Harry. Celebrity is as celebrity does." A man is only as good as his reputation and, arguably, his reputation is only as good as the work he's produced. Is it fair to judge a man on how he handles fame? Or is fame too fickle that some men aren't able to keep their head."
-Gilderoy Lockhart

J.D. Salinger, wildly successful author of The Catcher in the Rye, is known for two things: First, for his various affairs with women half his age, but also for his painful reclusiveness. For lack of a better term, and without demeaning one of the world's most talented writers, J.D. Salinger was, dare I say, a hermit. After Catcher in the Rye, and all the controversy and stigma's that come with it, Salinger shut himself out of the world in a small home in Cornish, New Hampshire.

There are several aspects to look at here. First, the actual content and plot line of Catcher in the Rye and second, Salinger's personality as a whole.

The plot of Catcher in the Rye is simple. It follows the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, on his weekend in New York City after being kicked out of yet another private school he was attending. He took the weekend as sort of a mental holiday, waiting until later to tell his parents of his expulsion. We see Holden partake in several self harming activities such as consuming mass amounts of alcohol, picking fights with his roommate, smoking like a chimney, hiring a prostitute, walking around in the frigid cold, and spending every last ounce of money he has until his kid sister lends him more. The important aspects of Catcher in the Rye that relate to Salinger are, in short, the symbolism.

For instance, Holden's red hunting hat. Our protagonist finds a red hat, used for hunting deer, and buys it for a steal. He proceeds to wear it everywhere. There have been many ideas as to what the hat could symbolism, perhaps it reminded him of his dead brother who had red hair or perhaps, more likely, it was some form of shield. Shield from what? From the reality of this weekend soon coming to a close, and of the impending doom of inevitable aging.

Yes, aging. Growing older. Withering away. It is clear through his writing of the Catcher in the Rye that something Salinger feared was the threat of having to become an adult.

Holden constantly asks cabbies the same repetitive question: "Where do the ducks in central park go in winter?"

No one will give him a straight answer. He doesn't care where the ducks go. He wants to know where HE will go. When he is older, when school is done. What can he possibly do? Is there a place he can go to be happy? To escape adulthood?

Even the title, based on Holden mishearing a poem by Robert Burns, is about what he wants to do when he get's older. Phoebe asks him what he wants to do with his life and Holden says he can only really imagine one thing:

"I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."

He wants to save small children from the fall he's experiencing now. Holden's fallen off that crazy cliff; he's in the midst of the awkward, painful, fall from childhood to maturity where one realizes that there is a time coming soon where you're going to need to make something of yourself. That one cannot maintain innocence forever.

This relates directly back to J.D. Salinger himself and why he has become reclusive. He has seen where his ducks in central park are to go. He has finished falling off the cliff, he has fallen, he has landed. He became bitter as soon as he realized that Catcher in the Rye was the biggest thing he'd amount to. There was no topping it. He hit his peak.

Salinger has been quoted as saying: "Holden Caulfield is only a frozen moment in time."

He didn't want his entire life to amount to Holden Caulfield. He loved to write. He wrote everyday. But when Catcher in the Rye became so overwhelmingly popular, he knew anything else he wrote would become... obsolete.

And as anyone who's read Franny & Zooey (another book written later by Salinger) knows, he was certainly quite scrambled. He had plenty of ideas, all unfinished, none of them connecting.

So he decided to live a layman's life. He sat in his home in Cornish, New Hampshire and wrote. And lived quietly until he died, leaving behind The Catcher in the Rye.

So fame is a fickle friend, it's true. You can be famous for who you were or what you left behind.

So I leave you now, in the wise words of one Holden Caulfield: "Sleep tight ya morons!"