“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”
“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”
“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”
I loved JD Salinger. I loved his writing, and I loved how he finally had the courage to be absolutely nobody.
I used to place my hand on a copy of Nine Stories when I would swear my word to something, because, unlike the christian bible, that book really meant something to me. Swearing on Salinger was more important then swearing on the word of god.
I often felt that no one would ever be able to describe growing up as well as he did. I know I certainly haven't found anyone to match him in describing my own experiences of adolescence. Through his words, he rang out with the perfect tune, without ever sounding like "young adult" fiction (a genre I truly despise). Salinger wrote books for the weird kid growing up. For the kid that was too weird, and too smart to know that they shouldn't be sitting on their bed reading a goddamn book when they are at the peak of raging teenage hormones, and youthful beauty. Even if we did leave the house to participate in the world, we always brought our books. I always had Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, or Raise High the Roof Beam with me.
With those, or Catcher in the Rye, I never felt alone, because someone had the same voice as me. Someone else was too smart, too vulgar, and too angry. Someone else felt like sitting in the bathtub for days at a time, denying their potential and refusing to create, just like I denied mine, and refused to act on creative impulse. Other authors have spoken to my heart, Tom Robbins is one of those, but JD Salinger spoke to that part of me that I don't always want to look at, but have to. He spoke the the loser, procrastinator that's equally afraid of failure as she is of success. And when Mr. Salinger spoke to me through written pages, I never felt that he was judging me, or those like me, just that he was saying he knew we were out there, and this is what we were like.
He was one of my heroes. I wanted to write like him. I wanted beautiful abbreviated stories that said just enough to flow from my hand. I wanted to be able to rock the world in under 300 pages. I wanted to be able to change lives, just like he changed mine. Hopefully, one day, I will.
When I was a little girl I dreamt of making a documentary of all of my favorite living authors, he was top on my list. I planned on going to New York and taking a walk to the subway with Vonnegut, maybe grabbing a bagel and walking to the post office. From there, I would go to New Hampshire. I had elaborate schemes as to how I would get the infamous recluse that was Salinger to open his doors to me, and maybe get him to have a short chat. It's a shame I'll never get to meet him. It's almost like his passing is forcing me to acknowledge that my adolescence is behind me, and that I have to be a big girl now. But, if there is one thing I've learned in almost 20 years of being literate, it's that you never have to grow up all the way; and if you have, you obviously weren't listening well enough.
I loved JD Salinger, I loved his writing,and I loved how it made me feel. It's the first time I can remember where a celebrity death has made me cry. I'm a literature nerd, and I loved this man that achieved his own perfection. I loved him so much that I wish I could throw him in a river.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
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