Farewell, JD Salinger

The death this week of JD Salinger is a sad moment for literature and for all those, like me, who read, loved and appreciated his books. The legendary American author of “The Catcher in the Rye" made a very powerful impression on me when I read his book as an adult for pleasure -Many had to read the book as part of a required book reading list in high school in America and at University in Morocco. I read and reread the “Catcher” and enjoyed it not because it features sexual innuendo and language but because the writer spoke profoundly and frankly to ordinary people. The book is a trageycomedy; hilarious and sad all the way to the end. I never got bored as I did with James Joyce’s Ulysses, for example, because the book spoke out-loud my innermost thoughts at countless occasions: Its antihero, Holden Caulfield, and I share our contempt for “phonies” and our sympathy with innocence and kids who are feeling lost, and lost to despair. We also share our concern over the ever-lasting and ever-so-unfair struggle between the good and the evil - or more exactly between the innocent and the corrupt.
Though I don’t like Holden Caulfield’s sexual encounters, his sexual insecurities, and confused immaturity being spoken out ‘publicly’, I agree with the writer’s use of slang, swearing, casual dilogs etc. Quite a few writers use such authentic teen language to speak to young readers. Let’s not forget, also, that all around us, Holden’s sexual encounters are nothing and chaste compared to what we see in the street, on TV, on the internet (and, to a lesser extent, to what many read in Mohammed Choukri’s - famous Moroccan writer - ‘For Bread Alone’.)
Here is an excerpt I have always loved because it not only makes one laugh but makes one think as well as is the case with George Carlin's black humor:
Anyway, he [Ossenburger] gave Pencey a pile of dough, and they named our wing after him. The first football game of the year, he came up to school in this big goddam Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and give him a locomotive – that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, he made a speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down on his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God – talk to Him and all – wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs.
The only good part of his speech was right in the middle of it. He was telling us all about what a swell guy he was, what a hot-shot and all, then all of a sudden this guy sitting in the row in front of me, Edgar Marsalla, laid this terrific fart. It was a very crude thing to do, in chapel and all, but it was also quite amusing. Old Marsalla. He damn near blew the roof off. Hardly anybody laughed out loud, and old Ossenburger made out like he didn't even hear it, but old Thurmer, the headmaster, was sitting right next to him on the rostrum and all, and you could tell he heard it. Boy, was he sore.
He didn't say anything then, but the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic building and he came up and made a speech. He said that the boy that had created the disturbance in chapel wasn't fit to go to Pencey. We tried to get old Marsalla to rip off another one, right while old Thurmer was making his speech, but he wasn't in the right mood. Anyway, that's where I lived at Pencey. Old Ossenburger Memorial Wing, in the new dorms.” (The Catcher in the Rye: Chapter 3.)
The book is a treasure trove of thoughts and attitudes. You will be sorely missed, JD Salinger, but you will always be remembered as an American icon who abhorred fame and celebrity. .