10/03

Everyone is making a very big deal about your 50th anniversary. You came to us as a sixteen year old boy in l951 and you have remained a perfect pain in the ass. You just made the "great" social critic George Will whine about your childish effects on boomers. Several years ago you made Harold Bloom, the self-proclaimed king of criticism edit a book of essays totally about you because you are such a character. And you’ve made millions of readers see themselves in so many new ways that it’s no wonder that young readers found literature’s first door being courteously held open by you. To stop and say thanks, even if your author makes that something less than it could be, seems like something you would appreciate.

Everyone knows your author wants little part of any thanks offered, and I am trying to respect that…but you, Holden, I at least know well enough to believe you might like to hear a little bit about how helpful you’ve been. Before wincing at people taking you too seriously, don’t worry. I’ve been working to edit a book of Letters to Salinger (forthcoming this spring from the University of Wisconsin Press), though this collection doesn’t really go out to Mr. Salinger. Most of the contributors (ranging from writers like W.P. Kinsella, Tom Robbins and Melanie Rae Thon to teachers like me and kids like you) are really talking about how literature has made them a bit more of who they are…and I can easily imagine the letters writers in the book would also be happy to send an intelligent and interesting smile your way.

Me too, Holden. Want a laugh? My dog’s name is Holden Caulfield in honor of you. He’s an old Springer Spaniel and whenever folks stop to pet him, they ask me how old my "puppy" is…sort of like you, eh, Holden? Want another laugh? I got an NYU Ph.D. writing about readers responding to you but now I prefer to focus on "Bananafish," an email discussion list for Salinger readers. But computers seem out of your time, even if this group of readers really does love you quite a bit. You started it Holden, don’t blame me. I just hung on to the carousel and I’m still reaching for the literary ring. I don't need it to be gold...I just care that it's made with a bit of you

In the fifty years you’ve been around, your author has not given you the family life you deserved. But let’s not talk about him now. Besides, you may not need as much from your parents now since you are so much older and always knew more than most the importance of a good brother or sister. Hey Holden, do you know how many girls and boys are your siblings now? Generations of millions of readers relate to you…they welcome you, understand you…and often grow better because of you. Spirit brother or character, your work is good and is still going strong.

But let’s face it Holden–growing up is hard to do and now, growing old sucks. So here’s the deal. You gave us some light in the dark space of adolescence and now I’m wondering if you can do the same for being old. Surely you’ve had time to meditate on just what it means to be "Old Holden"? Ok, ok,…I’m just kidding. I wasn’t going to fool around like that when I started this letter, but you have to know that you made do it. Let’s leave it at that Holden–fifty years or the next time I read your classic pages, you will always bring out the kid in me, and that’s enough to make it through any age

With all my love and not too much squalor, Will

******************

What She Never Learned
(first published in the Gazette Telegraph)

by Will Hochman

Review of At Home in the World

by Joyce Maynard

Picador USA

$25.00 (ISBN:0-312-19556-7)

Joyce Maynard says her new book is about her. At 44, she feels she has a life worthy of a memoir. She has the writing skills to do it--her prose is sharp and her eye is keen. The problem is that she is so focused on herself it's a book only her family may enjoy. Though one could also logically wonder if her children may be a bit embarrassed about family revelations of teenage sex and alcoholism. Ms. Maynard breaks her code of silence about her Lolita-like affair with J.D. Salinger, she writes openly her "night father's" ugly drinking, and she describes an over attentive mother in such detail that it might even challenge the attention spans of the most dedicated psychiatrists. At Home in the World fails to be at home in readers' worlds because Ms. Maynard never really manages to make her breakthroughs meaningful to anyone except herself.

For Salinger fans, there's plenty of gossip about his affair with the Ms. Maynard when she was 18 and the author of The Catcher in the Rye was 53. Clearly, she is bitter about his taking advantage of the young girl she was, though she is also clear about how she and her mother contrived to attract Salinger at the time. Ms. Maynard now justifies her memoir and inclusion of Salinger as being the result of her own daughter turning 18 and helping Ms. Maynard to see that her rights have been abused all these years. And she does have a right to tell her story. Unfortunately, all this really amounts to is dull revenge.

Ms. Maynard acknowledges how much she loved and learned from J.D. Salinger, and even ends the book with a dramatic scene in which she once again invades his privacy to learn of her purpose in his life. But Salinger wants nothing to do with her, claiming he doesn't really know her. Ms. Maynard even quotes Salinger in this scene. He's criticizing her in the most vitriolic terms when he says, "You have spent your career writing gossip. You write empty, meaningless, offensive, putrid, gossip. You live your life as a pathetic, parasitic, gossip." Ms. Maynard incredibly ignores any consciousness of the point that she may be a bit one-sided or biased in her description of a lover and even absurdly claims accuracy as she brings her more than twenty year old memories to life.

It would be easy to see Mr. Salinger's response to Ms. Maynard as that of a threatened animal about to be caged. But if you bother to read the book, you will probably find yourself agreeing with Mr. Salinger and may even need the quintessential Salinger word--phony--to realize how silly At Home in the World is. Ms. Maynard's book never connects her father problem to her affair with Salinger, and most of the details and notions of her life are not shaped in ways that can mean anything to readers who are not in love with Ms. Maynard as much as she is in love with herself.

In At Home in the World, Ms. Maynard pretends to be a courageous feminist--"the truth woman" overcoming "the great writer"--but in reality she is selling self centered drivel and gossip about a writer who legitimately prefers to withdraw from such concerns. Ms. Maynard and her publisher have a wonderful hype machine in gear--you can even get a sense of Ms. Maynard (or an autographed copy of her book) from her web page. Though Ms. Maynard claims the book is about her, when she read from her At Home in the World in Denver's Tattered Cover, she read only the passages that concerned her relationship with Mr. Salinger and then complained bitterly when people asked about the better known author. Oddly, she reacted to audience interest in Mr. Salinger as though he was trying to steal her spotlight. It was easy to see had not achieved what she intended and was now blaming Mr. Salinger for her present writing problems, though her attempt at selling her Salinger episodes has probably been profitable.

It's ironic that Ms. Maynard claims to have learned to write from Mr. Salinger and claims every word in At Home in the World is true. Maybe, maybe not...but this reviewer's truth is that the book, though well written, is boring and hypocritical. If readers want to learn what Ms. Maynard knows about Salinger, they can get all the juicy details in her September Vanity Fair excerpt, and if they want to know details about Ms. Maynard, her web page will suffice. Sadly, what Ms. Maynard never learned from Mr. Salinger is that writing has integrity that must reach from the writer's soul into the reader's heart. This book reaches but only grasps at straws of gossip, self-involvement, and phony feminism.

*****