Where Did Salinger Go?

do dooo dodooo dooo mhmmmhm mmmmhmmm hmmm I am singing right now.

Jerome David Salinger...was very odd. Is this what you want from me? What you want me to write about?





Well then.

"...Salinger's experience with post-traumatic stress disorder left him psychologically scarred, and that he was unable to deal with the traumatic nature of his war service." (1)

"...as a man immensely proud of his service record, maintaining his military haircut, service jacket, and moving about his compound (and town) in an old Jeep." (2)

"JD Salinger, meanwhile, was dabbling in Scientology and Christian Science and drinking his own urine. He spoke in tongues, sat in a `therapeutic' box and fasted." (3)

"Salinger shifted the entire focus of his life to the cabin in the woods, staying there for up to two weeks at a time, burning wood in his stove to heat up the cans of food or meals brought to him by Claire or their children." (He had two children) (4)

"During the Second World War , he was a counter-intelligence officer assigned to interrogate prisoners taken by the US Army." (5)


"At one time he arrested a young Nazi functionary named Sylvia and then married her. The marriage lasted only a short time and he later always referred to her as ``Saliva''." (6)



I feel annoyed peeping in on this man's life...what was his life anyway. Honestly, it's none of my business and I rather not be concerned with what he did in his spare time. He says he wrote for his own pleasure, but of all his work, the most popular one published (The Catcher and the Rye) seemed directly relatable to his own life. If he was writing for himself, he should keep it to himself. I am sure all of us who are literate can create a novel about really personal aspects of our life; that of course, most of the world would act staggered by, yet inwardly know that the vast majority all find it some way applicable to their own lives.

So, his daughter wrote a book, regarding/ exposing much of her father’s supposedly weird nature, and basically just throwing him out there to be a community spectacle. My question is why would anyone feel the need to do this; especially about their own father? The man’s whole life goal was avoiding breaking the barriers of his personal being; and yes -he did have a dire way of protecting it by writing a novel open to the general public- but the book she wrote (DreamCatcher) was clearly a stretch, passed the boundaries of privacy, and was overall inappropriate. J.D. Salinger did throw a lot out there for a secretive person, and although his claim didn’t match his intention, it should still be respected.

There are some really weird people out there that do some of the strangest crap you could imagine…in fact I know a few -but they aren’t writing novels. I am sure it would be interesting to look and see what’s going through their brain when they do…stuff, but I’d rather not be informed. Just because this man is popular, basically a celebrity, is the only reason why people are so intrigued. If it was some random homeless person on the street, suffering from loneness, or seeking enlightenment by abstaining from sex, then most likely he would be shunned from society. Incredibly shunned.