Author J.D. Salinger of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ fame, dies

Jerome David Salinger was acknowledged around the globe as the one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. With just one published “novel” in his lifetime, Salinger made history worldwide.

Salinger’s life
Salinger was born to a Jewish father and Irish mother and grew up in New York. He served in World War Two as a soldier, which according to daughter Margaret Salinger “traumatized him.”

Salinger wrote “The Catcher in the Rye” in 1956, just a year after getting married, and the same year his daughter was born.

In the early 1960s, he published a collection of short stories “Nine Stories,” “Franny Zooey,” “Raise High the Roof Beam,” and “Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.”

Salinger was known to have a reclusive nature. He rarely agreed on giving interviews. His last recorded interview was in 1980, after which he struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle with biographer Ian Hamilton.

He also fought a long battle with his ex-lover Joyce Maynard, who wrote a memoir for him.

Salinger last made headlines in 2009 when he filed a lawsuit against a writer for copyright infringement of his characters from “The Catcher in the Rye.”

”The Catcher in the Rye”
“The Catcher in the Rye” belongs to the post World War era. The book is centered on an unhappy 16-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield. Caulfield narrates his story after being expelled from school.

The 214-page book captures alienation of youth, along with a completely new set of ‘slang’ words.

The book has till now sold more than 65 million copies worldwide and is still among the ‘Top 150- USA TODAY’s Best Selling Books.’

“The Cather in the Rye” was one of the most frequently censored books and the second-most frequently taught novel in high schools.

Offers to adapt novel in a movie
Salinger received numerous offers to adapt “The Catcher in the Rye” in a movie. Big names like Samuel Goldwyn and Steven Spielberg were interested for the same. However, he refused them all.

In 1999, Maynard concluded and said, “The only person who might ever have played Holden Caulfield would have been J. D. Salinger.”

John Wenke, author of the 1991 book ‘J.D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction,’ agreed and said, “His voice reaches (readers) directly and immediately. He is unique in 20th-century literature.”

Wenke, who has taught The Catcher in the Rye for 30 years, says his students today still respond to Caulfield, “He doesn't go out of style.”