INSIDE SALINGER'S OWN WORLD

NY Post ^ | December 4, 2003 | Paula Froelich & Chris Wilson

[presidio9]

A FORMER staffer at Harold Ober Associates, which represents reclusive literary legend J.D. Salinger, is peddling a memoir that lifts the lid off Salinger's secretive life.

The juiciest bits of Jaime Clarke's "O What Fun We'll Have! O The Times!" - leaked to publishers this week - involve the author of "The Catcher in the Rye," who lives in seclusion in Cornish, N.H.

[presidio9]

[theDentist]

Well, here's one 'artist' who isn't full of himself.

[billorites]

Joyce Maynard wrote a book about Salinger banging her when he was in his fifties and she an 18 y.o. wanna-be writer.

She, for one, doesn't give a rat's ass about this old fossil's "privacy."

[meowmeow]

Worst writer ever.

I finally read Catcher this past summer (under the Readin' Tree). About half way through, I started reading really fast. Finally got to the end and pitched it across the yard. Later on I retrieved it. There were a few blank pages at the end and I thought I would write an alternative ending - one in which he gets hit by a bus - and then slip the book into the next county library sale.

[Callahan]

The Michael Jackson of the literary world.

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

If she didn't care about whoring with an old man, why should she care about his privacy?

[TBall]

I remember having to read Catcher for a assinment in high school. While Holden was certainly a messed up kid, I did not think the book was all that bad.

[presidio9]

finally read Catcher this past summer (under the Readin' Tree). About half way through, I started reading really fast.

A lot of the victimization preached by current liberal philosophy can be traced directly back to that book and the fact that most public high school students are required to read it.

[RansomOttawa]

A lot of the victimization preached by current liberal philosophy can be traced directly back to that book and the fact that most public high school students are required to read it.

I had to read Catcher in Grade 11. It's a load of overrated, overanalyzed, plotless crap that nearly destroyed all interest I ever had in literature. (I got better.)

Fortunately, that term the teacher also assigned The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, which probably cancelled out whatever effect Salinger's Rousseauan claptrap might have had on us.

[Nonstatist]

I read somewhere that Salinger had an I.Q. of about 90 (no kidding).