Category | Arts & Living

Literary icon leaves behind legacy

Published on February 2, 2010 by Tori Wester

A literary legend left us on Jan. 28: author Jerome David Salinger was found dead in his Cornish, N. H. home at age 91.

Salinger was born on Jan. 1, 1919 and raised in Manhattan. He is most famed for his 1951 novel titled “The Catcher in the Rye,” which tells the story of a young boy suffering from a mind in turmoil and a heart too heavy from living in a world of “phonies.”

The novel’s troubled hero Holden Caufield worked his way into the hearts of millions of readers as the novel still sells close to 250,000 copies per year, opening the minds of many. However, this book was not without controversy-often banned between 1966 and 1975 for its frequent use of vulgar language, image of sex scenes and moral issues.

“The Catcher in the Rye” opened an entire new world for American literature. For instance, the Bildungsroman (coming-of-age tales) genre would be nothing without Salinger’s novel. It is possible that works of the Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut and the ever-popular “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” would not have been published had it not been for the risqué, precarious works of Salinger.  His concept of the novel shook up the literary world and gave way to even more jolting literature such as the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the internally struggling character as a quintessential element of the modern novel.

Salinger himself was much like Holden. He was always secretive and was quite reclusive after “The Catcher in the Rye” experienced such vast popularity. Salinger’s last known interview was in 1980; he had remained hidden away in his home in Cornish during his remaining years.

One of the most prominent and pressing questions concerning Salinger’s death is simply “What will happen next?” It has been rumored often that his home holds mountains of unfinished manuscripts and now that he has passed away, these manuscripts may finally be published.

Also, filmmaking rights to Catcher in the Rye finally may be available. For years, filmmakers have yearning to transform Holden’s story into a screenplay, but Salinger refused even to discuss the possibility. In a response to a fan letter in 1957, Salinger said he would leave the film rights to his wife and daughter. However, he not only separated from his wife, but his daughter wrote a scathing memoir about Salinger, thus further confounding the question of to whom the rights belong.

In addition to “The Catcher in the Rye,” Salinger also wrote “Nine Stories,” “Franny and Zooey,” “Raise High the Roof Beam” and “Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.”