Jerome David (J.D.) Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye

Transcription

1 Jerome David (J.D.) Salinger The Catcher in the Rye

2 Early Life Born in NYC in 1919 Parents were distant and gone often One sister Caused trouble in school and was sent to military school where he flunked out finally graduated from Valley Forge Military Academy after going to many schools Was to learn his family trade of importing meat and cheese from Europe but in 1942 is drafted into the Army and fought in WWII on D-Day and in the Battle of the Bulge

3 War Years Salinger met Ernest Hemingway during the war and became friends and confidants in Europe He was one of the first soldiers to enter a liberated concentration camp He dealt with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the war and said to his daughter, You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live He submitted many war stories to New Yorker that were rejected

4 Writing Career Returned home to Park Avenue (very wealthy) but was hanging out in Greenwich Village kind of the alternative scene in NYC Late 1940 s Salinger withdraws to New Hampshire to write 1951-Publishes Catcher in the Rye which receives excellent reviews but faces much criticism

5 Writing Career Con t Critics and other groups did not like that Holden speaks like a jaded, misguided teenager and uses profanity throughout his story The book was and still is banned in many communities In the late 1940 s Salinger sold movie rights to one of his short stories to Samuel Goldwyn (MGM) and the movie departed so much from Salinger s story and was a flop at the box office that Salinger vowed to NEVER let his work be made into a movie again.

6 The Catcher in the Rye Salinger admits novel is somewhat autobiographical and sees himself in Holden Plot is simple a 16 year old boy is detailing his experiences to a shrink in California about his time in NYC after his expulsion from an elite prep school Holden is said to have been James Dean s role model for Rebel Without A Cause In 1970s, several teachers were fired for teaching the book which, at one time was the most frequently censored book in US schools but also the 2 nd most taught.

7 Life after Catcher Disillusioned with fame, Salinger moves to Cornish, NH and refuses all interviews and never writes another full length novel or did he? Became a devout Zen Buddhist and advocated a detachment from his family which caused the breakup of his marriage and strained his relationship with his 2 children especially his daughter Margaret Salinger went through a series of relationships with much younger women and continued to write but refused to publish his works all the while being reclusive in New Hampshire Salinger died in January 2010 at the age of 91

8 Was there anything after Catcher? Five new JD Salinger books on the way The documentary film on Salinger and a related book suggest the late author instructed his estate to publish at least five posthumous books, authorizing a specific publishing timetable that would run from 2015 to 2020.

9 New Titles Includes The Last and Best of the Peter Pans, a 1962 short story featuring The Catcher in the Rye protagonist Caulfield A World War II Love Story, which is based on Salinger's brief marriage to Sylvia, a Nazi collaborator.

10 New Titles The other highly anticipated new works include A Counterintelligence Agent's Diary, based on the writer's experience interrogating prisoners during the final months of the second world war A Religious Manual, about Salinger's relationship with Advaita Vendanta Hinduism.

11 New Titles An unseen collection of short stories, The Complete Chronicle of the Glass Family, tells more of Salinger's recurring character, Seymour Glass, who is often said to be a selfportrait and who appears in A Perfect Day for a Bananafish and in several novellas.

12 Final Thoughts This book is considered one of the greatest American novels of the 20 th century and was the first book that looked at the disillusionment of post war teenagers in America.