Salinger's Seclusion

Today I viewed the documentary Salinger, and felt the need to write about this elusive, intelligible figure. This figure who went to hiding after the popularity of his novel, The Catcher in the Rye.

I am yet to read his novel, due to my extensive ‘to-read’ list, and my inability to commit myself to one book at a time – however, it is quite hypocritical that because I cannot read one book at a time, I have not yet read The Catcher in the Rye. I suppose up until the viewing of this documentary, I have not had a reason that compelled me to. Most adolescents have read this novel because of  their school’s English curriculum, and another amount have probably read it out of self interest.

Regardless, I found it quite interesting how Salinger reacted to fame – he despised it. He could not bring himself to enjoy being the role model of many, and would hardly allow himself to enter the public domain. Instead, he seemed to have locked himself away from the world, and surrounded himself with his many words in order to avoid contact with those he feared obsessed with him. I can relate, in that though I am not yet a published author, I too loathe the public domain. I loathe how everyone seems to have their lives organized, their motives in place, and I tend to loiter around, asking for directions but not following them.

I predict that I too may turn into even more of a seclusion addict than Salinger. I mean, the first few months of being potentially famous would be rather awesome, and I would be quite pleased if hundreds of people all around the world can connect to my writing. I would want to get to know some of them, and notify my inner self that there are others out there exactly like me. This would bring me comfort, and I suppose I am one of those people when I read books that I really like. I feel as though the author is talking to me, as though they have some sort of birds-eye-view camera on me constantly, and they know my whereabouts, my preferences, even my inner thoughts. It makes me feel welcomed, safe, accepted, and I would want that feeling to thrive within my future potential fans. Because I know that at one stage of my life, I felt the way they currently feel. And without them, there would be no me, and without his fans, there would be no Salinger.

Salinger is lucky that most of his fans are respectable towards him. Some of them, most of them that work for the press, attempt to cut-off that respect in order to gain a name for themselves, by exploiting Salinger’s seclusion, exposing photographs of him attempted to go about his daily activities whilst avoiding connections. I think the thing that scared Salinger the most was his inability to accept the connection he had sparked with thousands of readers. I think what freaked him out the most was the fact that so many people could relate to him through the reading of The Catcher in the Rye, and he just could not fathom sudden multiple connections, so that made him shut himself off from the world even more. He could not stand his image portrayed on his book covers, he could not stand his photographs being taken, nor could he stand feeling accountable for making people feel as though they are understood by him.

It is quite sad, how he ended up living the rest of his days. How he would perform his errands quickly so as to not be noticed, pointed out. I do not blame him for his elusiveness. It all came quite suddenly, especially after being rejected so many times by the New York Times, his fame just crept up on him and burnt into flames, burning to ash every inch of privacy he once had. I also do not blame his fans. For once, they found something that resonated within them. They were able to meet like-minded people who also were fans of Salinger and his work, and as a new page opened for Salinger, a new page also opened for thousands of other people.

Despite Salinger’s attempt to preserve his legacy until the year 2060, his story collection Three Stories has been leaked onto the internet. Though I am ashamed that this had happened, I also feel a sense of relief, what if I will have lost my memory in the year 2060? At least I would have known that I read Three Stories. On second thought…