JD Salinger, 1919-2010.
JD Salinger died today. The world is smaller than it was yesterday.
Catcher in the Rye is the most flawlessly written novel of the 20th Century.
It was also the most influential work of art of the 20th Century, more influential than Duchamp’s urinal, more important than Demoiselles d’Avignon.
In widespread cultural influence it may even surpass any individual work of art ever made.
It was published in 1951 and was banned by ignorant frightened people all over the world.
And is still banned today in some dark, supposedly educational corners of the US, 60 years later.
It will last forever and tell people of the future what it was like to be young and full of feeling as the world turned modern.
It connected young people together, an important catalyst of the developing youth culture and the 1960s. Inspiring the young in a crystallizing vision of a better and less hypocritical world which could be made.
Which subsequently came to be attempted.
Which partially succeeded even.
Which still lies before us today, encouraging us on.
Catcher in the Rye is a work of art so powerful that it got John Lennon killed and President Ronald Reagan shot by misguided people who misunderstood it out of their psychological illnesses.
And the people who understood it were affected jsut as deeply by it.
It was a book that changed lives. Which is the ultimate measure of greatness in a work of art.
I am grateful that my life was one of those changed by it.
Bye Jerry. Sleep well.
We adored you even though you were grumpy.
Thank you.
Kiss Kiss!
