When They Were Young

  • This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.

Doc Creed

Doc Creed

Well-Known Member
Nov 18, 2015
17,221
82,822
47
United States
Holly Gibney said:
View attachment 20508

The young J.D. Salinger, taken from his school yearbook at Valley Forge Military Academy. This is basically as close as we will get to a photograph of Holden Caulfield at Pencey Prep!



View attachment 20509

And here he is a few years later as a young man in military service. I love this photo. He doesn't look like a genius - he just looks like an ordinary, slightly awkward, friendly young fellow. :)
Click to expand...
I almost shared one of his pics yesterday but I'm not really a huge fan of his books. I love his short stories, though. A Perfect Day For Bananafish is terrific. Thanks for sharing these two I haven't seen before. In one of my favorite books, Shoeless Joe (on which Field of Dreams was based), the main character is convinced Salinger is a part of his destiny and travels to New England to meet him. This was how I pictured him but older.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Scratch, Neesy, GNTLGNT and 2 others
ghost19

ghost19

"Have I run too far to get home?"
Sep 25, 2011
8,926
56,578
51
Arkansas
Cormac McCarthy.

145a9ab8c860f76317ab89a866c3ad87.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Scratch, Neesy, GNTLGNT and 3 others
Holly Gibney

Holly Gibney

Well-Known Member
Aug 2, 2016
153
783
46
Doc Creed said:
I almost shared one of his pics yesterday but I'm not really a huge fan of his books. I love his short stories, though. A Perfect Day For Bananafish is terrific. Thanks for sharing these two I haven't seen before. In one of my favorite books, Shoeless Joe (on which Field of Dreams was based), the main character is convinced Salinger is a part of his destiny and travels to New England to meet him. This was how I pictured him but older.
Click to expand...

I agree with you about Salinger's short stories. :) The Laughing Man and Teddy are two of the most moving (and beautifully, perfectly written) short stories I have ever read. Have you ever read his daughter's autobiography, Dream Catcher? It created quite a bit of controversy because it portrayed him as rather self-obsessed and vain (not to mention mentally fragile), although personally I came out of it feeling closer to him and with my admiration for him undimmed. He was far from perfect, but not in any truly awful way, and there is, I feel, always something dignified about seeing somebody warts and all.

It spelled the end of their relationship, of course. The old man was fiercely protective of his privacy and did not take kindly to having the lid lifted on his home life. But his daughter definitely inherited his ability as a prose writer, and is an engaging and hugely likeable narrator too. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Scratch, Neesy, GNTLGNT and 2 others
Doc Creed

Doc Creed

Well-Known Member
Nov 18, 2015
17,221
82,822
47
United States
Holly Gibney said:
I agree with you about Salinger's short stories. :) The Laughing Man and Teddy are two of the most moving (and beautifully, perfectly written) short stories I have ever read. Have you ever read his daughter's autobiography, Dream Catcher? It created quite a bit of controversy because it portrayed him as rather self-obsessed and vain (not to mention mentally fragile), although personally I came out of it feeling closer to him and with my admiration for him undimmed. He was far from perfect, but not in any truly awful way, and there is, I feel, always something dignified about seeing somebody warts and all.

It spelled the end of their relationship, of course. The old man was fiercely protective of his privacy and did not take kindly to having the lid lifted on his home life. But his daughter definitely inherited his ability as a prose writer, and is an engaging and hugely likeable narrator too. :)
Click to expand...
No, I haven't read the bio. Thanks for the recommendation. I, too, have heard through a PBS documentary that he was a distant father and spent days in his writing cottage typing. I don't think he was a monster but I do believe he lived locked within his mind, his fictional universe. There is something relatable to that, I think.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Scratch, Neesy, Holly Gibney and 2 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom