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Salinger and Catcher Links
Websites:
Salinger.org
http://www.salinger.org
An extensive site tentatively maintained by members of the Bananafish mailing list. Poking around this site often uncovers a good amount of fascinating and detailed information.
Twenty-Two Stories in Italiano
http://www.geocities.com/pearfactory/index.htm
This is an Italian-language webpage maintained by Alberto Baglietto, who has committed himself to translating Salinger's under-published stories for Italian readers. Considering Salinger's reputation for manipulating English to the brink of explosion, it certainly seems that Alberto has his work cut out for him. The site contains links to those stories already completed. Abbia divertimento!
Letters to JD Salinger (aka "Return to Sender")
http://members.aol.com/jdsletters/index.html
The title says it all.
This site contains literally thousands of web-letters written to JD Salinger. Some letters are rude, some are tender, many are poignant; but all are interesting. There's hours of fascinating reading here. When you've had your fill, write and post your own letter to the author.
NY Times Featured Author
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/13/specials/salinger.html
Excellent Internet resource maintained by the New York Times. Contains a few Salinger-related links and a good number of professional reviews and articles (dating 1951-1998). John Updike's thoughtful, if controversial, critique of Franny and Zooey is here along with a number of insightful analysis of The Catcher in the Rye. You must subscribe in order to access this site, but since subscription is easy and free - it's well worth the effort.
Holden's Journal
http://www.livejournal.com/community/jdsalinger
There are many community-based Internet sites devoted to JD Salinger. Unfortunately, most of them are littered with the posts of whining adolescents begging for last-minute help with their homework. Holden's Journal is not one of these. Instead, it is an ongoing collection of often-thoughtful posts by members who truly respect and enjoy a variety of Salinger writings.
Salinger.blog.lemonde.fr
http://salinger.blog.lemonde.fr
For those whose first language is French, this the place to go. Maintained as labor of love, Salinger.blog.lemonde currently concentrates on the author's Glass Family series, which is woefully under-translated into the French language. The blog format is perfect for emphasizing the living aspect of Salinger's works. Bon Travail!
Sid Salinger's Site
http://www.sidsalinger.com
This is a personal home page maintained by Sid Salinger, who is JD Salinger's cousin. Devoted to Salinger genealogy, this site contains JD Salinger's family tree. Many thanks to Mr. Salinger for graciously allowing this link.
Books:
In Search of JD Salinger by Ian Hamilton (1988)
In 1984, British author Ian Hamilton completed his biography J. D. Salinger: A Writing Life, and sent Salinger a pre-publication galley proof for approval. Salinger promptly took Hamilton to court. The resulting 1987 decision of Salinger v. Random House not only prevented the publication of Hamilton's book as it was, but is the basis of modern copyright law. In reaction, Hamilton published In Search of JD Salinger, an altered biography and description of his legal encounters with the author. In Search of JD Salinger is perhaps the best Salinger biography in print but the published book's quality lags behind the suppressed version and is infused with a palpable bitterness toward Salinger over the litigation.
Salinger: A Biography by Paul Alexander (1998)
Paul Alexander's Salinger biography leans heavily on the research and opinions of Ian Hamilton. A well-written book, it is nonetheless imbedded with a discernable distaste for its subject. While most of the facts in this book are well substantiated, some are questionable. Alexander is also coy about some of the most important periods of Salinger's life. A number of Alexander's facts conflict with other sources. Even worse, both he and Hamilton cite sources which are themselves wrong on a number of facts. Get confirmation before using this book as a reference.
J.D. Salinger by Warren French (1963)
This is a useful pseudo- biography strewn with chilling interpretations of Salinger's short stories. While most Salinger biographies are unsympathetic, Mr. French's disdain for the author borders on menacing. While using words such as "cloying" and "irritating" to describe Salinger's stories, he completely misses the point of most of them. Instead, he takes jabs at Salinger's sincerity and libido. (French goes as far as to leer at the relationship between Babe Gladwaller and his little sister Mattie.) In 1988, Mr. French revamped this book with the publication of J.D. Salinger, Revisited, a work of lesser quality.
Dream Catcher: A Memoir by Margaret Salinger (2000)
This is the disturbing memoir of JD Salinger's daughter, Margaret. Dream Catcher paints an odd and often unflattering picture of the author as a father. It does, however, recount the memories of Margaret's mother, Claire Douglas, and provides certain insights that only a close family member could offer. Unfortunately, Miss Salinger brings so much personal baggage into the narration that readers instinctively mistrust her account.
At Home in the World by Joyce Maynard (1998)
Joyce Maynard is JD Salinger's former girlfriend and an aspiring writer. At Home in the World is a description of her life with Salinger in 1972 and claims an assortment of eccentric obsessions reportedly held by the author. It is often reviewed as an opportunistic work that is deeply embellished.
J.D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction by John Wenke (1991)
John Wenke's book studies most of Salinger's short stories. It includes analysis on his twenty-two uncollected stories, the Nine Stories, as well as his Glass Family stories. There are a number of such analytical collections in print. Once you have determined what a story means in your own mind (heart), they become interesting reading.
Letter to Ian Hamilton
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It has always been a most terrible and almost unassimilable wonder to me that it is evidently quite lawful, the world over, for a newspaper or a publishing house to “commission” somebody, in the not particularly fair name of good journalism or basic profitable academic research, to break into the privacy not only of a person not reasonably suspected of criminal activity but into the lives as well, however glancingly, of that person’s relatives and friends. Speaking (as you may have gathered) from rather unspeakably bitter experience, I suppose I can’t put you or Random House off, if the lot of you are determined to have your way, but I do feel I must tell you, for what very little it may be worth, that I think I’ve borne all the exploitation and loss of privacy I can possibly bear in a single lifetime.
J. D. Salinger
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