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Thursday, 28 January 2010

"I imagine you've seen quite a few bananafish in your day"

This day last year it was Updike. Today it's Salinger. Who will be next to go? America waits in suspense as its contemporary literary canon dwindles. I'm just kidding. Salinger's not really in the canon. But say what you will about Salinger, I discovered his books at a crucial age, and I guess you could say the eccentric, melodramatic members of the Glass family were sort of like fall-back role models for me; I found their idiosyncrasies comforting and attractive and wildly interesting, and I wanted to be like them, I wanted to emulate them, and I did. So I can't help but think that I have some Salinger in me, that his characters embedded themselves in my developing adolescent psyche, their quirky uncertainties forever to mingle in my subconscious, and in this way I suppose I owe some of myself to Salinger. Not that he would have cared.

Edit: Last night on Talk of the Nation, Sam Tanenhaus credited Salinger with discovering the voice of the Adolescent American in Catcher. He said a bunch of other complimentary things as well, and I thought that was very nice of him.