Confession is goodfor the soul, and good for the blog—perhaps! I have nothing to confesspersonally about J.D. Salinger. I know he’s not doing a lot of writing rightnow, but I have been waiting for some new stories by him—stories that he agreedcould be published after his death. I wish the lawyers involved would gettheir acts together. I am looking forward to those stories.
But I dowant to take some time here to applaud Salinger for what he did for me when Iwas 16-years-old. It changed my life.
I confessthat I wasn’t always a book lover. The book that changed my life was Catcher inthe Rye. I couldn’t believe how authentic J. D. Salinger was as a writer. And Iread Catcher at the perfect age, thesame age as Holden. I wanted to be like Salinger as a writer, and never be aphony. He really turned me on to reading and writing.
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Yes, good for the soul, and good for the blog—perhaps!I have nothing to confess personally about J.D. Salinger. I know he’s not doinga lot of writing right now, but I have been waiting for some new stories by him—storiesthat he agreed could be published after his death. I wish the lawyers involved would get theiracts together. I am looking forward to those stories.
But I do want to take some time here to applaud Salingerfor what he did for me when I was 16-years-old. It changed my life.
I confess that I wasn’t always a book lover. Thebook that changed my life was Catcher inthe Rye. I couldn’t believe how authentic J. D. Salinger was as a writer.And I read Catcher at the perfect age, the same age as Holden. I wanted to be like Salingeras a writer, and never be a phony. He really turned me on to reading and writing.
Now that I enjoyed literature Ialso wanted to teach. I did happily teach for thirty-three years. And, now andthen, I actually dream at night about finding my class and teaching again. ThenI wake up sad in the morning with noclass and no official teaching responsibilities.
Nevertheless, I try to get into classes and dopoetry performances as much as I can. But it’s challenging to work around theI-got-to-teach-for-the-test teachers. They need to realize that teaching about“Egypt” isn’t as important as making poetry connections and establishingrapport with kids that are hungry for words that shed life on their ownexistence on Planet Earth.
At the end of my “Tribute” section on my Web site, Ihave a poem written by a former student, Jay Perrin, that is priceless. What asuperb gift from a student on the last day of school! You will find the poem byfollowing this site…
http://www.consideration.org/sottile/for-teachers/tribute.html
I just heard that JD Salinger has died.
When I first got my agent, she worked at Harold Ober, which represented the estates of Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Agatha Christie. And they repped JD Salinger. I once lied and said I had lost a copy of their client list just so I could see my name on the same page as JD Salinger's (my list had been given me when I was deciding to go with them). Unfortunately, the Ss and the Hs were on different pages.
One post I wrote about Salinger and an unwanted visit another about Salinger and a talkative handyman.
Last October, I met Joyce Maynard, who wrote a tell-all about her long ago affair with Salinger. I have to admit I liked her. She was clearly a big reader.
I guess now he'll find the peace he craved.
