The Bloggers With The Most To Say
J.D. Salinger is dead. Thoughts? What artists have had an impact on your life?
I was probably inordinately shocked when I came home from work today to the news that 91-year-old J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye, Franny & Zooey and a not-quite-handful of others had died.
I've long credited Salinger with changing my life. I read Catcher in the Rye in the ninth grade and it was the first time in my life I really made a connection with something I was reading. Admittedly, I related a lot with Holden Caufield at the time. But in the tenth grade I was forced to read Franny & Zooey as summer reading for English class and loved it so much, it changed my whole outlook on school. I started to care.
Salinger's work is what got me writing. I feel I owe him a great deal for the kind of person I am today. His influence started it all for me.
So what do you think of the man and author? And who are some of your idols, the people you look up to, the artists that inspired you to become who you are today?
Tags: J.D, Salinger, idols, inspirations, muses
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by leilani on -
At the risk of sounding trite or something, I think almost every artist whose work I've been able to become familiar with has influenced me in some way - however obtuse it may be, in some cases.
As for Mr. Salinger, I'm actually rather surprised by how upsetting this was for me. I haven't exactly been a fan of his, but Holden's story is the reason I discovered so many others... and I cannot even express what it meant to me at age 13, right in the middle of my teenage wasteland.
What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.
That is exactly how I felt (and feel) - there is something so accessible about Salinger's work, and it makes me so sad that the world has lost such a unique talent.
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Permalink Reply by Brian E on -
I'm totally with you. Love that quote. One that struck a chord with the hopeless and helpless 13-year-old romantic I was and have carried with me through the years was this:
I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.
It spoke volumes of something I was only beginning to understand at the time and made me want to do triumphant flips in my room for the truth it conveyed.
His voice was just so spot-on. I think that's what made him so accessible, especially for young people.
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