Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Friday, January 29, 2010

That Writing Life

Imagine, being a celebrated author, a genius of a writer whose creative prose and disaffection with life combined to produce a work of fiction that swept the imagination of a generation. And then another generation. And a generation after that.

J.D. Salinger was that person, and he has died, age 91. A rich life, and a long one, gifting the world of literature with some significant, yet paltry few pieces of literature exemplifying a time long past. But in human nature and society and peoples' place in society, and in the traditions of coming-of-age, there is no past but a reiteration into the present.

He was reported to have been a happy man, a man well satisfied with his lot in life, a man totally given over to the mind of a writer, one whose creative muse was a whimsical one for he pioneered his own writing style, and the bold new horizon he breached both amazed and stimulated others to adapt their writing style to his.

Is there a deeper form of gratifying compliment than that?

He lived to write, and write he did. But not that much for actual publication. He appears to have become well soured of that experience, and preferred to seclude himself, become a recluse, and still continued to write. But for himself, not for publication. He hoarded his treasure and kept it safe from public scrutiny.

But that treasure is said to be out there yet, in rural New Hampshire, where he lived his cloistered, satisfying life. And publishers and the reading public are salivating at the prospect of these novels, novellas, short stories being revealed and released for possible publication.

His will will be revealed in his will.

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