J.D. Salinger’s Legacy Lives On
New cover design by UK publisher Hamish Hamilton.
Beloved, yet reclusive, author J.D. Salinger passed away on Wednesday at the age of 91. Though he had not published new material or made public appearances in decades, he was still considered an icon of American literature. Salinger published just four books between the years of 1951 and 1963: The Catcher in the Rye, Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, and published his last short story in 1965. His first (and only) full length novel, The Catcher in the Rye, shot him to fame and forced him into the limelight he would soon come to abhor. With 16-year-old Holden Caulfield’s angry and honest narration, The Catcher in the Rye, stuck a chord with young people around the world, and inspired generations. The Guardian credits him with “inventing the 20th-century teenager”.
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For more than half a century, a mysterious visitor would make an annual pilgrimage to Edgar Allan Poe’s grave site to leave three roses and a bottle of cognac to mark the anniversary of the author’s birth. The Seattle Times reports that for the first time in six decades, the illusive mourner failed to show on January 19 of this year. This unexpected absence has left many wondering if the stranger in the black hat and white scarf has met an untimely end, and if he’ll ever return. “I’m confused, befuddled,” said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. “I don’t know what’s going on.” The first written reference to the visitor was published in a 1949 issue of The Evening Sun of Baltimore. Since then the mysterious mourner has developed a following of his own, with Jerome and many other Poe enthusiasts staking out Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, to watch the dark figure leave his gifts at Poe’s grave stone each year.
Nearly 200 years after her death, Jane Austen remains one of the world’s best-loved authors. Much has been written about her work and life, and for decades it was widely accepted that she died from Addison’s disease, a rare disorder in which the adrenal gland does not produce enough hormones. However, CNN reports that social scientist Katherine White disputes the diagnosis and theorizes that Austen died of tuberculosis. An article for the British Medical Journal published in 1964, was the first to suggest Austen had Addison’s disease. White, who also suffers from the disease, recently read the article and felt the author’s symptoms did not add up. Sufferers often experience painful headaches and verbal difficulties. But in a letter to a friend written just two months before hear death, Austen states: “My head was always clear, and I had scarcely any pain.” Though this is only anectodal evidence from two centuries ago, endocrinology expert Kenneth Burman agrees there is some merit to White’s theory, due to the wide spread of tuberculosis during the author’s lifetime. Though he warns: “Retrospective diagnosis is very speculative. It’s unknowable with certainty.”
Vladimir Nabokov’s last work has finally been published by his son, Dmitri, and the book received a cool reception from some corners of the literary world. Nabokov was working on The Original of Laura just prior to his death in 1977, and though some regard its publishing as an unearthing of a literary treasure, others feel it is a violation of a dying man’s last wish. Before his passing, the author requested that his wife, Vera, burn the collection of 138 index cards that held all his notes for the book. After his death, Vera could not bear to destroy the work, and stored the cards in a Swiss bank vault. This was not the first time she had prevented Nabokov’s work from being destroyed; she previously stopped him from burning the manuscript of his seminal work Lolita. The notes remained locked away for decades, even after Vera’s death in 1991, until their son, Dmitri, recently decided to publish them. Further eyebrows were raised when, Dmitri, released a 5,000-word excerpt to Playboy magazine, though he defended his choice by explaining his father’s fondness for the publication’s cartoons.
Apparently, the Heene family has cribbed a page from Edgar Allan Poe. Though the family recently created a media circus with the false claim that their son had floated away in a helium balloon, the idea of a balloon hoax is not original. According to The Guardian, the April 13, 1844 issue of the New York Sun reported an exclusive account of the balloon “Victoria” crossing the Atlantic Ocean in just 75 hours. The newspaper published excerpts from the diary of the balloon’s navigators, and the story culminated with their “sighting” near the South Carolina coast. But, the entire account was revealed as a hoax a couple days later, with Edgar Allan Poe named as the perpetrator. (A real balloon would not make the transatlantic trip until 1919, when the British dirigible R-34 arrived in New York after a 108 hour voyage.) Always the master storyteller, Poe loved a good hoax, and the balloon story was just one of five hoaxes that he contrived through out his life. Like the Heenes, he was thrilled at all the public attention surrounding his fabrication: “. . . I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper.” Poe beat the Heenes to the punch by 165 years, though it seems unlikely that the family knew about the original hoax. At least no one has cause to call child protective services on Poe.
Did you know that To Kill a Mockingbird, Harry Potter, Catcher in the Rye and The Bible have all been banned books? The American Library Association is celebrating the freedom to read during Banned Books Week (Sept. 26−Oct. 3, 2009). Check out one of the titles on ALA’s