J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [171]
When Salinger began to pen “Seymour—an Introduction,” the Beat Generation had taken center stage. Writers such as Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs continued the dialogue Salinger had begun, taking the discussion of alienation and displacement to new levels.* For these “beatniks,” poetry had become a major vehicle of expression, and great poets such as Allen Ginsberg continued Salinger’s questioning of mankind’s place in the world in a way particularly close to Salinger’s heart.
For all the poetic complaint of the Beat poets and writers, their message was void of salvation. Salinger had become an icon to these creative rebels, but the author called them out with derision. To him, they were truly “the Dharma Bums,” and he scolded them as being “the Beat and the Sloppy and the Petulant,” and, most damning of all, “the Zen-killers.” Yet it was clear that many of the shifts in society had been set into motion by Salinger himself, and he found that he was in the awkward position of deploring the aimlessness of fans who invoked his name while his works enjoyed a new understanding and a new reverence through their benefit.
Buffered deep within the woods of Cornish, Salinger tried to ignore the commotion that swirled around him. It was impossible. Strangers began to show up at the cottage. His mail overflowed with essays and term papers for evaluation.10 Stories and rumors about him began to appear in the press. This was only the beginning, a small slice of the insistent attention that would harass him for decades to come and that he would be forced to address through his writings.
In the autumn of 1962, Salinger received an interesting piece of fan mail. Or rather, his response to it was interesting. A certain “Mr. Stevens,” probably a college student, confided to the author his disgust with the materialistic values of adult society. He held an academic knowledge of Eastern philosophies and was frustrated with the importance that others placed upon “things” rather than the spirit. Doubtless, Mr. Stevens mailed his letter off to Cornish with satisfaction. If there was anyone in the world who would understand his anxiety, it was J. D. Salinger.
On October 21, Salinger penned a response to Mr. Stevens that was characteristically polite and unusually candid. After thanking Stevens for his letter and giving a cursory nod to his views, Salinger cut to the chase. What had struck him most about the letter was the quality of the ink: Mr. Stevens’s typewriter ribbon was running dry. “For me,” Salinger disclosed, “before anything else, you’re a young man who needs a new typewriter ribbon. See that fact, and don’t attach more significance to it than it deserves, and then get on with the rest of the day.”11
To some, Salinger’s response may seem dismissive, as it most certainly did to Mr. Stevens. But it faultlessly records Salinger’s emerging attitude to the reverence his fans had imposed upon him. He was neither guru nor the Great Oz. His stories had never delivered their players to the place of absolute accomplishment. Neither was he a rebel or a prophet. Though he condemned the shallowness of society, he always placed responsibility upon individuals. It was with the same attitude and dry sense of ironic humor conveyed in his response to Mr. Stevens that Salinger wrote “Seymour—an Introduction.” If his fans were seeking an icon to affirm their own stances, they had best look elsewhere—to the details of their own lives—and continue on their way.
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“Seymour—an Introduction” is again narrated by Salinger’s admitted alter ego, Buddy Glass, who, like Salinger himself, is forty while writing the story. The novella attempts to describe the nature of Buddy’s older brother Seymour, an enlightened God seeker who remains a mentor for the Glass family despite his suicide in Florida in March 1948. As Buddy writes the novella, he encounters a series of emotional and