J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [194]
So much had changed for Salinger in two short years. At the beginning of 1961, the characters of the Glass family had been a faint murmur confined within the pages of The New Yorker. Since then, they had burst onto an international stage and brought their creator a material and professional success he had never dreamed possible. At the same time, the popularity of The Catcher in the Rye had exploded and the novel had established itself as a classic of American literature.
Salinger’s heady position in 1963 had been recognized the previous March by Eliot Fremont-Smith of The Village Voice in a belated review of Franny and Zooey. Fremont-Smith (whose name must have inspired guffaws among fans of Nine Stories) stated as an incontestable fact that “J. D. Salinger is unique among contemporary authors. Relative to his tiny output … the attention he has received easily eclipses that given any other writer.”1
The Voice’s admission of Salinger’s accomplishment was high praise, but it unwittingly highlighted two private dilemmas that Salinger now faced and that together created a personal impasse. The results of success, money, admiration, and increasing attention, inescapable even within the hermitage of Cornish, played directly to Salinger’s ego and reignited the great struggle he had so painfully acknowledged in “Zooey.” While trying to rein in his pride, Salinger knew that he had obligated himself to future publications and recognized that they were expected to be new works. As Fremont-Smith’s article had subtly pointed out, the recent books that had delivered Salinger’s success were not new material but republications of old stories. In January 1963, it was nearly four years since Salinger had produced a new piece. Certainly, he possessed new works. His personal correspondence confirms that he was constantly working on fresh installments of the Glass family series. Yet he hesitated to release them.
By 1963, Salinger had clearly been absorbed by his art, and his conflicts were reflected in his characters. He shared not only the struggle of Zooey with ego but also the estrangement of Seymour Glass, who felt besieged by a world in which he no longer belonged. At his current level of fame, Salinger may have felt that another success—especially so close on the heels of two best sellers—could be the tipping point for his ego and derail him spiritually. Salinger’s work was his prayer; the two had been indistinguishable for years. It was no longer success but prayer that had become Sallinger’s ambition. He pursued that ambition in spite of the material rewards of publication and not in search of them. He continued to pray through his writing, and he continued to publish. For the time being, he would remain God’s author and attempt to follow the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, who had acknowledged that “There is no way of renouncing work altogether” and instructed his followers to “do your work, but surrender the result to God.”2
Salinger walked a fine line between publishing as a spiritual obligation and resisting being seduced by the inevitable fruits of his labor. He took strength in the words of Sri Ramakrishna that it was possible to do both. In reality, his work had always been the driving force of his life and he simply knew no other way to live.
The rewards of Salinger’s labor did have their place, and he was not averse to material comforts. But he developed a frugality rare for someone in his position, one who had grown up affluent and had attained an extraordinary level of professional achievement. He was never satisfied with the financial rewards he received from his publications and repeatedly cursed publishing houses for their gluttony. So he spent money sparingly—but he did spend it, most often on his family and home at Cornish.
When compared to the childhood settings