J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [197]
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Salinger is known to have worked on two projects during 1964: a new installment of the Glass family series entitled “Hapworth 16, 1924” and a piece produced for Whit Burnett as an introduction to an anthology that would become the epitaph of their relationship. Burnett set out to compile a collection of fifty short stories by various authors that had appeared in Story magazine over the years. He intended to entitle the collection Story Jubilee: 33 Years of Story and release it in 1965. He approached Salinger with yet another request to use one of his stories in the new collection. Salinger again denied Burnett’s appeal, a response that probably came as little surprise to the editor. However, Salinger did offer to write the anthology’s introduction. The result would be a new work that would satisfy Burnett’s desire to associate Salinger with Story magazine while still allowing Salinger to withhold his early stories. Burnett gratefully agreed, and Salinger worked intermittently on the piece throughout 1964. Once completed, the introduction ran to 550 words, and Salinger sent it off to Story Press.
In the prologue, Salinger wrote of Burnett’s lesson on Faulkner, the seminal 1939 event that had taught Salinger the importance of writing from the background and respect for the reader. It was a surprisingly touching tribute, especially considering the years of animosity that had passed between the two men. It may even have been Salinger’s attempt at reconciliation with his former teacher and friend. As flattering as the tribute was, it did little to serve its intended purpose as an introduction to an anthology and was not what Burnett had in mind. He declined the submission. “The preface was embarrassing,” he explained to Salinger, “because it had more about me and our Columbia class than it had about the 50 authors and I felt embarrassed to use it.”6
Salinger’s reaction to Burnett’s rejection must have been incredulity and hurt. He certainly thought himself magnanimous to write the piece in the first place. It had been eighteen years since he had submitted anything to Whit Burnett, and now when he did, it was spurned as if he were still a struggling young novice. On Burnett’s part, after years of being relegated to the background since The Catcher in the Rye and having suffered the frustration of numerous rebuffs by a former pupil, he had the final word in the end. But the episode destroyed any chance that the two men would ever come to terms. At the time, neither could have realized the irony involved: the same man who had handed back Salinger’s first story in 1939 had just returned what would have been his final publication.
Whit Burnett had changed Salinger’s life, arguably several times over. Salinger’s tribute to him described his skills as a teacher and his love of literature. It was also an autobiographical essay far more revealing than anything offered by Salinger’s fiction. By removing himself, Burnett had removed Salinger’s expectations, the concepts of life and literature that stood between Salinger the student and the imaginary world of William Faulkner. By doing so, he had forced him to see Faulkner with new eyes—a vision that was uniquely Salinger’s own. It had been the lesson of Salinger’s life, one that had grown stronger as his career progressed. Without Whit Burnett’s lesson on Faulkner, there would never have been Salinger’s dedication to or appreciation for his “beloved silent reader” or one who just “reads and runs.”
The story of Salinger’s “Introduction to an Anthology” did not end with its rejection. Three years after the death of Whit Burnett in 1972, it was published