I just went to a wonderful talk by Kurt Vonnegut at Cody's Books here in Berkeley. It was the best speech I've ever heard. Anyway, here's a little Salinger-relevant info from it. Vonnegut was talking about 40 or 50 years ago, when America still had a literary culture, when the TV wasn't around and everyone read short stories. Paraphrased: "Salinger...he was the most envied, by all of us. My God, we all wanted to be him." John