Waiting For Mr. Salinger's Words

WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Sun, 06 Sep 1998 10:38:00 -0600 (MDT)

What a Sunday morning!  News of a forthcoming biograpy of Oona O'Neil
Chaplin will talk of Salinger complaining about the 18 year old Oona
marrying a 54 year old Charlie Chaplin...and this Sunday's NYTimes
Magazine section have a story, "The Cult of Joyce Maynard"by Larissa
MacFarquhar...

"Maynard doesn't see herself as a 'literary' author.  She call herself a
'journeyman writer' and an 'entrepreneur.'"

Yes, it seems as more and more words cluster Ms. Maynard's unfortunate
link to Mr. Salinger, it reduces more and more to numbers and money...at
the conclusion of the article, Ms. MacFarquahr wonders if we would have
any sympathy for the writers if their situations were reversed and it was
Salinger writing about Maynard...

I don't think that's the point.  Ms. Maynard is supposedly writing
autobiography and does reveal a soap opera life worthy of the staccato
plot firing of the article's first few hundred words, and Maynar's
claiming
to tell her story...but if that story included love for Mr. Salinger it's
truly sad that her words betray and belittle those moments...

There are some wonderfully colorful and vitriolic attacks on Ms. Maynard
quoted in this article, but what emerges most is that despite her
alienating people and finding "enemies," she also has found readers.  I
can respect, and even admire her success.  However, I also have  little
desire to be one of her readers and I do wish our world could find a few
ways to make Mr. Salinger feel at ease...

You see I'm grateful to Ms. Maynard for the mention and beautiful image of
a room sized safe containing Mr. Salinger's unpublished writing.
Ironically, I got a postcard from my bookstore letting me know for about
the zillionth time that _Hapworth_ is "still backordered" and that "the
length of the delay is unkown."  I think Mr. Salinger could stun the world
with the riches in that safe and he may just enjoy life too much not to
watch it unfold...so I for one, despite all the phony words that suck up
the the vacuum of Mr. Salinger's silence, am holding on, ready and
waiting to read about sipping green tea with Buddy and just what Boo Boo
is really like as a grandmother re-doing the bath tub scene in "Zooey"...

Shine those shoes bananafish, will