I suspect compulsiveness is a personality trait of most writers, not just Salinger. A real writer can hardly ever stop. And we already know about that room-sized safe filling up with paper. But one obvious explanation for his refusal to publish is never addressed on this list: that the stuff may be - to his mind - simply not good enough. And he could be right. For me, an obvious parallel is Hemingway. How vividly I remember the years passing as we all waited for the one that was promised after For Whom the Bell Tolls - the long-presaged `Big One', the one that was going to express some final truths about `the land & the sea & the air....' Some of us began to suspect he was reluctant to go out into the really deep water ever again. And why not ? He'd already done his share. But eventually arrived Across the River & into the Trees - a parody of himself that only we, his acolytes, enjoyed. And The Old Man & the Sea - a contrived yarn sufficiently respectable to win the Nobel but now recognised as a symbol-sunk lead weight. After his suicide, the remaining vast load of unpublished material was examined, pruned, slapped about, rejigged & released to an embarassed public by his family & hangers-on. Three tons of junk. Isn't possible that Salinger - with the same insight - wants to avoid the same fate ? Scottie B.