Many years ago I had an argument about Norman Mailer at a party. I was pro, the long-forgotten partygoer was con. She let rip a long litany of the stupid, vainglorious things Mailer had done (they are legion). When she rested her case, she was smug, satisfied that she had won the argument.
"Yeah," I replied. "But he wrote The Executioner's Song and you didn't."
The world is full of people who act like assholes. Some do it repeatedly, in front of many many people. But only one guy ever wrote The Executioner's Song. Which of these facts about Norman Mailer is more important?
J.D. Salinger died last week. I have read many of his obituaries in the last few days. What shocked me (though it probably shouldn't have) was that I didn't read a single one where his writing, the sheer staggering beauty of which continues to knock people out of their seats more than 50 years after it was written, appeared as more than introductory footnote.
Instead I read about his "legendary" reclusiveness. How he turned into a literary Howard Hughes, a crazed germophobe who drank his own urine.
In the first place, I don't believe a word of it. In fact, a recent article in the New York Times "revealed" that he led a pretty normal small town life. He went to the general store every day. He liked the roast beef suppers at the local church. Called Jerry by the locals, he was thought of as a nice guy who liked to be left alone. In rural New Hampshire this is not considered eccentric. It is considered good sense.
I'm not exactly sure what crime Salinger is guilty of. I guess the idea that someone would genuinely despise fame and adoration, and would work mightily to keep it at bay, is just beyond comprehension to many.
Don't get me wrong. I'm interested in J.D. Salinger, too. I love his work, which makes me want to know about him as a person. I understand why people want to interview him and write about him. But if he chooses not to share anything about his life, that is his business. And I for one am willing to accede to that wish and just be grateful for what he brought into the world.
This, apparently, is not a common feeling.
Tolstoy was so revered in his time he was considered the most powerful person in Russia after the Czar. When Victor Hugo died, France had a national day of mourning. I don't expect that kind of thing in modern America, But in lieu of such reverence, can I make a much simpler request?
Maybe when someone like Marlon Brando dies, don't spend page after page recounting his battles with his weight, or how he kissed Larry King on the lips. Talk about how he helped revolutionize modern acting. Talk about how he illuminated parts of the human heart with shocking clarity and pathos and humor.
And maybe when someone like Francis Ford Coppola dies (many years from now, I hope), don't meticulously recount the details of how he lost all his money and spent years making mediocre films. Talk instead about how in the 1970s he made The Godfather Parts I and II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, an astonishing 8-year run that I would put against virtually any artist of any time.
And maybe even (I know I'm pushing my luck here) when a J.D. Salinger dies, talk about the fact that some day soon some kid is going to pick up The Catcher in the Rye. In it he will find articulated all the things he so desperately wants to say but has no words for. When it is over he will feel revealed to himself, ecstatic that someone understands him, and so much less alone than when he started reading. He won't know a thing about who this J.D. Salinger is or how he lived his life.
And he won't give a damn.
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