J.D. Salinger: One Novel, Three Novellas, Ten Stories

J.D. Salinger's legend is built on a small foundation; very few works make up his legacy. There are some odds and ends out there that were published for short periods, and a larger number of stories (29 or so) that are uncollected or unpublished. I hope someday all these will be widely released -- the dead hand should not rule the living world of readers. But today I'm just thinking about what he created that is still easily available and that Salinger, or at least his Estate, has established as his canon. That is, one novel, The Catcher in the Rye, three novellas: Zooey; Seymour An Introduction; and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters; and then 10 short stories, "Franny" and those pieces included in the collection Nine Stories. So little from an author whose work is so beloved, almost fanatically so, and who lived so long (he died at 91 in 2010). Moreover, we're told he continued writing for most of his life, but nothing new was ever published. Devoted Catcher fans must salivate wondering what is hidden away in the vaults.

Here is Salinger's canon in order of publication date:

The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Nine Stories  (1953: stories from 1948 [3], 1949 [2], 1950 [1], 1951 [1], 1952 [1], 1953 [1])
"Franny" (1955)
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)
Zooey (1957)
Seymour, an Introduction (1959)

Although I've read it, I've not included the posthumous book Three Early Stories  (2014) in this list and discussion as they were written before Salinger's participation in the war, before he published in The New Yorker, and before the appearance of the Glass family. A fourth novella, Hapworth 16, 1924, appeared in June 1965 in The New Yorker, but has never been published in book form. This piece seems like it should be part of the canon, it would be the earliest chronologically in the series, written when Seymour was seven, but the Estate has not seen fit to make it available. I haven't read it.

Salinger believed there was a certain virtue and innocence, a refuge to be found in childhood. His vision was that the natural state becomes corrupted as we grow older and we're beset by trials and complications. We're each a genius when we're young, like the Glass children who were all precocious child prodigies, but then descended into marred and flawed adulthood. Salinger searched for that perfect, child-like moment of goodness and purity, that overwhelmed Holden and Seymour when they saw it. This was an ineffable moment, an epiphany, that for those few seconds freed the observer from adulthood. Holden watching Phoebe sleep, Seymour seeing his sister with a kitten. But that moment is almost too much to bear, like drinking from a fire hose.

The Catcher in the Rye was Salinger's masterpiece and one of the most beloved (and, I suppose, hated) novels ever written. If he'd had a time machine I believe Salinger would've gone back and linked his only novel more clearly with the Glass family, the clan that absorbed him for the rest of his life. Nine Stories and "Franny" (which is genius!) are equally brilliant and as charming as Catcher, demonstrating that Salinger had reached his goal of mastering the short story (or at least The New Yorker story). But at this point, when he writes his three (or four) novellas, Salinger begins to descend into the mad obsession that is the Glass family. Here he can live in a world he controls, can live happily in his family of the mind. Each of the novellas is less charming, less winning, more uncomfortable, more annoying, and distinctly more self-indulgent. Not that there aren't lovely and rewarding moments in each, but for me and anyone who's not a die-hard Salingerite, they are less valuable. In Raise High, Buddy Glass spends most of the tale talking about Seymour (good), and awkwardly, uncomfortably, and somewhat pointlessly dealing with hostile wedding guests (not so good). In Zooey, the title character spars with his mother while he sits in the bath (mostly good), and then annoys his sister Franny who's having a nervous breakdown (mostly not so good). Finally, in Seymour, Buddy Glass introduces us to his brother (good), but also goes on a lark and a detour about a number of issues which seem to have interested Salinger more than having much to do with the Glass family at all. But despite my difficulties with the novellas, as the keys to the Glass family, Salinger's private kingdom, the novellas are necessary as water. For those who succumb to Salinger's cult and drink from the Glass cup, the novellas are holy texts. Salinger has his flaws, he's self-indulgent, he'll go on too long sometimes about any topic that interests him, as about religion in "Franny" and Zooey. But he knows he's going on too long, it's intentional, and he just can't (or doesn't want to) help himself -- it's what he wants to say, just as Zooey goes on forever baiting poor Franny in the living room. He can't help it. It's how the story must be told, and that I can understand and accept.  🐢