J.D. Salinger

I'm late in posting about him. Since he's one of my favorite authors, I should post about his death. Really, I have little to say that hasn't been said. I love the way he writes, and of course, his characters. It's a very unique style that can't be imitated, but can be learned from. The sense of detail and non-rushed-ness of the descriptions of goings-on, especially.

I won't comment much on his personal life, but some of it defies explanation. The success of his books, and the fact that he made so much money off of them, is what allowed him to live the way he wanted, and yet he would likely begrudge other writers for publicizing their works in order to even have any hope of selling enough of them to make a few bucks.

He lived to a ripe old age, and of course I would love to read any of his works that he's been hiding all these years. People who knew him have estimated that he had between 2 and 17 manuscripts locked away. More recently, someone said he was merely writing about health issues (he was into all kinds of homeopathic remedies), so maybe it's nothing exciting to read. But the fact that he was reclusive for that long would indicate that he must have been writing SOME fiction. What else could he have been possibly doing with all that free time in his secluded house? Eat, walk the dog, read the papers, read books, watch old movies...he had to have done some Salinger-type writing.