J.D. Salinger: A Life
by Kenneth Slawenski, 2012, Random House eBook Edition
While waiting to get my library copy of The Catcher in the Rye, which was the next book selection for our book club, I inadvertently borrowed this book thinking it was Catcher. When I saw it was a biography of Salinger, I thought what the heck, I’ll read this while I’m waiting. I eventually went to the library to get The Catcher in the Rye and read it, then returnd to this book to finish it.
It actually worked out a bit better to finish this book after reading The Catcher in the Rye as it gave me some insights regarding its meaning. It also gave me a great deal of insight regarding all of Salinger’s writings and thoughts. The biography was published a couple of years after Salinger’s death, so his memory was no doubt fresh in many individual’s minds.
I found this book to be interesting regarding Salinger’s life and philosophy, but it had one large drawback. The author dove into each of Salinger’s writings with a multi-page, blow-by-blow telling of each one. I finally resorted to skipping these pages until the book returned to Salinger’s life. The book, in my opinion, would have been much better if the author had offered only concise descriptions of Salinger’s writings rather than comprehensive retellings. This is especially the case when I might want to read a few of those works and I wouldn’t want the whole story revealed prior to reading it myself.
So, the book gave me a lot of insight regarding Salinger and his works, but I certainly didn’t need the level of detail he included for each of those works.
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