Gin a body meet a body
Vanity Fair has an adapted excerpt from Kenneth Slawenski’s biography of J.D. Salinger up. It’s an interesting piece if for no other reasons than its look at Salinger’s time serving in the army in World War II and his interactions with Hemingway during the war. Still, I’m a little suspicious of the biographical impulse to ascribe aspects of the authors life to the fiction. I’m not saying that Slawenski really oversteps boundaries here. He does make a number of claims about the importance of the war in Salinger’s writing (something I wouldn’t dispute), but I’m unconvinced by the depth of the readings of Catcher in the Rye that he gives. It’s biography rather than literary criticism, of course (and it’s an excerpt so – benefit of the doubt). I’m curious if I’m just particularly sensitive to this motion due to my own work lately. Opinions?
