"In the 50 years since J.D. Salinger removed himself from the
public eye and stopped publishing, he has been viewed — more accurately,
worshiped — as the human embodiment of purity, a welcome antidote to phoniness.
To many, he was a kind of god."
Now comes the word — though not really news, to some — that
over the years when he was cherishing his privacy, Salinger was also carrying
on relationships with young women 15, and in my case, 35 years younger than he.
Writes Joyce Maynard, author of the memoir “At Home in the World,” that revealed to the world the relationship she had with the then 35 years her senior, J.D. Salinger.
Salinger wasn’t simply brilliant, funny, wise; he burrowed into one’s brain, seeming to understand things nobody else ever had. His expressions of admiration (“I couldn’t have created a character I love more than you”) were intoxicating. His dismissal and contempt, when they came, were devastating.
I was 19 when he put two $50 bills in my hand and sent me away. Years after he dismissed me, his voice stayed in my head, offering opinions on everything he loved and all that he condemned. This was true even though, on his list of the condemned, was my own self.
The private Salinger, nobody knew about, was not a very nice guy.
It is the quiet acceptance, apparently alive and well in our
culture, of the notion that genius justifies cruel or abusive treatment of
those who serve the artist and his art. Richard Schickel, writing of Salinger’s
activities, expresses the view that despite the disclosures about Salinger’s
pursuit of young women he lived “a ‘normal’ life.”
He liked pretty young girls. Stop the presses,” writes the
film critic (and father of daughters) David Edelstein. The implication being,
what’s the fuss?
Do you think Maynard has a point here? is it ok to give steamed artists, the Woody Allens, a pass with regard to their personal lives?
Maynard presses her point further...
... we
are talking about what happens when people in positions of power — mentors,
priests, employers or simply those assigned an elevated status — use their
power to lure much younger people into sexual and (in the case of Salinger)
emotional relationships. Most typically, those who do this are men. And when
they are done with the person they’ve drawn toward them, it can take that
person years or decades to recover.
