what happens to holden caulfield after the book

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Y.A. author Mary O'Connell plans to feature J.D. Salinger'due south almost-famous character, Holden Caulfield, in her upcoming book for adults,In the Rye, which has been acquired by Amy Einhorn Books, an banner of Putnam. Per The New York Times, in O'Connell's novel, "Caulfield steps out of the pages ofThe Catcher in the Rye and into the life of a high school senior searching Manhattan for her missing American lit instructor."

J.D. Salinger, notwithstanding, was pretty adamant about what should and what should not happen with his books. He never wantedCatcher in the Rye to become a movie, for example, though many people hoping to capitalize on the popularity and resonance of the story tried to convince him otherwise. Cameron Crowe posted part of a 1957 letter from Salinger explaining why, exactly, he was against the idea. In it, the author explains, "I keep saying this and nobody seems to concord, but The Catcher in the Rye is a very novelistic novel. There are readymade 'scenes'—only a fool would deny that—just for me, the weight of the book is in the narrator'due south voice, the non-finish peculiarities of it ..." He writes that "it is possible that one day the rights will be sold," but "It pleasures me no cease ... to know that I won't have to run into the results of the transaction."

Salinger clearly had an intense and oddly private human relationship with his most-famous character, maybe because, as Kenneth Slawenski wrote in a piece forVanity Fair in 2011, the graphic symbol and writing that would become the volume accompanied Salinger throughout much of his adult life. And so, non merely did he not want the volume to be made into a picture show, he didn't want the character to exist fabricated into other books. Salinger was so protective of the depiction of his grapheme in the media that he didn't even desire book covers to feature the epitome of Holden Caulfield. Further, co-ordinate to a 2010 piece in Salon, "he asked to have his image taken off the dust jacket, and he objected to James Avati'south art [at right] for the paperback (he didn't want any art on it at all)." Hence, the comprehend designs that have get iconic representations of the book—the white 1 with the rainbow stripes in one corner, or the plain maroon cover with gold lettering. (More covers hither.)

In 2009, before Salinger died, his estate prevented the book 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, past a writer with the (clear homage) pen proper noun John David California, from being published in the U.Due south. Co-ordinate to the affidavit, on the thing of Salinger's refusal to create or authorize the cosmos of derivatives, "Although Catcher and the graphic symbol of Holden Caulfield take a distinctive place in contemporary American culture, neither Salinger nor anyone else (with or without his permission) has written any new narrative for Holden Caulfield or created whatsoever works derivative of Catcher in the 58 years since the novel'south release. For over 50 years, Salinger has been fiercely protective of both his intellectual property and his privacy has been well-documented. He is equally protective of his piece of work." Phyllis Westberg, Salinger's agent and president of Harold Ober Associates, added in that certificate, "Based on my forty years as a literary agent and nineteen years of representing Mr. Salinger, I have no doubt that if Salinger were, reverse to his stated intention, to write and publish a sequel to Catcher, it would command substantial payment, including at least a $five million advance.... While Salinger's copyright in Catcher is potentially therefore quite valuable, it is his wish not to further exploit it. That likewise goes for Holden Caulfield, the character he created and who narrates Catcher."

Harold Ober Associates all the same manages the rights to the Salinger Estate, and we've reached out to Westberg, to Marcia Paul (the lawyer in the California instance), and to Putnam/Amy Einhorn Books equally well as to O'Connell to find out more about the rights as related to her upcoming new work. In the absence of their responses, we can look to the previous case (note: it's unclear in the New York Times written report on the bargain whether the publisher has caused rights from the Salinger estate to publish this book; what is articulate is that the publisher bought the book from O'Connell). According to Jon Tandler, a publishing lawyer in Denver, who spoke to Time's Andrea Sachs well-nigh Salinger's copyright in 2010,  "If he says that he doesn't want a revised piece of work, or a secondary work or a derivative work, or he doesn't want annihilation related toCatcher in the Rye licensed, and so whoever is managing his estate would be bound by that. He tin can say, 'Thou shall not create a sequel.'"

Of course, just because Salinger wanted things a certain way hasn't prevented people from trying to reprise his plot and grapheme and, even, from people writing that he was kind of being a selfish jerk by wanting to command his own material so stringently. A piece published by the Economist in 2011 following the legal win confronting John David California'southward book focused on the writer's "miserly legal legacy":

This change in the mood and tools of the creative class has made Salinger'due south legal aggression against biographers, filmmakers and inferior writers seem less like charming New Hampshire become-off-my-backyard curmudgeonism and more like a contemptible failure of generosity. A decent man does not shoot at kids taking a shortcut across his back twoscore. Merely Salinger, again and again, lawyered up, aimed carefully, and fired.

Yet it's hard to truly control the imaginations of other artistic types, and even with Salinger'due south repeated denial of rights to publishers and producers and playwrights, amongst others, you tin count any number of "Holden Caulfield-esque" characters in books and movies (who aren't named such) that may or may not accept been informed by their predecessor. At the same fourth dimension, each time an author tries to use Caulfield in a book, or a producer tries once more to get the picture rights, or an manager or actor or writer bases a grapheme upon what they think of of that seminal grapheme, Caulfield comes up in our minds yet again, nameless or not. Are nosotros sick of him yet? In 2009, at the time of the lawsuit against John David California, the New York Times published a piece about how we might be. Jennifer Schuessler wrote, "'Teachers say young readers just don't similar Holden equally much equally they used to. What in one case seemed similar courageous truth-telling now strikes many of them as 'weird,' 'whiny' and 'young.'" Co-ordinate to an English language instructor quoted, "I had a lot of students comment, 'I can't really feel bad for this rich kid with a weekend gratis in New York City.'" (Update: Hillary Clinton agrees.)

Information technology'due south interesting that the copyright strife, far from preventing the states from thinking about Caulfield, serves to make him more ours, cementing him in the collective imagination, a kind of universal intellectual belongings, every bit he wends his way into the public conversation for another day or month or year. Information technology doesn't hurt that people keep reading that volume. It'southward debatable whether Salinger was aware of how long people would continue to try to fight for the right to bring their own versions of Caulfield to the page and screen, though Westberg's comments in the affidavit brand us think he was fairly knowledgable virtually what he'd wrought. Just maybe there's another parallel here, also. As Schuessler wrote, "Some critics say that if Holden is less popular these days, the fault lies with our own impatience with the idea of a lifelong quest for identity and meaning that Holden represents." Are we as impatient with the apparent lifelong quest of acquiring the meaning and place of Holden Caulfield himself?

Yous wonder, sometimes, when examining books and films on a deeper level, if everything must be derivative or such whole-cloth homage. Practise we need, for instance, so many remakes, and what value are they, really? Is at that place anything new under the lord's day? I also wonder whether, at some indicate downwards the road, Salinger would have stopped caring if his character was used in a new book past someone who says she herself was inspired to become a writer by his original work. If history is any indication, the estate will fight the publication of this book, as well. But at some point, presumably, the character and the work itself volition revert the public domain, and so the deluge of redux and redux once more volition actually begin. The question is, volition anyone care at that indicate? Probably.

This commodity is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2012/10/everybody-still-wants-piece-holden-caulfield/322352/

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