So, J. D. Salinger died four days ago, and the long-held unrealistic hopes of millions were simultaneously dashed: we will never see another Catcher in the Rye, or even another Seymour: An Introduction. Unrealistic hopes are usually the hardest ones to let go of, so it's no surprise to hear rumours that Salinger maintained a safeful of unfinished novels — as many as fifteen of them. Less hopeful are the further rumours that he intended them all to be destroyed.
Me, I'm just relieved he made it to the natural end of his life. For some reason I was always convinced he would one day be found dead by his own hand. I guess because suicide came up quite a bit in his stories, but he also just seemed like one of those guys... the kind who seem to understand everything, and are therefore not generally understood themselves.
I always end up admiring those guys. In fact, I've lately been compiling a list of people whom I greatly admire who also happen to be suicides. Seems morbid, I guess, and maybe it is. But don't worry — this is not some kind of really crappily veiled cry for help. Please, I am definitely an extra-thick-or-no-veil-at-all kind of metaphorical bride. I just find it interesting and, yes, sad that so many of those whom I would consider the great ones seem, like Seymour Glass, not to have been made for this world. Here's the list which J. D. so deftly evaded for 91 years, to which I say congratulations.
Diane Arbus
Albert Ayler
Vic Chesnutt (probably)
Kurt Cobain
Hart Crane
Ian Curtis
Nick Drake
Sigmund Freud
Kurt Gödel
Vincent Van Gogh
Ernest Hemingway
Spalding Gray
Primo Levi
Joe Meek
Phil Ochs
Sylvia Plath
Elliott Smith (possible homicide, I guess)
Hunter S. Thompson
John Kennedy Toole
Alan Turing
David Foster Wallace
Virginia Woolf
Plus possibly Frida Kahlo, Malcom Lowry, Marilyn Monroe, and Peter Tchaikovsky. Best dinner party guest list ever, IMHO.
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4 comments:
You're right, very sad. Why does it say probably beside Vic Chesnutt? I only just learned today of his suicide, but was there a chance it wasn't suicide?
As far as I can tell, the jury's still out as to whether his overdose was intentional. Seems highly likely, though.
Might have to let that 60's Vincent thing go one of these days. Potential is just that. Move on.
Still, a re-re-read is in order.
DoD
I'm not talking about potential. These are all people who ACTUALLY expressed something important and valuable to the world, but for one reason or another still felt so alienated that they couldn't continue. Are you really arguing that sadness is an inappropriate response to that?
Furthermore, the list of people with the POTENTIAL to express something important and valuable to the world would include everyone who ever lived, yet the death even of that potential is still sad, whether it's self-inflicted or not. I refuse to see sadness over the loss of a unique point of view as something I have to "let go," nor do I think "Potential is just that. Move on" would make a very popular eulogy.
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