Got more stories than J.D.'s got Salinger

So I've been on sort of a Salinger kick lately and decided to re-read all of his work that is currently in the public domain. In the last few weeks I have reread his anthologized works: Franny And Zooey, Raise High The Roof Beam Carpenters And Seymour An Introduction, Nine Stories, and The Catcher In The Rye. As well as two of his unanthologized works, Hapworth 16, 1924 and Slight Rebellion Off Madison. If anyone is interested, the later two are likely available somewhere on the Internet, but can be read in its original form by obtaining a copy of The Complete New Yorker, a 7 disc DVD collection, that contains every page of the magazine published between 1925 and 2007 (which is what I did). It should be noted though that Slight Rebellion is the basis for The Catcher in the Rye, so the material isn't real anything that is not already available. If any is looking to read some Salinger, Nine Stories is actually a really good place to begin. It contains the short story For Esme-with Love and Squalor, my favorite of all Salinger's work.

For those not already familiar with Salinger, many of his stories revolve around the Glass family. Two former Vaudeville performing parents and their 7 progeny. The children, precocious and intelligent beyond their years, each performed on a radio show entitled "It's a Wise Child" at varying times. Many of the stories are narrated by Buddy Glass, the second eldest of the children, following the suicide of his elder brother Seymour (believe me, I'm really not giving anything away by referencing his suicide.) The stories of the Glass family as well as the other works by Salinger generally carry much of the same themes. Many have very philosophical and religious overtones, and address the characters' struggle with the concepts of authenticity, and innocence. In Catcher in the Rye for instance, Holden Caulfield is in a constant struggle to recognize, hold on to, and protect innocence, especially that of his younger sister. Like one of Salinger's other main characters, Franny Glass, Holden is driven to a virtual mental collapse trying to figure out how to maintain his integrity and keep his ever growing disdain for the inauthentic, the "phonies" from consuming him.

If any of this is sounding even remotely familiar to Wes Anderson fans, there is good reason. Salinger was a major influence of Anderson and that influence is seen clearly in much of his work. Specifically, The Royal Tenenbaums and to a lesser extent, Rushmore. Re-reading Salinger in fact made me realize what a fine line Anderson is riding between influence and plagiarism. In The Royal Tenenbaums for instance, not only is the family made up of former child prodigies, their last name is very similar to the married name of one of the Glass daughters, Tanenbaum. Even more telling, some of the scenes in the movie seem directly taken from Franny and Zooey. As for Rushmore, one could describe it as the story of an uncommon young man expelled from his prestigious private school. That same description can apply to The Catcher in the Rye. But it's okay Wes, you've made some of my favorite movies, so I ain't mad at cha.

For those of you who haven't read Salinger, here is a little bit of what you have been missing:

"She said she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her fingers from touching the light bulbs"

"...whenever he said anything on the show that delighted her, she used to step on his foot...On certain nights when he was in especially good form, Seymour used to come home with a slight limp"

"... please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parentheses (((( ))))."

" and my atoms, moreover, are arranged to make me constitutionally inclined to believe that where there's smoke there's usually strawberry Jello, seldom fire..."

"The fact is obvious much too late, but the singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid, and joy is a liquid"

and finally

"I don't really feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it's always nice, I'll grant you, if he has one."