Big Brother wasn't watching...

According to the Huffington Post, J.D. Salinger didn't have an FBI file. I guess there was no need.

Kaufering

This appears to be the concentration camp that Salinger witnessed the "liberation" of, I use that term loosely since there were so few survivors. It was a subsidiary camp of the Dachau labor camp.

I think seeing this puts a new spin not just on "For Esme" but also on "Bananafish", thinking about the bananafish in terms not just of material consumerism, but of consuming in people, the way the SS used Jewish labor, like cogs in the machine.

The Glass Menagerie

Just reading the Gwyn and Blotner and he mentions a hole left by among others, Tennessee Williams. I am just thinking offhand how "Zooey" functions corollary to "The Glass Menagerie" -- one of Wiliams' best known plays.

Possible correlations for further investigation:

3 main characters in each story (though Seympour could be arguably a main character though he does not apppear... perhaps he is the glass menagerie...)

Bessie and Amanda (the only version of an overbearing mother in Slainger that I can recall)

Zooey and Tom (Acting and moviegoing as scapist motifs)

Franny and Laura (Franny's spiritual crisis and state of "brokenness" and Laura's physical injury)

This could be interesting fodder for potential investigation....

I think

one has to be careful with Salinger... there's almost no happy adult stuff, just stuff about how great it is to be a child and all that drivel...

Phoniness

An Article I think I agree with, saving it for later...

http://www.godofthemachine.com/archives/00000053.html