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davenash's review
3.0
There are only a few conversations post-Catcher with Salinger, before 1951 he seemed sort of normal. Most of these articles have been read. Each of the authors goes to interview Salinger, who wasn't impossible to find, but didn't give much out. The experience described reminded me eerily of the Ballad of Thin Man:
"You hand in your ticket and you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel to be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible!" as he hands you a bone."
I took these interviews by Mr. Jones with a grain salt. I am going back to re-read his four official books - Catcher in The Rye, Franny & Zooey, Nine Stories, and Raise High The Roof-beam / Seymour an Introduction. Like Bob said everything is in my music.
"You hand in your ticket and you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel to be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible!" as he hands you a bone."
I took these interviews by Mr. Jones with a grain salt. I am going back to re-read his four official books - Catcher in The Rye, Franny & Zooey, Nine Stories, and Raise High The Roof-beam / Seymour an Introduction. Like Bob said everything is in my music.
tabman678's review
1.0
J.D Salinger the Last interview is not at all what I thought it was going to be. I thought J.D. Salinger had actually given some form of interview. I found no such thing.
Now just because my expectations were wrong does not result in my sustain for this. My distance is a result of what I got. What I got was incident after incident of a stalking and privacy invasion attempts and success’.
Now since I’m reading this I think it is clear I have a respect or curiosity for the author and his work, which I do. I am not quiet about the fact that I think Catcher in the Rye is a great, important, and astounding piece of fiction but it is also my favorite novel. So I have a passing interest and working knowledge of J.D. Salinger and respect lots of things about him.
So this was infuriating at times, interesting most of the time, and all around a bit curious.
Curious because that is where all the stories start, because someone was curious. Some start to question those around J.D Salinger. One woman responded to his fan letters because she worked for his publishers. And other essays all discussing Salinger.
It also has a courtroom hearing transcript in the middle and it takes up a lot about the book and it’s frankly uninteresting.
Now the most interesting thing about this book is that you get to see different writing styles in the form of personal essays, and that’s interesting. As well as the new little factoids I learned, which also resulted in me wanting a copy of Hapworth 16 1924. But this comes at a cost, because I understand Salinger’s desire for privacy. I don’t understand his need for it because I’m not as sought after as him, but I understand the desire because I like my privacy which is why I have only a Goodreads and a Twitter I don’t use.
For this book to exist is troubling because there is no interview which is granted, every single essay is an account of stalking or pining after someone who wanted to be left alone, and after reading it I myself feel dirty. Because he does have published work and I can refer to that instead of this, I’ll try that in the future.
All in all the existence of this is what I take issue with. The form is interesting at times even if the content makes me feel dirty.
I think in part this kind of thing would work better if it were a different author but with this author I find it lacking and vile.
1 star.
Now just because my expectations were wrong does not result in my sustain for this. My distance is a result of what I got. What I got was incident after incident of a stalking and privacy invasion attempts and success’.
Now since I’m reading this I think it is clear I have a respect or curiosity for the author and his work, which I do. I am not quiet about the fact that I think Catcher in the Rye is a great, important, and astounding piece of fiction but it is also my favorite novel. So I have a passing interest and working knowledge of J.D. Salinger and respect lots of things about him.
So this was infuriating at times, interesting most of the time, and all around a bit curious.
Curious because that is where all the stories start, because someone was curious. Some start to question those around J.D Salinger. One woman responded to his fan letters because she worked for his publishers. And other essays all discussing Salinger.
It also has a courtroom hearing transcript in the middle and it takes up a lot about the book and it’s frankly uninteresting.
Now the most interesting thing about this book is that you get to see different writing styles in the form of personal essays, and that’s interesting. As well as the new little factoids I learned, which also resulted in me wanting a copy of Hapworth 16 1924. But this comes at a cost, because I understand Salinger’s desire for privacy. I don’t understand his need for it because I’m not as sought after as him, but I understand the desire because I like my privacy which is why I have only a Goodreads and a Twitter I don’t use.
For this book to exist is troubling because there is no interview which is granted, every single essay is an account of stalking or pining after someone who wanted to be left alone, and after reading it I myself feel dirty. Because he does have published work and I can refer to that instead of this, I’ll try that in the future.
All in all the existence of this is what I take issue with. The form is interesting at times even if the content makes me feel dirty.
I think in part this kind of thing would work better if it were a different author but with this author I find it lacking and vile.
1 star.
gracesparrow's review
2.0
This review is solely based on the book, it’s format, not anything about J.D. Salinger as a person.
We know Salinger never gave any interviews willingly. This leads to the problem of a lack of non-repetitive content in this book. They author simply seemed to have pasted together a series of articles people wrote of Salinger. He didn’t bother editing any of them to remove repetitive quotations and background on Salinger. And while preserving an articles authenticity is important, the introduction made by the author repeats upon multiple articles later down in the book.
It’s just 167 pages of about 40 pages of new information, the rest is just a narrative or repeating itself.
We know Salinger never gave any interviews willingly. This leads to the problem of a lack of non-repetitive content in this book. They author simply seemed to have pasted together a series of articles people wrote of Salinger. He didn’t bother editing any of them to remove repetitive quotations and background on Salinger. And while preserving an articles authenticity is important, the introduction made by the author repeats upon multiple articles later down in the book.
It’s just 167 pages of about 40 pages of new information, the rest is just a narrative or repeating itself.
austind's review
4.0
I had read most of these interviews & essays previously (I did my Master's thesis on Salinger), but there were some that I hadn't yet come across, specifically the transcript of his deposition regarding the Hamilton biography court case (which Hamilton won, but then Salinger appealed and was successful...kind of serves Hamilton right, though). So, really interesting. Extreme Salinger devotees should enjoy this one.
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