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Once, not that long ago, the mere thought of doing something was as good as doing it.
But today I’ve trading thinking for doing – and I know I’ve hit the mother-lode in avoidance when the kitchen and cooking become a refuge.
All the doing has kept thoughts at bay though, including this one made by a writer-friend of J.D. Salinger, which I ran across in The New Yorker a couple of days ago. Lillian Ross writes:
“Over the years, Salinger told me about working “long and crazy” hours at his writing and trying to stay away from everything that was written about him. He didn’t care about reviews,” he said, but “the side effects” bothered him. “There are no writers anymore,” he said once. “Only book selling louts and big mouths.”
It’s not the conclusion I find as bothersome as Salinger’s comments about “the side effects.” But rather than thinking about it, I’m just “working ‘long and crazy’ hours” in the kitchen, filling up my freezer and fridge with meals.
Meat Loaf, Roast Beef, Irish Beef Stew and Swiss Steak — with no side effects.
an everyday life 
Interesting. Thinking about Salinger, it’s kind of a strange feeling- he’s gone, and yet, we never really “had” him, did we?
I agree that “side effects” is somehow disturbing.
Ruby Elizabeth,
The article is colored with Salinger’s references about the hidden dangers of vanity that a writer faces — “the destructive praise and flattery, the killing attention and appreciation” — these were probably some of the side effects he wished to avoid.
Yet, did he? Some might say his reclusive nature was vanity. Maybe Salinger’s daughter and Joyce Maynard speak of this in their memoirs.
Janell
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I’ve never read any Salinger. From what I have heard since his death he doesn’t actually sound like a good or a nice man.
But we are human and it’s easy to believe what people who don’t know us write about us.
There is also the very real possibiltiy that he like Harper Lee only had one good book in him and he ought not to have written again after his success. Lee also shuns publicity. I have read and loved To Kill and Mocking Bird, but since it has now become a set text for GCSE exams, I suspect it will become far less iconic.
Viv,
As you say, who knows the truth of it– but God?
I’ve never read his work either –though I’m pretty sure The Catcher in the Rye was banned from our high school library. Why else would teen-age boys cart around the book — like a trophy in their arms? Perhaps someday I’ll read this … and other ‘late greats” I’ve missed along the way.
Janell
Well, you know a bit about my take on Salinger 😉 Two further points.
I read “Catcher in the Rye” several times in high school and college – often as part of a lit course. What do I remember of it? The name Holden Caulfield, and that the cover was red. There was absolutely nothing memorable about it – I remember being mightily disappointed, and wondering what the fuss was about.
As for Salinger himself, there’s no question those who were able to penetrate the defenses of his reclusive nature were loathe to criticize and thus lose access.
One of My Little Rules for Living is Be careful who you listen to, because their voices will influence your own.
If we listen to hatred, we are more likely to speak in a hateful way. If we continually hear cynicism and negativity from those around us, we are more like to become cynical and pessimistic ourselves. If we listen only to Homer Simpson we’ll speak in one sort of voice. If we listen only to Shakespeare, we’ll speak in another.
The point isn’t that we should choose to listen to this voice or that, but we do need to be attentive to the quality of the voices around us and we need to make wise choices in order to nurture and protect our own true voice.
Salinger’s voice always seemed to me to have an edge of pettiness, envy and dismissiveness, so his was one voice I chose not to listen to. I don’t think I’m any worse for it.
And by the way – that reference to the Maytag salesman who quoted Ruskin, and Salinger’s conviction that it wasn’t part of the schtick? It was. Trust me on that one – I grew up in Newton, Iowa, and my dad worked his whole life for Maytag. I went to the Maytag park, swam in the Maytag pool, won the baby contest at the Maytag Family Picnic when I was 2 and went to college on a Maytag scholarship. “Where quality counts, price doesn’t” may have been Ruskin, but it was pure Maytag merchandising, too 😉
Linda,
I liked your Maytag insight. And as for your words on voices we choose to surround ourselves with — well, I think I provided similar advice to my own children. Do we feel a ‘yet’ coming on…?
Sometimes, I think, regardless of who the speaker is — there might be a bit of truth that hits home. And I think this may be ‘it’ for me with that quote from and about Salinger included in “Hold the Side Effects.” I’m wrestling with it right now and I probably need to do it with more “write now”, though ‘off the blog stage’ rather than on. When I write on something enough, I usually write myself into an answer.
Interestingly enough, after reading the Lillian Ross article, I zipped right over to Amazon.com to purchase The Catcher in the Rye, to fill in a gap in my education. I never made it as far as the ‘shopping cart’ — something stopped me — and I’m not sure what it was. Perhaps it was the two — two??? — memoirs of women close to him — though I can’t really say for sure.
Anyway, last night I decided to recycle that thoroughly read issue of The New Yorker.
And last night, I finally landed on a different novel — Kathryn Stockett’s The Help — and already, I feel much better. Stockett’s words — dialogue and thoughts mostly — make her characters grow big and tall on the page. And already, not even two full chapters into it, I know that this book will be good medicine.
Today is a new day. And I rejoice and am glad in it. That the sun shines in a cloudless blue sky — well that too helps.
As have your words. Thank you.
Janell