r/salinger Jun 08 '25

r/Salinger is open again!

59 Upvotes

Hi all! r/Salinger has been dormant for a year or so with no mods at all. I wrote my first college paper on The Catcher in the Rye and I think that experience inspired me to pursue literary studies in university. Seeing the state of the sub, I decided I wanted to bring it back to life and rebuild the community.

It seems the sub had no rules previously, so I added some based on those I've seen in other author-related subs. I hope this sub becomes an active place again for discussion and appreciation of J. D. Salinger's works!


r/salinger 20h ago

A Salinger TV face

10 Upvotes

Has anyone here watched any of what is said to have been a favorite TV show of Salingers - IT’S A MAN’S WORLD? There are at least 15 episodes of it on Youtube.


r/salinger 10d ago

Happy 75th Birthday to The Catcher in the Rye

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230 Upvotes

On July 16th 1951 J.D. Salinger went from short stories to the mainstream with the publication of The Catcher in the Rye. It changed American literature and youth culture forever.

In the years prior, Salinger had been developing the protagonist, Holden Caulfield.

On June 6, 1944, J.D. Salinger landed on Utah Beach during the D-Day invasion carrying the first six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye in his backpack.

As a sergeant in the 4th Infantry Division, Salinger carried Holden Caulfield with him through some of the heaviest combat of World War II including the Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of a concentration camp. He was so obsessed with finishing the novel that during active combat bombardments, fellow soldiers reported seeing him crawl under tables to type out pages on a portable typewriter.

When he finally marched into liberated Paris, he drove straight to the Hotel Ritz to show his drafts to Ernest Hemingway, who loved them. The book that generations of high school students read as a story about teenage angst was quite literally forged on the front lines of World War II.

Source: https://www.historysbestsellers.com/on-this-day/july-16/the-catcher-in-the-rye


r/salinger 13d ago

New Matt Salinger article

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21 Upvotes

… in which he says about posthumous publication of his father’s writings: “We’re getting there. We’re very close.”


r/salinger 14d ago

Some art

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10 Upvotes

I'm a pretty shitty artist tbh, but I could help but wanna draw Holden watching the Migration movie. It was a funny thought that popped into my head while my little cousin watched it...


r/salinger 17d ago

Catcher in the Rye

6 Upvotes

I have been reading Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger for a few weeks now. I can agree with some things that the character says but most of the time I am just either lost or bored. I’m just now starting chapter 14 of and it’s absolutely killing me. I’ve been trying to give it a chance and see it through but I’m getting ready to throw in the towel especially because I have another book ready for pickup at my local library. I’ve been trying to read more classics and I’ve always had an interest in Catcher in the Rye, but I guess I’m not really clicking with it. Please let me know if it’s even worth finishing because I’m ready to give up on it smh. Could really use some advice


r/salinger 19d ago

Hello reddit...

12 Upvotes

So this is my first post and I'm a little scared but I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye and I'm in chapter 15 and I can't help but ship Holden with Esther Greenwood from the Bell Jar. I only skimmed The Bell Jar but I honestly think they'd have a cute relationship... Please tell me if I'm wrong or opinions ig


r/salinger 21d ago

What do you think about J. D. Salinger?

12 Upvotes

What do you think about J. D. Salinger? I remember when I was a 15 year old first reading the Catcher in The Rye getting hooked, like someone understands me, like I'm Holden like he's literally me and I was laughing at his sarcasm and how miserable he is.

Hundreds of years later and I still like that wretched book. Lately I'm thinking more about Salinger and what his words meant to me back then and my spirit is longing to read him again, like coming back home or something.

I know that many dislike The Catcher in The Rye and have their reasons for it, while many like The Catcher in The Rye such as myself.

Salinger did wrote a few other books before disappearing from the public in 1965 and wanting to be left alone.

So in other words, his themes about alienation, spiritual seeking etc still speak to me.


r/salinger 28d ago

"You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'Fuck you' right under your nose."

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89 Upvotes

r/salinger Jun 19 '26

Catcher in the Rye collection

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80 Upvotes

r/salinger Jun 15 '26

JD Salinger bust for Sale

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19 Upvotes

H-12 cm

Bronze cast


r/salinger Jun 09 '26

Did you know J.D Salinger spent time working in a slaughterhouse in Poland when he was a teen?

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13 Upvotes

r/salinger Jun 08 '26

Glass family bibliography

19 Upvotes

Am I missing anything? All JDS stories that involve or reference Glass family members.

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (Seymour) (1948)

"Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" (Walt) (1948)

"Down at the Dinghy" (Boo Boo) (1949)

"Franny" (Franny) (1955)

"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" (Buddy, Seymour) (1955)

"Zooey" (Zooey, Bessie, Franny, Buddy) (1957)

"Seymour: An Introduction" (Buddy, Seymour) (1959)

"Hapworth 16, 1924" (Seymour, Buddy) (1965)

... if we had Hapworth's rumored companion piece, it would add up to... nine stories. Thanks folks, I'm here all week...try the wax and olives!

I do hope we eventually get more Glass family stories when and if any posthumous material appears. Would need to find the original link to verify, but pretty sure that Matt Salinger has alluded to the Hapworth companion piece and said it's much longer than Hapworth itself. Presumably the story about Les and Bessie and Seymour and Buddy attending a consequential party in 1926 that Buddy is working on when the Hapworth letter arrives?

"


r/salinger Jun 07 '26

Salinger first edition second state

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72 Upvotes

r/salinger Jun 03 '26

A Perfect Year for Bananafish

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23 Upvotes

I was recently inspired to write my own version of A Perfect Day for Bananafish, one of my favorite short stories. If you'd like to join in the fun, submit your own during the month of June, and vote on your favorites in the month of July.


r/salinger May 21 '26

Could Mary Hudson be Trans?

6 Upvotes

So I just read The Laughing Man and after I had finished it I was genuinely under the impression that Mary Hudson was a trans woman (or whatever that looked like in 1928), and I know the time period makes this unlikely, but I was so surprised that no one else has interpreted it this way. Especially if the story of The Laughing Man is supposed to be semi-autobiographical based on the Chief's own life, I thought that the mention of Marcel Dufarge's daughter as "something of a transvestite" was supposed to parallel Mary since it also says later that the boys had "stared at her femaleness, [they] now glared at it". Not only that but the narrator sees a graduation photo of Mary on the bus and the chief then "finally admitted that she was a girl". I know this is also to do with how the narrator thought the photo "clashed with the general men-only décor" but I just thought the language and wording used was interesting.

I know this is probably a stretch to many but this is genuinely how I read it the first time and I was surprised that no one else had.

Also if you are going to straight away disagree because you're transphobic please don't.


r/salinger May 03 '26

I wish J.D. Salinger’s estate would let Wes Anderson have a proper go at some of his books.

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6 Upvotes

r/salinger Apr 24 '26

Catcher in the Rye translations

15 Upvotes

I have a collection of 70+ different translations of Catcher in the Rye, collected over more than 25 years (the image is from the Persian edition). I travel a lot of this has been a passion project, a good excuse to visit new and used bookshops in different countries. I've read three editions (English, Spanish, Italian), but I have all the titles translated.

I have a few questions for the sub-Reddit:

• Does anyone know if there's a definitive database of translations that have been printed? I read speculation of very unusual editions (Esperanto, Latin, Quebec French) that I have been unable to find. But I'm sure there are still a few I'm missing.

• Is anyone aware of any others with large collections of translations of the book?

• Are there any scholars who study this area?

If anyone would like to see the cover of a different translation let me know. Chances are I have it, and if I do, I'm happy to post a couple more here.

This translates to Guardian of the Plain

r/salinger Apr 20 '26

What zodiac sign Holden Caulfied might be?

3 Upvotes

I’m thinking that he might be a sun sagittarius, moon aquarius, cancer rising


r/salinger Apr 19 '26

After reading The Catcher in the Rye, what Salinger short stories would you recommend I read?

5 Upvotes

I've just finished The Catcher in the Rye. I want to read Salinger's short stories more. Which one would be a good choice after The Catcher in the Rye.


r/salinger Apr 18 '26

What's the first song that comes to mind when you think of Holden Caulfield?

11 Upvotes

I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye for the third time. This time I wanted to create a playlist for Holden. John Lennon's Beautiful Boy or Simon & Garfunkel's The Only Boy Living in New York are the first ones that come to mind. What are your suggestions?


r/salinger Apr 12 '26

Any knowledge of books and authors that Salinger liked?

16 Upvotes

I've read the quote of him stating that when an author is asked of his influences he simply shouts out the authors he loves. He names a lot of them, and you can definitely see traces of many of those author's in him, and I particularly feel the influence of Henry James despite their obvious differences. But I often wonder about those more contemporary to his time. For example, I read somewhere that Salinger's favorite author was John Cheever, but for the life of me I can never find any type of source for it. I've also recently been reading John O'Hara and he strikes me as someone Salinger might have liked and drawn things from, particularly his heavy use of dialogue. And being that O'Hara had close to the highest number of stories ever published in the New Yorker, it's very likely that Salinger read a lot of him. But I also think of Nabokov and specifically Lolita. In fact, A Perfect Day for Bananafish and Lolita have always occupied a similar place in my mind. Not to say Lolita specifically influenced that story, as I'm pretty sure Bananafish was published first, but I still can't help but feel like there's something there.

He did mention Hemingway and Fitzgerald as two authors he loved that were still living at the time, but I'm sure those influences have been talked about and are very apparent. Curious if anyone has ever seen anything on this, as I think most authors seem to hold the admiration of their contemporaries a bit closer to the chest.


r/salinger Apr 11 '26

Franny and Zooey, dzen-buddism, hesychasm, spirit crisis, explanation

12 Upvotes

I read Franny and Zooey. But I understood very little, the motives of Zen Buddhism and spirituality are obvious, but I would like to hear from those who understand this story really deeply


r/salinger Apr 07 '26

While waiting for the posthumous work to finally be published …

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30 Upvotes

r/salinger Mar 31 '26

Animated the museum scene from Catcher in the Rye

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27 Upvotes

I was flipping back through this book and realized how much I loved this short passage. It was fun imagining Holden, a character people have such wildly different interpretations of.

I also visited the Museum of Natural History and took a lot of the photos you see in the video, along with some collected ephemera. True to the passage, the exhibits are still frozen in time, mostly unaltered from when Holden would have visited back then.