It's not hard to grasp why Salinger went away, ceased sharing what he wrote. It is difficult to put into the action into words--maybe I'm just getting dumbed down with age and not enough intelligent conversation. Leave it to Wikipedia's authors to say it well, and elegantly: "Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently;" (He)"struggled with unwanted attention."

It seems there's something natural, organic to his 'retreat.' Maybe it comes from revealing something about the human creature that provokes an uncomfortable feeling, as if the performance of the sensitivity inherent in a character like Caulfield is something generally embarrassing, something a lot of people cringe at, as if it implies a weakness they don't want to be seen sharing in.

And yet, a book like The Catcher in the Rye, of course it's going to be a hit because it does so well what a book should, and after all, with a book there is an implicit contract between reader and word, a private matter, one of letting one's guard down, of admission and a subsequent pride.

The Godfather, Parts I and II, were on last night, a good way to digest dinner. In the course of which my brother reminds me of Halloweens more than 35 years ago, when I dressed as Marlon Brando's character, and would offer up to adults opening their trick or treat doors that I would 'make you an offer you cannot refuse,' as he cringes in the background at my theatricality. And walking home I feel a bit like Fredo himself, an embarrassment, a condition that extends to much of what a person does if he is feeling so.

Shakespeare could get away with the act because he had his plots to rely on, ones he didn't need to make up, but just do variations on, and fill up and flesh out as he wanted, which is why the richness of his form. He didn't have to get embarrassed or claim ownership of his main character, attentions deflected by lots of other characters up there on the stage, focus shifting from one's insides to another's. He could hide in plain day. The audience would identify it with the actor, consciously or unconsciously. And then of course, he was British, perfectly comfortable and plucky about the act and humor of revealing the self (and having other devices of protection.)

Salinger, a veteran of war in Europe, felt obliged to write. He began to say his piece. And of course as he wrote a great book, a very sensitive book that managed to see the light of day, it was very popular (and still is.) To the point where he became a focal point, a celebrity, a star. Which must be, for the writer, a great appreciator of quiet peace and privacy by the very nature of his work, especially tedious and frightening, not in the least for effect it has on a writer's gaze and sight. And the further problem, that public readership takes it as part of the deal that the author owns his character, that 'this is you, ISN'T IT,' and further more, and equally as bad, but in another way, 'if this is you, then these other characters must be real too.'

Which all feeds into the suspicion of the upright, respectful, polite and fairly-compensated-for-their-hard-work contributing members of society, that such a revealing is not to be encouraged. As if the author himself feels 100% great about what he has portrayed.

I don't know enough about Salinger. One hopes Salinger received support from people he trusted. That could have happened as much, and just as easily, in encounters in small-town Cornish, New Hampshire with regular folk as anywhere else.

And he kept what he wrote to himself. Having learned better than to share it in such a way.