Book of the Month

The following excerpts from William Maxwell's , "J.D.Salinger," Book of the Month Club News, July 1951, pp 5-6 would be interesting for those looking for literary influences on JDS. JDS was describing a visit to Sarah Lawrence short-story class. But then the interviewer was a New Yorker friend, the novelist and editor of the New Yorker.

I enjoyed the day but it isn't something I'd ever want to do again. I got very oracular and literary. I found myself labelling all the writers I respect...A writer, when he's asked to discuss his craft, ought to get up and call out in a loud voice just the names of the writers he loves. I love Kafka, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Proust, O'Casey, Rilke, Lorca, Keats, Rimbaud, Burns, E.Bronte, Jane Austen, Henry James, Blake, Coleridge. I won't name any living writers. I don't think it's right.

And in another context, about writing in general, he went on to say:

I think writing is a hard life. But it's brought me enough happiness that I don't think I'd ever deliberately dissuade anybody (if he had the talent) from taking it up. The compensations are few, but when they come, they're very beautiful.

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Sonny (Sundeep Dougal) Holden Caulfield, New Delhi, INDIA