Mr. Seymour Glass

C/O The Museum of Television and Radio, W 52nd St New York, NY.

Dear sir,  

Please accept our if not profound at a minimum sincere condolences on the passing from the earthly plane of Mr. J.D. Salinger. The author’s recent translation to the hereafter has placed his readers and the principle subject of his books in an uncertain relationship, as if we’d met through a mutual friend now gone, and must bump into one another “accidentally” at the observances, be they religious in the conventional sense- Jewish ceremonials or Buddhist meditations on the Great Round of Being, or, more simply, over quiet coffee at a diner in Cornish NH if one exists, or any other suitably remote town in the USA- and, having bumped so must do two things: one, forget whatever we’ve heard with regard to the supposed “fictional” character, and two, think of the absolutely RIGHT thing to say to such a one, who will be, as a matter of course, Larger Than Life and yet as real as a cup of almost instant hardly palatable coffee; whatever stammered remarks by us would not defray the cost of one such cup in the days when coffee cost a nickel. Before my time, I know, before my time.I refer to you, Mr. Glass. You were the main character in many of the works of Mr. Salinger through his amanuensis and ghost-writer (and now I can use that term in every sense), Buddy Glass, your brother.I feel confidant we would recognize you without your shoes on, and that we would follow any strictures or admonishments to do the same, with regard to the removal or casting aside of shoes, hats, overcoats, up to and including the rending of garments, in honor of the Writer now gone to the Beyond. We feel that in common with other great artists tempted by the short but enviable stay in this vale of tears, you would fail to conceal your genius, and we would recognize you right away and we would approach you, or eddy toward you through the crowd, and then wonder what to say to prevent us from staring at you in wonder. You, “fictional character” Mr. Seymour Glass, will not know whether we had just realized we had locked ourselves out of the car, or whether we had something of pressing importance to ask about, or both.The troubling thing will be, as with the Passing of all Great Beings, (and all are great) the Immortality question in a somewhat inverted form, which will come up right away, I assure you.Here it is:Despite the fact that we may be certain that Mr. Salinger could be forgotten in Time, and would undoubtedly prefer it so, does the larger question hold with respect to the Immortality, the basic Life-Goes On-ness of his main characters?Though your own final chapter has been written, Mr. Seymour Glass, I think it safe to say that your memory, your being, the life of your character, begins again and again with every reading, and so it may be in life. We don’t know WHERE you are, but THAT you are is beyond question. And Franny, and Holden Caulfield, and the entire authorial progeny of Mr. Salinger, the same.Now that he is Gone, and we are given the chance to think it over, we are not sure we would accept a personal check from the Author without two forms of ID, but you, Mr. Seymour Glass, we embrace as family, no! more than family! For we didn’t give you monkey bumps or Indian burns, and have no amend to make. We just read the books and stories and myths and yadda yadda yadda and now we think we know it all: we have a hold on you, and you can’t escape, even though I see you looking for your shoes already.No Mr. Seymour Glass, Now it is one to one, mano a mano,  tete a tete with your readers.It is as though we found your letters in a drawer and read them DESPITE the warning label you put on everything as to what trouble would befall any who break seals 1- 7.And trouble did befall Mr. Salinger’s readers, whether they recognized it or not.

The readers of Salinger learned that a spiritual step may have Consequences.

Kafka said,” There is a point in every life beyond which there is no return- that is the point that must be reached.”

Those points in Salinger’s stories may be cataclysmic, in which a character’s basic faculties are at stake, or sense of sanity. Even the will to live may be superceded by some greater urge forward, beyond explaining.

We know this now.

And yet nothing ever is lost.

Somewhere the uncollected writings of J.D. Salinger exist, the great non-sequential pieces from the Typewriter Era. They include a somewhat less familiar letter from you, Mr Seymour Glass, which brave scouts know as “Hapworth 16, 1924.”

To read these is to return to a writer on a apparently unique level of American letters. The Glass family writings appeared at a time when some spiritual precepts middle-Americans now hold dear (at least in an NPR slash PBS sense) were quite unheard of: That meditation makes sense. That religions probably are reconcilable. That normalcy might be the face of God etc. etc. -these are now of the common parlance.

Today, no one would be shocked if they knew their next-door neighbor was studying yoga, or was a vegetarian, or had taken a Vow of Silence or whatever. I am not sure that was always the case- I know it wasn’t.  

And, too, Salinger’s concern with the post-traumatic stress of modern life was hard to grasp initially. Now we all have it, and sense it and no wonder.

We can’t thank Salinger for this, but we may guess that by participating in the life of his creations, (even if we are Too Shy or Not Smart Enough, or only Went to New York One Time and yadda yadda yadda) we can still ponder the koan about one hand clapping, though we now think we know that one already.

(Do we really?)

Speaking of which, I’m going to disclose to my friends the answer to one mystery that has always perplexed me, and, though my all-nighters with Buddy Glass are faraway in the past, the question has remained.

I have always wondered what, if anything, Mr. J. D. Salinger would have in his safe, in the way of writing- including poetry by YOU, Mr. Seymour Glass.

I know, I feel sure I know what it is in Mr. Salinger’s writing safe:

It is a handkerchief with YOUR monogram, “SG”.

You may have cried tears into that handkerchief, you may have blown your nose, you may have received it and never used it, or you may never have received it at all, but the poem is that it belongs to you, his main character, Mr. Seymour Glass.

Sometimes something commonplace brings us closer to what we seemingly cannot attain.

-In memory of the writings of the reclusive writer J.D. Salinger,

James K
SF CA
2/3/10.