“There’s no more to Holden Caulfield.”
J.D. Salinger is not someone who appears in the news often. He’s been a recluse for nearly 50 years. But, I clicked on CNN.com today to get my political fix, and the featured article was about a “rip-off” of The Catcher in the Rye that Salinger is contesting in court. You can read the full article here, but to give you a quick summary, a Swedish company is planning to publish a book called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, which is the story of Holden Caulfield 60 years after the events of The Catcher in the Rye.
Salinger has blocked all but one (a short story) adaptation of his work and he is quoted as saying in 1980 that “There’s no more to Holden Caulfield. Read the book again. It’s all there . . . Holden Caulfield is only a frozen moment in time.” Now at the age of 90, he is contesting this latest attempt to adapt The Catcher in the Rye.
This article raised many questions for me, so feel free to share any reactions. But, in this age of open source and creative commons, how do you feel about a writer preventing anyone from adapting his work? The question is not whether J.D. Salinger has the right to prevent such adaptations, but if something is lost by holding on so tightly to that intellectual property. As a student of philosophy, sharing ideas is important to me and I think that though you might take the risk of having your thoughts twisted or your work transformed into something you don’t approve of, opening your work up to others allows for many new creative possibilities. Though you might approve of what Salinger is doing as a personal choice, how do you feel about it generally?
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Generally speaking, I disapprove of people who attempt to take the characters and stories written by others and turn them into something else. Particularly when it comes to works of literature (the endless sequels to Pride & Prejudice, anyone?), I just don’t think there is much to be improved upon. This isn’t always the case, but…I just hate the way some writers attempt to make bank off of someone else’s ideas and someone else’s talent, when their own ideas and talent are so small by comparison. That is not always the case, but generally speaking. I think if an author realizes that someone is going to botch the idea that they came up with, I can understand why they would want to protect it…for as long as they can, at least.
That being said, I think in some cases there have been great examples of sequels and spin-offs. I think of all the Star Wars books that have been published, by a variety of different authors. Lucas keeps tight reign over what is allowed to be published, to ensure that everything stays within the “Star Wars universe,” but the result of this has been protecting and promoting high quality/holding to basic ideas and principles among the published Star Wars literature.
Or I think of the author of Bridget Jones, who managed to do a great job of adapting the Pride & Prejudice story. That’s an example of a brilliant exception to the rule. But there are so few exceptions, and I feel that authors have the right to protect the quality of the legacy they leave. Really though, I just wish authors would stop trying to rewrite, improve upon or extend, someone else’s stories and start coming up with their own.
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I was thinking of Bridget Jones as I read your first paragraph and then you went on to mention it!
I don’t have a problem with someone trying to protect a legacy, though if I had one to protect myself, I don’t think I’d bother with the time or money to protect it very well. But, Salinger doesn’t allow anything, good or bad, and that’s not the philosophy I want to adopt myself.
I agree with you, though, and I’m not often interested in reading stories where people have taken characters and reused them. But,I do love watching film adaptations.
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
Personally, I think if this new novel is even remotely well done, it will be another demonstration of draconian copyright laws – especially since money is involved.
Let’s be honest. What’s wrong with this novel idea? People write biographies and historical fiction all of the time – and they sometimes even, gasp, disregard accepted theories of time and space.
Ideas and perspectives evolve (well, theoretically… in some people). Salinger created a representation of a specific idea, of a specific perspective, during a specific time. If this new novel SPECIFICALLY infringes on this, then yeah, bring that bad boy to court. I doubt it will. Cut and paste intellect is too old school.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:33 am
I think that, if the original author believes there is no more to the character, then it’s nearly impossible to create more for that character. I mean, it’s HIS character, and Holden came from his imagination. It’s like messing with fate, in a way. It’d be similar to a fan fiction, I guess.
I think Salinger has every right to ban this book from being published. If I invested my time in one character, I wouldn’t want someone ripping it off and trying to add to it.
I would LOVE to read a sequel about Holden Caulfield, but I’d want it to be written by Salinger himself.
June 4th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Very interesting. I can understand that as an author, you feel protective of your work and characters, but I’d also love to see someone’s adaptation of what I’d written, especially when it’s at a different point of the character’s life. Not sure I’d react the same as Salinger is, but to each his own.
June 4th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I respect JD Salinger’s position. As most have said, Holden is HIS character. HOWEVER, I would in fact love to read more on what happened to Holden post mental breakdown.
The Catcher in the Rye is by far my favorite book, and have always wondered ‘what happened’.
I’m probably speaking more out of selfishness than true fairness in the matter. Salinger has his right not to allow this book. Boy, I wish he would.
June 8th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Slate recently published an articles about this: http://www.slate.com/id/2219768
Enjoy!
June 13th, 2009 at 11:52 am
This subject caused much controversy and discussion on one of the writing boards I frequent.
my stance: Basically what this man is doing is trying to publish fanfic. He’s welcome to write it, but shouldn’t try to publish it and nobody should be surprised that JDS is trying to block it. Holden is his. So much goes into a character, so much that isn’t in a final novel, it’s ridiculous to presume that anyone can echo an original author’s creation–especially without his/her permission and input.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I completely understand – I think it is undermining his artistic vision to extend the character further than the original author desires. After all, Holden belongs to Salinger, and Salinger alone.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Under the old copyright laws, which allowed a publisher to copyright 28 years and renew 28 years, Catcher in the Rye should have fallen into public domain two years ago, in 2007. In fact, the new laws established in 1978, which hold copyright for the author’s life plus 50 years, would not have applied to older works like Catcher. However, there must have been a new law passed which allowed lengthened protection over older works.
I love musical theater and opera, genres that could barely live without adaptations. Take away adaptations and we don’t have West Side Story or My Fair Lady. Heck, we couldn’t even have Romeo and Juliet or G. B. Shaw’s Pygmalion. Most of Shakespeare’s work adapted others’ stories, and Pygmalion was inspired by a Greek myth.
I think Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov once said that if people didn’t like his orchestra treatment of other’s music, they could always go back to the original. I say the same thing for Salinger. For a pre-1978 work, holding onto a copyright beyond 56 years is too selfish. Art is communicative. Let other people share in your work. Or else, take Robert Burns’ poem out of your title and out of your novel!