[HN Gopher] J.D. Salinger and wielding copyright as self-protection
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       J.D. Salinger and wielding copyright as self-protection
        
       Author : Caiero
       Score  : 33 points
       Date   : 2023-09-01 18:50 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (crimereads.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (crimereads.com)
        
       | AlbertCory wrote:
       | Supposedly in Cornish, if you asked anyone where he lived, they'd
       | all claim to have no idea.
       | 
       | As for all these writers, I think he wanted to be left alone, so
       | leave him alone.
        
         | GoRudy wrote:
         | I grew up in Cornish. Most of us knew. Our plumber was his
         | plumber etc etc. he was left alone, there's a lot of
         | interesting art in the community to see, his house not being
         | one of them.
        
         | slowhadoken wrote:
         | Yeah I can't understand how people rationalize harassing
         | Salinger.
        
           | john-radio wrote:
           | Maybe some percent of them are just testing out the Cornish
           | solidarity thing.
        
             | slowhadoken wrote:
             | I've been to some small towns in Montana that value
             | discretion and isolation. I prefer it to a gaggle of
             | consumers.
        
       | fiftyacorn wrote:
       | It reminds me of the film Coming Through The
       | Rye(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Through_the_Rye_(film) )
       | about some school kids trying to get permission to put on a play
       | of Catcher in the Rye and getting refused, and decide to visit JD
       | Salinger
        
       | 1MachineElf wrote:
       | >In other words, before his death in 2010, Salinger became the
       | _ghost in the machine_ of American literature, embodying the
       | battle between preservation attempts of his exterior works, and
       | therefore the maintenance of their immortality, and the need for
       | self-preservation and an undisturbed, peaceful human existence.
       | 
       | Salinger's works are referenced frequently in Ghost in the Shell:
       | Stand Alone Complex - I wonder if the word choice here is a
       | reference to that series.
        
       | slowhadoken wrote:
       | If Salinger wasted his time it was his to waste. He made a point
       | and an entitled public proved him right.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | LapsangGuzzler wrote:
       | > "It's evident Salinger has a saint complex. He wants to be a
       | saint. The trouble is, he doesn't have a saintly personality--
       | quite the opposite--he is egotistical, ill tempered, unforgiving.
       | But he wants to be a saint because saints are above the humans,
       | they are unstoppably superior." Hamilton is the proponent of this
       | view of Salinger--a haughty relic frozen in time.
       | 
       | I hope conversations around personal privacy have improved in the
       | years since it became so much easier to broadcast our lives to
       | the world, because this is an insane attitude to have that I hope
       | we've evolved beyond.
       | 
       | Having that kind of fame thrust upon you having written one book
       | would difficult for anyone to navigate, I certainly don't judge
       | his desire to fight people that tried profit from his life story.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ianbutler wrote:
         | The idea someone else has an entitlement on the life of another
         | person, even if that person has done something like publish a
         | successful book, is narcissistic on the part of the person who
         | thinks they have that entitlement. There is arguably an
         | expectation of loss of privacy for public figures, but even
         | that is limited.
         | 
         | I imagine, unfortunately, this has gotten even worse today
         | where the sense of entitlement in the general populace has
         | grown significantly.
        
           | hirundo wrote:
           | As with George R.R. Martin, who is a kind of ecdysiast that I
           | had mistaken for a hetaera. He seduced and aroused me and
           | then failed to deliver what I thought I had bargained for,
           | but had in fact not. Like the ecdysiast, he owes me nothing I
           | had not been promised, despite my expectations.
           | 
           | But while my entitlement to the future work of Mr. Martin is
           | zero, I still feel somewhat jilted.
        
             | TheGRS wrote:
             | I feel similarly toward Patrick Rothfuss, since I
             | absolutely love his few books and I've re-read them a few
             | times, but it seems like there's no end to the series he
             | created in sight still. Early into his creation he promised
             | not to be like other fantasy authors who let their series
             | stretch into decades, often unfinished, but after some time
             | it became pretty evident that he had fallen into the same
             | hole they had.
             | 
             | So on one hand I appreciate that creative writing is tough,
             | and meeting the rising expectations of your fans is very
             | difficult. But on the other hand we feel a little teased
             | with no meaningful climax, and often you hear the creator
             | assure you that things will be coming to a close soon, but
             | left with nothing. That's maybe the only thing I might have
             | to be a little angry about, but the stakes are low enough
             | that I can't really get worked up about it without feeling
             | pretty silly.
        
             | kurthr wrote:
             | Well, to be fair, he has broken multiple promises (for the
             | release date of WindsOfWinter alone). I don't hate him for
             | it, but he's not trustworthy in that I doubt he has any
             | idea when any book will be released and should know better
             | than to opine since he's been wrong so many times before.
             | Of course fans beg him for comments so... whatever.
        
             | ycombinete wrote:
             | Ecdysiast == stripper
             | 
             | Hetaera == prostitute/escort
             | 
             | Where did you find these odd words!?
             | 
             | It seems like Ecydysiast for one is a facetious term
             | invented by H.L. Mencken and barely ever used since.
        
               | hirundo wrote:
               | I actually know where I learned these odd words: Heinlein
               | uses them both. I picked them because they sound more
               | respectful than the alternatives and I'm in awe of
               | Martin.
        
         | detourdog wrote:
         | He also stormed the beaches at Normandy and whatever happened
         | after that. He deserves his own desires.
        
           | dghlsakjg wrote:
           | Do people who have not stormed beaches, gone to war, etc.
           | Have a different set of privacy rights?
           | 
           | I understand the underlying sentiment, but I strongly dislike
           | the notion that serving in the military de facto entitles you
           | to a stronger say in what or how society operates.
        
             | detourdog wrote:
             | I have an Uncle that served in the infantry division. I
             | view that generation as a ruined group of kids that came
             | back to the US and did the best they could. I also maybe
             | over personalizing the issue.
             | 
             | I simply mean that facing the worst of humanity buys people
             | extra space to exist in my dealings with them.
             | 
             | I believe we all have the same privacy rights. Some of us
             | get the right to be eccentric in uncomfortable ways to a
             | certain extent.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | zoogeny wrote:
       | I like The Catcher in the Rye quite a lot and have read it three
       | or four times. I also loved the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons of
       | Bill Watterson. It is interesting to me how both authors chose
       | shy away from fame and to protect their works from
       | commercialization so ardently. I am fascinated by their single
       | minded integrity. It also causes me to consider the similarity in
       | their works. There is certainly an element of Holden present in
       | the character of Calvin now that I consider it.
        
         | antonchekhov wrote:
         | "To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim." -- Oscar
         | Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
        
       | costco wrote:
       | Salinger's estate wants to wait literal decades to publish the
       | rest of his works. There was a bunch of controversy in 2013 when
       | Three Stories leaked on what.cd. I'm not a Salinger expert by any
       | means but having read and liked Catcher in the Rye and Three
       | Early Stories, I didn't find Three Stories particularly
       | exceptional. Maybe the estate is so sensitive because the
       | unpublished stuff isn't as good as the published stuff?
        
         | goodbyesf wrote:
         | > Maybe the estate is so sensitive because the unpublished
         | stuff isn't as good as the published stuff?
         | 
         | Or it could be the author's wish since the unpublished material
         | may contain sensitive information. TS Eliot most famously had
         | an embargo on publishing his letters 50 years after his death
         | or the death of his 'mistress' depending on whoever died later.
         | 
         | Salinger's literary reputation is already set. Don't think any
         | new material will add to or detract from it.
        
         | garba_dlm wrote:
         | this is also tied to how banksters make money
         | 
         | it's about timing, letting the culture soak up the ideas, then
         | release at the time of biggest likelihood of great profit...
         | 
         | consider why has disney+ removed so much content? so they can
         | time it, to sell it at a higher value in the future, once the
         | nostalgia has set in....?
         | 
         | that or they're just too stupid to understand how culture works
         | and are destroying their own value? both of these completely
         | unlikely. but I'm just ranting/guessing online....
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-04 23:01 UTC)