RIP JD Salinger.

"I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”

I'm forced to wonder if Salinger really thought that, because it's easy to imagine that phonies around the globe are ready to place flowers on the grave of one of the most popular writers of the last century. Salinger died today at the ripe old age of 91 and now readers wait anxiously to see whether or not previously unreleased Salinger works will be published posthumously.

Other bloggers and writers have made enough commentary on Salinger's death to make this post trite already, less than 24 hours after his death, so I'll try to keep this short and sweet. It may be cliche to say it, but The Catcher in the Rye as well as Salinger's other short stories had an effect on my life, however small or large. Holden was lonely boy, trying to reach out and find empathy from others, but when he got into that phone booth, he couldn't think of a single person to buzz. I learned that, sometimes, we can be too self-centered to notice that others are just as lonely as we are. If you haven't read any of Salinger's works, this is as good a time as any to pick up a copy of Catcher or Franny and Zooey and start reading.

The funny thing is that he probably would've hated all of this attention.

RIP, Salinger. The rest of us phonies will miss you.