Author, character struck a chord

IOWA CITY - In his 50 years of studying, reading and writing poetry, University of Iowa professor Marvin Bell never met J.D. Salinger. And he says he will never meet, either in person or on page, the next Holden Caulfield.

“I don't think a character like that could ring true anymore,” said Bell, 72, of Salinger's most iconic literary creation. Caulfield is the protagonist of Salinger's only published novel, “The Catcher in the Rye.”

Iowa's first poet laureate and a former instructor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Bell thinks the character - and possibly his creator - are figures of the past.

“Cable television, YouTube - everything's happening at once, and nothing is as personal” as Caulfield, Bell said. “He's of his time, when you could be that character.”

Yet nearly 60 years after it was first published, “Catcher” still sells more than 250,000 copies a year. And after the death last week of its notoriously reclusive author, Bell expects the book and its, alienated, fedora-wearing teenager will continue to be a rite of passage for angsty teens and young adults alike.

“Obviously, ‘The Catcher in the Rye' struck a chord with a great many readers and continues to,” Bell said. “Holden is caught in a time of life when feelings are raw and life is a bully.”

In 2001, Bell contributed to a book, along with more than 100 fellow writers, poets, critics and die-hard Salinger fans, titled “Letters to J.D. Salinger.” As a poet, Bell could identify with Salinger's characters' sensitive relationship with words and language.

“There was an innocent quality to (Salinger's) work,” Bell said. “His characters had an innocence of sensitivity about them. I imagine it was the same for Salinger as well.”

“Letters to J.D. Salinger” allowed Bell and others to celebrate, question and even chastise one of America's literary giants. Well aware that Salinger, who had fan mail burned as early as the 1950s, probably would not read the scores of letters in the collection, Bell dwelt on why the author went silent.

He wrote: “That to imagine what I have imagined about a writer is to suggest that a person who writes and publishes a little and then stops may be thought either to have said all he had to say or to have found words insufficient.”

Bell doesn't know which is the reason, and he doubts any of us ever will. Either way, it doesn't matter. Bell says Salinger's work, and the mythology surrounding him, will live on.

According to Bell, Salinger's innocence, as well as his seclusion, are their own rewards.