catchin' up!

Who knew that J.D. Salinger used basic concepts from his life to help him write his own award winning novel "Catcher and the Rye"? As I did a little research, I came across quite a few similarities between the two. One obvious relationship between the main character J.D. Salinger himself attended private schools for some time and he too had a hard time adjusting- just like Holden's character in "Catcher in the Rye". It was said in an article "He left the school after only one semester. Obviously an intelligent and sensitive man, Salinger apparently did not respond well to the structure and rigors" much like how Holden couldn't deal with the way schools were run. Besides small similarities like that, there was on thing that really stood out to me. Both Holden and Salinger suffered through life with some type of scarring/changing experience. After the death of his brother, Holden could not cope with it and it changed the way he lived/acted/thought for basically the rest of his life. I'm sure Holden never really thought about life after death or death itself until his brother died. "Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. 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." It's said the J.D. Salinger entered the army during World War 2 and although it is not said that he had problems or differences in his life afterwards- a thing like being part of the army and being out on the field and fighting for your country, seeing people die, etc. most likely had to have an effect on Salingers life in some way whether it be attitude, perspectives, etc.
"http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ro-Sc/Salinger-J-D.html"