J.D. Salinger on His Guiding Philosophy: “It’s a tremendously tall order, an undertaking seemingly more beautiful and more real in the mind’s eye than in actual practice [...] The taoist feat is to know at all times that there is nothing that isn’t shit-- but also, and more difficult, nothing that is.”

J D. Salinger

Manuscripts & Autographs

SALINGER, J.D. American author of Catcher in the Rye. Typed letter signed “Jerry”. 1972. Written during his extended correspondence with Eileen Paddison, this two-page letter offers Salinger’s reflection on Taoism. February 24, 1972, two pages. Addressed to Eileen Paddison, a close friend and aspiring writer who maintained a correspondence with Salinger over 10 years. In 1977, Gerald Rosen authored an entire book on the Zen and Buddhist influence on Salinger work, Zen in the Art of J. D. Salinger, analyzing Buddhist concepts in The Catcher in the Rye, Franny & Zooey, and other short stories. In these letters, Salinger goes into detail about exactly what it is in Taoist practice he finds so compelling.

Salinger begins the 1972 letter apologizing for his late reply, saying “I turn out to be a bum letter-writer, an inconstant, and off-again, on-again one…. fact is that my life has become more and more unsimple every year.” He asks Eileen to “See me as I am, a cluttered man-- writer, parent, chauffeur, cook, snow-remover, unreliable letter writer” and states that “If I’m to be liked, at all, I think I’m best liked only slightly or intermittently.” Salinger’s intense devotion to honesty and truth, and his extreme aversion to anything “phony” is apparent, as he makes no excuses or pretenses. He continues, in respond to Paddison, “You say you certainly haven’t been living Taoism. You know, of course, that it’s no easy way to live. Probably Lao-tse and Chaang-tse themselves were better at writing about it than living it.” Salinger craved the relief from artifice promised by Taoism, but doubted it could really be experienced: “It’s a tremendously tall order, an undertaking seemingly more beautiful and more real in the mind’s eye than in actual practice. The task, I think, is to stay close to Taoism in affection, if not in practice, at all times, for life. It’s possible, probably, that an effort should be made to screen most of the things that happen to oneself through Taoist thought. I know that I usually fall into a kind of unhappiness, depression, If I let my complicated daily life alienate me too far from Taoist values and non-values.”

Finally, Salinger writes about what he finds so compelling about the Tao: relief from the need to evaluate what’s authentic or not, simply living inherently free of pretentiousness or falsity: “The taoist feat is to know at all times that there is nothing that isn’t shit-- but also, and more difficult, nothing that is. To hold those mutually eliminating realities in the head at the same time, and yet not (by some small miracle that is no miracle at all) allow them to eliminate each other.” These ideas are rooted deeply in Salinger’s personal life as well as his writing. In an earlier letter from 1971, Salinger wrote there is “probably no richer or better stuff in all of Eastern philosophy” than Taoism, which he calls “the very heart of Zen Buddhism [...] “what marvelous things, thoughts, all of them” and admits that though “there’s something wrong in sticking to one subject for too long [...] the Tao itself, though, is the kind of subject that stands outside thinking and non-thinking, and so is a sort of exception....” The author made clear beyond a doubt that Eastern philosophy has guided his thinking and lifestyle, writing: “Taoist passivity. An enormous subject, and one I’ve been pondering, off and on, for more years than you’ve been alive. The very word “Tao” is an excitement.”

Typed letter on author’s usual goldenrod paper. With original mailing envelope bearing his PO Box address in Windsor, Vermont, the usual mailing address he preferred while writing from his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. A philosophical letter with important content for the interpretation of Salinger’s novels, in near fine condition.

Item #17305

Price: $12,000.00