Martin Schneider writes:

A few days ago, on slender justification, I concocted a post about J.D. Salinger out of a news report I happened to see about the (either cancelled or postponed) premiere of a TV game show about child prodigies. The implied connection was fatuous—and yet it sparked a thought.

Until today I have shielded myself from the response to Salinger's death (although expect a roundup post on same anon), so I would have no way of knowing if the import of this post is trite or profound. I did notice that Garth Risk Hallberg at The Millions made the case that Salinger shifted the center of American literature from "manly" attributes like courage and honor to something more urban and intellectual—it doesn't take much imagination to trace that particular lineage. In the broadest sense Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Ames, David Foster Wallace, and even Philip Roth are in Salinger's debt.

So okay—the intellect, add to it the focus on adolescence. That's two big parts of (continued)

Martin Schneider writes:

I didn't know until today that Fox has a show in the works that sounds for all the world like the modern-day version of the radio show that made the young Glass siblings national celebrities. Look:

Fox executives said the premiere of "Our Little Genius," originally scheduled to debut Tuesday after "American Idol," had been postponed and possibly cancelled over concerns about the integrity of the concept. The quiz show was supposed to pit super smart six to 12-year-old kids against Ivy League professors.

[snip]

The show's premise allowed the kids' parents to decide whether they keep answering

Martin Schneider writes:

I cannot top Pollux's exemplary writeup here, so I won't try.

Instead I wanted to make two points about Salinger, one of which will be made many times in the days to come, and the other of which might well get missed in the hubbub.

1. Like many people, I read Salinger with great enthusiasm when I was in high school and college, and I haven't thought about him much in several years. I believe it became somewhat fashionable in recent years to dismiss Salinger as a what -- "minor author" or the like? -- and I never found that to be an astute or fair assessment. Salinger was the real (continued)