I have not read J D Salinger but I plan to read him some day. However I read G A Kulkarni जी ए कुलकर्णी every month.
Some excellent articles have appeared on Salinger after his death.
JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN writes:
"THE national bereavement over the death of J. D. Salinger provided a strangely public moment in the career of a writer who’d become best known, in recent years, for his reclusiveness. There are other American writers famous for shunning the public eye — Thomas Pynchon leaps to mind — but Mr. Salinger’s seclusion was unique. By the end of his life, he may have become better known for his solitude than for his imagination.
In a way, nothing succeeds like invisibility. In America, we revere artists who won’t do the thing they’re famous for...
...The more steadfastly they refuse us, the more infuriatingly desirable they become..." (NYT Feb 1 2010)
That's how I thought G A Kulkarni became more desirable.
For a long time, GA refused permission to reprint his books once the first edition was sold out! Avoided meeting the then celebrities of Maharashtra. Used a rubber stamp of his signature instead of signing letters etc.
He simply didn't give a damn. I loved him also for that.
And then I saw in print his voluminous correspondence with many people in Maharashtra.
I was disappointed.
I always felt that instead of pouring his heart in writing and playing psychotherapist to the likes of Sunita Deshpande सुनीता देशपांडे, he could have written more books or painted.
He had so much to say...
On appreciation of arts. Perhaps a translation of his own stories in Kannada. On sights, sounds and smells (he was so good at smells) of Dharwad-Hubli. Where to savour the best south Indian snacks in Belgaum (here I remember his friend Jaywant Dalvi's जयवंत दळवी brilliant essay on eating out in Mumbai), beauty of two sisters Kannada-Marathi...