Brave men of letters

This seems to be a season of author losses. Now the reclusive J. D. Salinger is gone, as is contrarian-historian Howard Zinn.

Salinger proved that a small body of literary work can still be powerful and long-lived; Zinn demonstrated that history comes in many costumes.

I’d add that Salinger made it possible for young voices, people at the start of their adult lives, to be taken seriously in literature. And, for that matter, in real life. The wise and wise-cracking Holden Caulfield will outlive us all. Salinger’s hermetic life seems more admirable than eccentric now too. Would that a few more authors of our time would value their privacy so fiercely.

Zinn’s infamous work, “A People’s History of the United States,” continues to invigorate readers and annoy many of his peers.  It sold close to 2 million copies in 30 years, a staggering number for an academic title.  He, perhaps more than any other single historian of our time, goaded us to question the status quo, to view events of the past through the eyes of those who suffered, not just those who signed the important proclamations. His needling and challenging was accompanied by the sound of knee-jerking and more than a whiff of showmanship, but Zinn was good for us.

If there is an afterlife, the literary roundtable is a fine place these days.