Hapworth 16, 1924

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox short story "Hapworth 16, 1924" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger that appeared in the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker.<ref>Wenke, 1991 p. 167: Selected Bibliography</ref>

The story is the last original work Salinger published during his lifetime, and filled almost the entire magazine. It is the "youngest" of his Glass family stories, in the sense that the narrated events happen chronologically before those in the rest of the series.

Plot

46-year-old Buddy Glass reproduces the contents of a letter written by his older brother Seymour, who died by suicide 17 years earlier in 1948. Seymour wrote the letter to their parents while he and Buddy (two years his junior) were attending Camp Simon Hapworth, Maine, in 1924. The literary voice conveyed in the letter is that of a highly articulate and strikingly precocious boy of seven. The letter, written from the camp infirmary (Seymour has injured his leg) is a wide-ranging commentary on the camp personnel, the camp attendees, and his relationships with his family, humanity and God. Seymour and Buddy largely prefer to occupy themselves writing poems and short stories rather than participate in group activities. They therefore meet with some hostility.

Seymour devotes a large part of the letter to enumerating his reading list and requests for further reading material from his parents. He offers critical appraisals of a number of major literary figures. The letter closes with a lengthy discourse on the significance of God.<ref>Slawenski, 2010 pp. 364-370: Detailed plot summary.</ref><ref>Wenke, 1991 p. 25, And p. 91: “...the form of ‘Hapworth’ is epistolary…”</ref>

Publishing history

The circumstances and considerations that led chief fiction editor William Shawn at The New Yorker to devote virtually the entire June 19, 1965, edition to "Hapworth 16, 1924" are obscure.<ref>Slawenski, 2010 p. 363</ref> Biographer Kenneth Slawenki writes, "the files of The New Yorker are unusually silent on the details of the novella's reception by the editorial staff and its eventual reception by William Shawn."<ref>Slawenski, 2010 p. 363-364</ref> The correspondence between Salinger and Shawn chronicling the decision may have been deliberately suppressed.<ref>Slawenski, 2010 p. 363n (see footnote).</ref> Slawenski speculates that the appearance of Salinger's piece in the journal was "a fait accompli rather than a topic of debate".<ref>Slawenski, 2010 p. 364: see here for comments on the “reluctant” of staff to challenge the work.</ref>

After the story's appearance in The New Yorker, Salinger—who had already withdrawn to his New Hampshire home—stopped publishing altogether. Since the story never appeared in book form, readers had to seek out that issue or find it on microfilm. Finally, with the release of The Complete New Yorker on DVD in 2005, the story was once again widely available.

In 1996, Orchises Press, a small Virginia publishing house, started a process of publishing "Hapworth" in book form. Orchises Press owner Roger Lathbury has described the effort in The Washington Post and, three months after Salinger's death, in New York magazine.<ref name="Lathbury"/><ref name="Shapira">Shapira (2010)</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to Lathbury, Salinger was deeply concerned with the proposed book's appearance, even visiting Washington to examine the cloth for the binding. Salinger also sent Lathbury numerous "infectious and delightful and loving" letters.<ref name="Shapira"/>

Following publishing norms, Lathbury applied for Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data, unaware of how publicly available the information would be. A writer in Seattle, researching an article on Jeff Bezos, came across the "Hapworth" publication date,<ref>Lundegaard (2010)</ref> and told his sister, a journalist for the Washington Business Journal, who wrote an article about the upcoming book.<ref>Lundegaard (1996)</ref> This led to substantial coverage in the press. Shortly before the books were to be shipped, Salinger changed his mind, and Orchises withdrew the book. New publication dates were repeatedly announced, but it never appeared.<ref>Noah (2000)</ref> Lathbury said, "I never reached back out. I thought about writing some letters, but it wouldn't have done any good."<ref name="Shapira" />

Reception and assessment

Both contemporary and later literary critics harshly panned "Hapworth 16, 1924"; writing in The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani called it "a sour, implausible and, sad to say, completely charmless story .... filled with digressions, narcissistic asides and ridiculous shaggy-dog circumlocutions."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Calling it "virtually unreadable" and "an enigma", critic John Wenke compares "Hapworth" to viewing a neighbor's unedited family home movies.<ref>Wenke, 1991 p. 67, p. 108 And p. 76: “Crucial to any to any approach to the Glass stories is a recognition of Salinger’s refusal to recast standard literary forms, tendency that becomes most manifest in the diffuse and digressive ‘Seymour’ and the shapeless and interminable ‘Hapworth.’”</ref> He writes:

Wenke adds that the story is a striking departure from the "urbane, pithy and wry" short fiction The New Yorker's editors and readership favored.<ref>Wenke, 1991 p. 108</ref>

Biographer Kenneth Slawenski considers the piece "professionally, a disaster"<ref>Slawenski, 2010 p. 370</ref> and ponders what may have motivated Salinger to submit the work for publication:

Biographer Ian Hamilton concurs that Salinger appears to abandon his loyal readership and retreat into the exclusive realm of his characters. He writes, "The Glass family has, in this last story, become Salinger's subject and his readership, his creatures and his companions. His life is finally made one with art."<ref>Hamilton, 1988</ref>

Salinger is said to have considered the story a "high point of his writing" and made tentative steps to have it reprinted, though those came to nothing.<ref name="Lathbury">Lathbury (2010)</ref>

Sources

• Hamiton, Ian. 1988. In Search of J. D. Salinger. Random House, 1988. Template:ISBN
• Slawenski, Kenneth. 2010. J. D. Salinger: A Life. Random House, New York. Template:ISBN
• Wenke, John. 1991. J. D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twaynes Studies in Short Fiction, Gordon Weaver, General Editor. Twayne Publishers, New York. Template:ISBN
• Template:Cite book
• Lathbury, Roger "Betraying Salinger", New York, April 4, 2010. Retrieved on May 22, 2010.
• Lundegaard, Karen M. (2010) "J. D. Salinger resurfaces ... in Alexandria?", Washington Business Journal, November 15, 1996. Retrieved on August 13, 2008.
• Lundegaard, Erik (1996) Three Stories with J. D. Salinger
• Noah, Timothy. "Hapworth 16, 1924: A Chatterbox Investigation", Slate, September 11, 2000. Retrieved on August 10, 2008.
• Template:Cite news

External links

• Abstract at The New Yorker site
• Still Paging Mr. Salinger at The New York Times
• "Hapworth 16, 1924" Revisited at The Satirist: America's Most Critical Journal