I don’t think J.D. Salinger should own Holden Caulfield. But I think Mickey Mouse belongs to all of the world too, so what do I know?

One must ask: should J.D. Salinger have the exlusive right to profit commercially from stories that include Holden Caulfield? He certainly has the right to block publication of his own letters. The author of a letter owns the copyright in the letter’s contents. But he doesn’t own the letter. So when Joyce Maynard, who was 18 when the 52 year old Salinger started a relationship with her, put up for auction the letters Salinger had sold her from that time. there was quite a hulabaloo. And since the auction was being conducted through Sotheby’s, as Joyce Carole Oates recounted, there was “not only a public auction but also a public exhibit of the private letter preceding the auction.” As Oates wrote, the situation might be troubling, and it’s certainly one fertile for lawyers:

One might argue reasonably that such a public exhibit constitutes ”publication,” for doesn’t it violate the writer’s rights over his or her material, assuming that these rights have been protected by the law? The complications are endless, a battlefield rife with spoils for ambitious lawyers.

But he wrote the letters to Salinger, and what about that exactly gives him sole say over whatever happens to them, as Oates asked:

Though Joyce Maynard has been the object of much incensed, self-righteous criticism, primarily from admirers of the reclusive Salinger, her decision to sell his letters is her own business, like her decision to write about her own life. Why is one ”life” more sacrosanct than another? In fact, we might be sympathetic to J. D. Salinger’s increasingly futile efforts to safeguard his precious privacy, as we might be sympathetic to anyone’s efforts, but that he happens to be a writer with a reputation is irrelevant.

And I can’t say I’m very sympathetic to Salinger’s efforts to maintain control over Holden Caulfield. He’s an iconic character. It’s difficult to live through adolescence in the U.S. without feeling his influence. He has as much life to an American of my age as did JFK, maybe more. Why should Salinger alone control his future. I know the difference between a book about Holden Caulfied by Salinger and one by someone else. But that’s not to say someone else writing about Holden Caulfield wouldn’t have a lot to say J.D. Salinger might never be able to say.