Bret-à-porter

Well, you’ve written my favorite Twitter that anybody’s ever written.
What?

The Salinger one. On the day he died, you posted: “Yeah!! Thank God he’s finally dead. I’ve been waiting for this day for-fucking-ever. Party tonight!!!”
Some people didn’t get it.

I thought it was the greatest thing I’d read in a long time.
Good. That’s good. That’s what I was hoping for.

Did you get grief from friends over that?
[laughs] I did. But it was how I felt. I can’t help it. I felt that way. I was dreading the onslaught of the sentimentalizing of Salinger—who hated all of us, by the way. Cranky old bastard. It was a much more complicated tweet than it might appear. There was much more thought behind it than what you might think.

Bret Easton Ellis interviewed by Jesse Pearson for Vice

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The thought: Salinger is a better writer than me. I know that, they know that, everyone knows that. But Salinger was a bastard, they say. And he was the type of bastard that I definitely hate the most in this life; the type that doesn’t really cares if you think he is a bastard, the type that doesn’t care at all. And me, poor me, I had to go to all these parties just … just to prove to everyone that writers are not crazy geniuses that live in isolation but normal, mainstream, enjoyable (common, idiotic, vulgar) people like Me. Not to mention that writers are usually born in prestigious schools (laboratories of homogeneity) and not because of any banal existential agonies that can be cured through writing (they think! the creepy old fashioned geeks). No, these are mythological notions of a world that we destroyed with joy, Me and my colleagues in that high class school for future successful employees of the entertainment industry.

 Dear Bret,

I understand one thing reading your thought; you hate the one that “hates all of us.” I understand another thing; you do not understand anything at all. You had your share of fun and fame Bret and that is something good for you (as for the rest of humanity is not something of great importance). But frankly dear, you don’t understand.

You called him “cranky old bastard.” Well, first of all, he wasn’t always old. The same man created the youngest (youth: freedom, faith, sensitivity, melancholy, courage) literary character of all, our dearest Holden Caulfield. You also informed us that he “hated all of us.” I have to admit that this sounds a little bit strange in my ears, Bret. As far as I remember you didn’t exactly like the people you were hanging out with; you know who I mean, the ones you turned into your characters later on. Remember the amoral (immoral) universe of your literary worlds where all your former socializing comrades were depicted as American psychos and Glamoramaniacs?

Let me tell you something Bret, one thing is for sure, we do not fall for the tortured artist stereotyped bullshit. But we love creativity, eternity, we love life. And Holden is the epitome of life as it can be imagined when you stare at the world with two big investigative eyes, when you stare at the sun being completely naked.

As for the sentimentalizing of Salinger’s death, well, here we agree, but you know, that is what ignorant people usually do. That is also what media do when they want to sell their merchandise, you know that, you are a media figure after all. So let’s be honest Bret, it wasn’t the sentimentalization of his death that annoyed you.

I strongly think that what used to annoy you Bret was his own existence, the fact that you had to live in the same planet with him. That was your own existential agony that unfortunately didn’t lead you to writing but instead to ... Twitter farting (farting: the barking of an impotent man).

So that was it Bret, and just for you to know, "there was not much more thought behind it (my letter to you) than what you might think," everything was very clear.

Yours,

 The Eggman