SOURCE: "Zen and Salinger," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3, Autumn, 1966, pp. 313-24.

In the following essay, the Goldsteins argue that J. D. Salinger's writings illustrate the Zen theme of effacing and surmounting boundaries between the self and the other as a means of achieving spiritual enlightenment.

While it is true that Zen has become a glittering catch-word as connotative as existentialism and at times as meaningless, the fact remains that Zen does exist and that Salinger has shown a definite partiality towards it. Since Zen recognizes that all boundaries are artificial, Salinger's Western experience is not outside the universe Zen encompasses. The importance of the present moment; the long search and struggle in which reason, logic, cleverness, and intellect prove ineffectual; the inadequacy of judgment and criticism which reinforce and stimulate the artificial boundary between self and other; and some degree of enlightenment which results from the...