Joyce Carol Oates comments on the death of JD Salinger for the Guardian [link no longer available]:

“Salinger’s great, obsessive theme was the moral rootlessness of contemporary American materialism and its corrosive effect upon precocious, highly sensitive children and adolescents whose religious yearnings were both esoteric (eastern, mystic) and sentimental (narcissistic, naively self-regarding).”

Now, the world will eagerly await Salinger’s genuinely posthumous work – which is sure to exist, and sure to be an extraordinary legacy.

Also commenting for this article are Annie Proulx, Dave Eggers, EL Doctorow, and Simon Prosser, publishing director of  Hamish Hamilton.