Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/J. D. Salinger/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 00:00, 16 July 2007.

J. D. Salinger
Self-nomination. This article offers a complete, detailed, and extensively sourced biography and critical discussion of the author, with numerous images, all of which have rationale for fair use. The prose is unbiased and alternates encyclopedic writing with excerpts from primary sources and quotes. -Hobbesy3 17:37, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose (delist) Oppose 
 * Original Research/Citation Needed: has enjoyed enduring popularity since its publication in 1951, and basically every line in the lead.
 * dropped out the next spring to work on a cruise ship. Citation here
 * World War II has many un-sourced claims
 * POV: The demanding magazine 
 * Cite: It was an immediate success, although early critical reactions were mixed.
 * POV: plot is quite simple
 * Cite: Salinger used profanity, religious slurs, and discussed adolescent sex in an open and casual manner, many readers were offended, and the book's popularity began to falter.
 * Cite: The novel was banned in some countries, and some U.S. schools, because of its bold use of offensive language; 'goddamn' appears 255 times, and a handful of 'fuck's, plus a few seamy incidents such as the encounter with a prostitute.
 * POV: It was also very successful
 * Withdrawal from public life seems POV ish
 * Citation Needed tags.
 * Withdrawal from public life has many unsourced claims.
 * Red links need removed or stubified.
 * More citations needed in Later years and instances of exposure
 * Religious and philosophical beliefs is jam-packed of POV and OR, remove it
 * In Relationship with Hollywood, quotes need sourced.
 * Infobox can be further filled in.
 * Maybe a GA-nom would be better (no luck it would pass it)
 * This needs a major clean up to ever make a FA.-- trey  04:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comments - wouldn't take the above contribution over-seriously, and please don't de-list it. I think it's quite close to FA;
 * I think more citation is needed, including in some of the places identified above. I am particularly interested in citations for the paragraphs which contain a direct quote: adding more cites woudl clarify the source of the facts and opinion in the paragraph, at present it looks like only the direct quote is being referenced. This particularly true of the fairly outlandish statements in 'Religious and philosophical beliefs'. If the facts are verifiable, they should definitely be included!
 * I'd merge the 'further reading' and 'references' sections; also, is "IFILM: The Internet Movie Guide" a reliable source?
 * The article's prose is decent but could do with a close proofread.
 * Don't worry about: citations in the lead section where it summarises the rest of the article; describing the New Yorker as 'demanding' (or any of the POV concerns above); redlinks (none of the redlinks are technical terms).
 * Regards, The Land 20:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comments - For the most part I also think the article is quite good. However, the phrase "classic novel that has enjoyed enduring popularity since its publication in 1951" in the lead strikes me as very unencyclopedic. As far as I am aware, "classic novel" is not a widely understood or agreed-upon term, and the phrase "enjoyed enduring popularity" leaves a bad newspaper-writing taste in my mouth. Otherwise, hooray. Williamroy3 20:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Fixes, pt. 1 Thanks! I have made some of the requested changes (I added citations for the religious/philosophical beliefs section, added citations for a few disputed facts, combined the reference and further reading sections, and did some general copyediting)—with more to come. -Hobbesy3 05:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Object (delist) I agree with the first reviewer. This is far from being an FA. I will detail the major improvements that need to be made:
 * The article needs several sections describing Salinger's writing. He is notable because he is a writer. There is very little in this article on his actual writings. The editors need to do a lot more research on that front - such information can be found in the work of literary critics, not biographers.
 * I would integrate the "Religious and philosophical beliefs" and "Relationship with Hollywood" sections into the relevant sections of the biography. Why do we have sections on these topics but not on Salinger's writings? It makes no sense.
 * Around half of the citations come from a memoir of Salinger's daughter. The editors need to carefully check each and every one of these. Anything that cannot be supported using a reliable secondary source should be taken out. A memoir should only be used for anecdotes and such like and it should be used sparingly. See here for an explanation of the problems of using primary sources.
 * The entire article needs a thorough copy edit (but there is no reason to bother with this until the above revisions have taken place).
 * The lead is not a stand alone summary of the article per WP:LEAD.
 * Note: I would not pass this article for GA since it fails: 1a; 2; and 3a, at the very least (WP:GA?). Awadewit | talk  00:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Fixes, pt. 2 Rewrote and expanded lead so that it better reflects content of main article, and made some small fixes. I definitely agree that the article needs more about Salinger's writing, themes, critical reception, etc. and will get on it.  However:
 * Regarding the reliability of Dream Catcher: Although Margaret Salinger’s book billed itself as a memoir, she did enough research and formal interviews (with her mother, for example) that the book functions (at least in part) as a secondary source. While it would be nice to support some of her revelations with citations from secondary sources, the truth is that her father guards his private life pretty tightly, and the details provided by Ian Hamilton (in his 1986 bio) and Paul Alexander (in his 1999 one) are often sketchy.  (Margaret’s claims are invariably more detailed and better supported than theirs.)  Also, whenever this article references contentious information with only Margaret as a source, it states as much (i.e., “According to Margaret Salinger.”)   Should these Dream Catcher-unique biographical details be relegated to the section of the article that discusses her book’s release?  That is a less chronological and more disjointed organization but perhaps more suitable given the nature of the source.  Thanks, Hobbesy3 07:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Formal interviews with someone's mother makes the book well-researched? I am not convinced by that. You say that it is well-researched, so I will assume good faith and believe you, but that piece of evidence is not convincing. I am happy that you have carefully mentioned her in the prose when necessary. I withdraw that objection. Awadewit | talk  07:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: Please don't strike out other editors' objections. It is akin to changing their prose and frowned upon at wikipedia (see here). Editors usually decide for themselves if an objection has been met. Thank you. Awadewit | talk  07:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I have removed one sentence for which no citation could be found, sourced all the quotes in the Hollywood section, filled in the infobox, and removed the unreliable IFILM reference. Also, here is support (other than my word) that the Margaret Salinger bio has at least some amount of research behind it; in its review of the memoir, The New York Times called her "a dogged investigator of her lost past," and explained, as an example, that "the author tells us she tracked down income tax returns from the 1950's to confirm that her father consulted Christian Science practitioners about her infant illnesses."  Apart from that, the problem with finding a secondary source is that no notable study of Salinger's life has been completed since the 1999 publication of Dream Catcher, so there is no secondary source that synthesizes Margaret's views of her father with what had previously been known about him.  (i.e., the Wikipedia article presents no alternative version to several of Margaret's stories because there is no alternative; she is the first one to have mentioned that her father was among the first to enter a liberated concentration camp, for example.)  Also, I reverted the strike-outs.  I didn't know; sorry about that.Hobbesy3 08:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As I said, I have withdrawn my objection regarding the memoir. By the way, I would say that the review thinks she has a personal investment in the biography (she trashes her father too much) - exactly the problem all memoirs have, be they well-researched or not. But if this is all there is, this is all there is. I have written articles from a 15-page memoir and an autobiography. You might say something about the source problems either in the article or in the "References" section. This is what I did once. Awadewit | talk  09:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixes pt. 3 I've addressed (or done my best to try and address) all the concerns mentioned here re: POV, citation needed, OR, and requests for more in the infobox and on the themes/style/influence of Salinger's writing.  (The only thing I haven't done is incorporate the Hollywood section into Salinger's biography; the information there is nonchronological to the point that I think it makes sense to have it localized in a single section.)  There have been frequent requests for a proofread of the article but I feel as if I'm too close to it to be a very good judge of language.  Perhaps there is someone willing to volunteer to proofread the article and clean up the prose?  Thanks, Hobbesy3 02:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I am very happy to see a section on Salinger's writing, but I am a little concerned about the sources you used for it. As you seem knowledgeable about Salinger, though, perhaps you could explain your choices. Harold Bloom, for example, is a Romanticist (his most famous book is probably The Anxiety of Influence). I am not sure why one would use his material on Salinger. He publishes a lot of material for the public in his role as a public intellectual, but it is not taken seriously within the academic community. I would not guess that Bloom's work would accurately represent Salinger scholarship. There are articles and books written by Salinger scholars, are there not? Why not rely on those? I would be willing to proofread the article if I were sure that it was written from the best sources. I don't want to proofread something that is going to have to be entirely rewritten, if you see my point. (You can also request a copy edit from the League of Copyeditors - they have a special section for articles at FAC.) Awadewit | talk  03:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The book you've mentioned actually wasn't written by Harold Bloom; it's an anthology of critical and biographical pieces on Salinger, edited and with a brief introduction by Bloom. (He did this for authors writing in a wide range of genres, from Maya Angelou to Tennessee Williams.)  The three pieces from the book that I've referenced are: a short biography of Salinger and two essays originally published in literary magazines.  I've reformatted the article's references so it's clear they're sourcing pieces in an anthology.  (Bloom, of course, is still the one who selected those articles; but is he truly not taken seriously by the entire academic community?  Wasn't he nominated for a National Book Award?)  Are any of the other sources problematic?  (In my mind, The New Yorker and NY Review of Books are as notable as you get.)  If you're asking for more criticism of Salinger's works, I feel as if the article now has at least as much well-sourced critical evaluation as, say, the FA on J. R. R. Tolkien, and the reality is that the majority of the response to Salinger's work was popular and cultural—as described in the sections on Catcher's release, and Salinger's literary influence—and not critical.  Thanks for the copyedit link! Hobbesy3 04:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes I know those Bloom books. Some of them are good and some of them are not - you really have to already know the scholarship to know whether or not the collection adequately represents Salinger scholarship. What is interesting is that you have chosen not to reference any of the literary scholarship from that book, so that is still missing from your article. There is a separation between what critics who write for The New Yorker and scholars who do research and work in universities say about Salinger. Their writings are based on entirely different premises (scholars present less personal opinion in their work than critics, for example). As a general rule, it is best to think about critics' writing as part of Salinger's reception - part of the historical record - and scholars' writing as a researched commentary on Salinger's writing and his reception. Literary scholarship, articles published in peer-reviewed journals and books published by academic presses, should be the basis of any section on the literary aspects of a writer's career. Wikipedia policy states that articles rely on expert secondary sources (WP:OR); in the case of literature, that is scholars. Critics can almost be considered primary sources. Awadewit | talk  10:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * A lot of what Bloom has published for the public is fluff of the worst kind and perpetuates ideas that have long ago been overturned inside the academia. Books like The Western Canon do not sit well with most of us anymore. By the way, the National Book Award doesn't mean anything within the academy. If you look at what books win it, they are not stunning works of scholarship in a particular discipline. The MLA has its own awards which are actually much more prestigious within the academy than a National Book Award. National Book Awards suggest a level of popularization that appeals to public intellectuals (something I approve of) but not always to the discipline itself. A brilliant book on the novel in the eighteenth century, for example, might not appeal to a large section of the public, but it can still help those who study the novel to think about the genre in new ways. Am I making myself clear here? Awadewit | talk  10:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would agree that your article and the Tolkien article are comparable, but I think that the Tolkien article is lacking - I would not have passed it (note also that it passed FA a while ago - there has apparently been a recent raising of standards for FA). One of the problems with FA is that the reviewers don't always know anything about the subject matter of the articles they are reviewing - sometimes an article can look well-sourced, even if it is not. That may have been what happened with Tolkien. I know that there are reams of Tolkien scholarship that should have been drawn on for that article. Examples of FA biographies of writers that include references to literary scholarship include: Mary Wollstonecraft, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, and Sarah Trimmer. You might also look at William Shakespeare, which recently failed FAC, partly because the kinds of sources it was using in the "Authorship" section were unreliable. I don't know if that problem as been fixed or not, but you will be able to see the kinds of sources that were used; the page did not pass even though it had all of those other well-sourced sections because one section was poorly executed (among other things, but that was the main issue). Awadewit | talk  10:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I am working on gathering peer-reviewed journal articles about Salinger (the trouble, as the one recently-written journal article I could find explained, is that most of the scholarship on Salinger was done in the 60s and 70s and has fallen off as of late--so those older ones are a little tougher to find.) Give me a few days.  Thanks, Hobbesy3 20:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.