J. D. Salinger is dead. We can’t say the world will miss him, because we’ve been missing him for almost 40 years. And if Hemingway’s example is anything to go by, I hope we never do see the novels he never intended us to read, for the sake of his legacy. But he did leave us a hell of a legacy and a literary benchmark to aspire to. Wherever you’ve wound up, Mr. Salinger, I hope you have found peace–you’ve escaped the world at last.