J.D. Salinger’s Commode: A Modern Day Relic?
Salinger's toilet: only $1 million?
I recently came across a news story announcing that J.D. Salinger’s toilet is being auctioned on ebay. Starting bid: $1 million. Did I mention that it is being sold – ahem – “uncleaned and in its original condition”? Most online chatter has commented on the general nastiness of selling a dirty toilet and the invasion of Salinger’s privacy. Of course they’re right. And yes, it’s a sign of celebrity obsession run amok. But it also makes sense.
Let’s look at the facts.
In this NPR story about the auction, commentator David Was discusses celebrity worship and mentions that, “The personal effects of celebrities are the modern- day equivalent of medieval religious relics.” He’s absolutely right.
Evidently there are two types of religious relics – brandea, which are ordinary objects that became holy by coming into contact with holy people, and bodily relics, which are actual pieces of a saint’s body. In olden times, people wanted to see or touch these relics – some even made pilgrimages to see these holy objects. Rich people purchased and collected them. Sound familiar?
In contemporary Western society, culture (books, movies, songs, etc) has taken the place of religion.* Right or wrong, we look to culture for instructions on how to live. What is important? How should we behave? What moments are significant? What should we want? This is why people have such fanatical devotion to certain movies or books or singers or authors or actors – they help us answer the question of how to live. In this day in age, picking who you are a fan of is akin to picking a religion. Except you don’t have to be faithful to a single one.
Elvis throwing a fresh relic to the devoted
Because our connection to these works is so personal, we also have the illusion of a personal connection with the people who made them – and anything that reinforces this feeling is exciting and desirable. We want to be close to these people, but owning or touching something that belonged to them is often the closest we can get. This is why people want Elvis’ sweat-soaked scarves (they still sell for close to $2,000 a piece), and why a clump of his hair sold for $115,000 in 2002 (bodily relic anyone?) This is also why, when a friend let me hold a scrap of one of Morrissey’s shirts from a concert a few years ago, well, let’s just say I was excited. These things are like relics, special from having touched a celebrity. Owning them makes us feel closer to the person and the intimacy of it reinforces our feeling that we have a unique relationship with that person.
Now, J.D. Salinger is a special case. He has inspired a particularly devoted, intense following for a number of reasons. For one, his writing addresses the question of how to live more directly than most authors. Characters like Holden Caulfield and Seymour Glass detail their problems with modern society (phoniness, materialism) and tell readers the things they think should be valued instead (sincerity, being true to ones self and ones art, loyalty to ones family). A number of people criticized Salinger’s later work for this very quality, saying that he turned his characters into mouthpieces for his personal philosophy. Be that as it may, his ideas obviously touched a nerve for some, as many people have an almost religious reverence for the author.
My boy J.D., looking very Seymour Glass
Salinger objects are also valuable because of simple issue of supply and demand: Salinger was a private man. He didn’t give interviews. He didn’t sign autographs. He rarely went into public. There aren’t even very many photographs in circulation of him. Try doing a google image search for J.D.Salinger; the same 3 or 4 photos come up again and again. Salinger’s physical absence from public life makes anything relating to his physicality rare and more valuable.
As foul as it is, Salinger’s toilet is an object he touched day after day. Somebody might want it for the mere fact that it was his. Although strangely enough, the parts he touched the most (the lid and seat) are not being sold in the auction. Perhaps this is why the sellers are making a big deal about it being “uncleaned” – they’re advertising the possibility of some remaining Salinger DNA. After all, the object’s contact with celebrity is what makes it a relic – without that, it’s just an old commode.
Now that Salinger has passed, I suspect that there will be lots more of his personal effects for sale. I’m no expert, but my guess is that you’ll be able to do better than a dirty toilet for a million dollars.
