Salinger probably sensed that if Holden and Jane Gallagher connected, their relationship would overwhelm the novel, which is a sort of mural, or montage, of humanity in New York City. There were too many novels about young love, and he didn't want his novel to turn into another one of those. Many aspiring young novelists write about their first love affairs for at least two reasons. One is that they appeal to publishers, and they...
Salinger probably sensed that if Holden and Jane Gallagher connected, their relationship would overwhelm the novel, which is a sort of mural, or montage, of humanity in New York City. There were too many novels about young love, and he didn't want his novel to turn into another one of those. Many aspiring young novelists write about their first love affairs for at least two reasons. One is that they appeal to publishers, and they appeal to publishers because they appeal to the kind of readers who buy hard-cover novels by new writers. Another reason is that it is hard for a young writer to interest older readers because the young writer has typically had little experience to draw on.
Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms is perhaps the prototype of the hundreds of boy-meets-girl novels that have come out over the years. The novel ends when the girl dies. Typically, the theme is: boy meets girl, boy and girl have a torrid romance, then girl dies, or something else tragic happens to end the romance and the novel. Romeo and Juliet is an older example of a boy-meets-girl story. Erich Segal's extremely successful, and extremely simple novel Love Story is another example. Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney was a big best seller.
These young-love stories are always popular because everybody likes the theme of love. Shakespeare titled one of his plays As You Like It because he knew that audiences like love stories and his play is full of love. There are four or five marriages at the end. As You Like It doesn't end with anybody dying because it is a comedy. Another boy-meets-girl novel that was a spectacular best-seller in Salinger's time is Bonjour Tristesse by the French writer Francoise Sagan, who wrote it when she was only eighteen. As the title suggests, there is a strong element of "tristesse" (sadness) in it.
But Salinger did not want to write just another story of that genre. His hero Holden Caulfield doesn't even seem to be looking for romance; rather, he seems to be looking for friendship and genuine human contact. Even in Salinger's day, boy-meets-girl stories were tending to get formulaic. Perhaps the readers always wanted the same thing only different. This doesn't mean that there is anything "bad" about them. In fact, an aspiring young writer would be well advised to think about writing a love story as a first novel because that is the best way for a young unknown to get published. Everybody has had a romance he or she can convert into a novel--or if not, at least everybody can turn a fantasy into a novel.
So my guess is that Salinger decided to keep Jane Gallagher on the back burner, so to speak, because he was afraid a relationship would get out of hand. Instead, Holden has a relationship with cheerleader/prom queen Sally Hayes which goes nowhere. Salinger must have had the right instinct. His novel has been phenomenally popular ever since it was first published. Teachers who are assigning it in English classes today discovered it when they were young themselves.
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