U.S. publication of book delayed in Salinger dispute

NEW YORK (AP) — A Swedish author’s new book is so similar to J.D. Salinger’s classic novel “The Catcher In The Rye” that a judge said last week that she will carefully study copyright law before ruling whether it can be published in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts temporarily blocked publication of the book “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye” until she rules whether the book transforms Salinger’s original creation enough that it qualifies to be published as a “fair use” of a copyrighted work.

A ruling is anticipated in the next 10 days. The book was scheduled for U.S. release Sept. 15, but the court dispute was likely to delay that.

The hearing featured arguments over whether Salinger’s most- famous literary character, Holden Caufield, is himself entitled to copyright protection and whether stopping publication of what some publicity materials referred to as a sequel would amount to a book ban.

Batts put Edward Henry Rosenthal, a lawyer for “60 Years Later” author Fredrik Colting, on the defensive in more than an hour of arguments over a lawsuit brought by 90-year-old Salinger, the Cornish, N.H., author who kept his reclusive reputation intact by not appearing in court.

She said she read both novels and agreed with Salinger that the new book was substantially similar to his own, published in 1951. Although there was little legal precedent to find that a character in a book with no drawings or photographs of him could be copyrighted, Batts said she believed Caufield could be.

“It’s a portrait by words,” she said. “It is difficult in fact to separate Holden Caulfield from the book.”

She also disagreed with Rosenthal’s argument that the new book provided obvious effective criticism of Salinger.

Batts said the issue was not that she was having trouble determining whether the criticism in the book was effective.

“Let me be clear,” she said. “I am having difficulty seeing that it exists” at all.