“[D]ark, wordy, academic deaths”

Buddy Glass, in a letter to brother Zooey:

On especially black days I sometimes tell myself that if I’d loaded up with degrees when I was able, I might not now be teaching anything quite so collegiate and hopeless as Advanced Writing 24-A. But that’s probably bunk. The cards are stacked (quite properly, I imagine) against all professional aesthetes, and no doubt we all deserve the dark, wordy, academic deaths we all sooner or later die.

J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey (1961)

(It’s been years and years since I last looked at this book. And years.)