Michiko Kakutani in 1997 in NYT: ‘Seymour, of course, was the oldest of the Glass children, who in the 1948 short story ''A Perfect Day for Bananafish'' (collected in ''Nine Stories'') put a gun to his head and blew his brains out. In that story, Seymour appeared to be a sweet if somewhat disturbed young man, ill equipped to deal with the banal, grown-up world represented by his frivolous wife.
In subsequent stories, we learned, largely through the reminiscences of his brother Buddy -- the family historian and Mr. Salinger's alter ego (…) -- that Seymour was regarded as the family saint and resident mystic.’

And: ‘This falling off in his work, perhaps, is a palpable consequence of Mr. Salinger's own Glass-like withdrawal from the public world: withdrawal feeding self-absorption and self-absorption feeding tetchy disdain.’

Some authors excel in tetchy disdain without withdrawal.

Authors, other humans: don’t escape the squalor.

(a sf 2170)