Tom Lehrer once remarked that his doctor specialised in the diseases of the rich. And as a shrink in private practice I'm never going to escape that label either - despite all my corporeal works of charity & miracle cures among the lepers. Isn't it true, though, that Salinger also specialises in the diseases or at least the sorrows of the rich? Eric suggests - & Hotbuns seems to agree - that Salinger presents one of the few true pictures of the world's despair. But does he? When the most protected of us can't escape at least visual images of the violence & unspeakable squalor that a very large number of our brothers & sisters have to confront day in day out, isn't there something frivolous about a young woman collapsing onto a daybed because of spiritual self-doubt? Does her creator ever really escape the world of the Upper East Side sophisticates who - this year - have taken up Zen, or some non-vulgar version of Christianity but who - next year - are quite as likely to go abroad with the Peace Corps & - the year after that - may hunt their salvation in cutting edge Art? Holden was a tremendously funny book about a tremendously likeable character who was simply involved in the awful war of being young. We’ve all been there - which is why most of us love him. But that other crowd seem to me to be little more than a bunch of rich boys with too much time on their hands. The Nazarene was right about the eye of the needle. And he wasn't talking about the width of the Cadillac. He was talking about the trivialisation of mind that wealth produces. I think Salinger has never really escaped its curse. Of course it's no more a curse than the one the Kennedy's are meant to suffer. It's simply the fatal thinning of the soul (which I don't believe exists - but you know what I mean) that accompanies the knowledge that Daddy or his trust fund will always be there to bail one out. Scottie B.