Subject: Re: Burns, coming through the rye
From: Suzanne Morine (suzannem@dimensional.com)
Date: Sat Jul 21 2001 - 17:34:52 GMT
At 10:04 AM 7/20/2001 +0800, Will Hochman wrote:
>On page 115 of Catcher, Holden hears a young boy singing "If a body catch
>a body coming through the rye" but I think there was some discussion a
>while ago about this being a misquoting of Robert Burns...any help
>clearing this up would be appreciated, will
Someone replied with the Robert Burns poem.
The thing is, right in the book (p. 173), Phoebe tells Holden he got the
words to the poem wrong and we learn that it was "[if] a body meet a body."
Without re-listening to the radio show, I believe that someone remarked
that *Salinger* got the words to the *song* wrong. When I saw Will's post
above, I thought that's what he meant.
Is it true that the words to the song were different than the words to the
poem? If they were the same as the poem, then Salinger didn't get anything
wrong: he just had the little boy get it wrong, and had Phoebe point it out
later in the story.
So, whether Will was asking about the song or not, I am curious: were the
words to the song different than the poem?
Suzanne
"Understanding the complaints of people with insight is not easy and it's
simpler to call it whining." Will Hochman
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