Re: Jail Bait
Thor Cameron (my_colours@hotmail.com)
Wed, 30 Jun 1999 08:41:41 -0700 (PDT)
Chapter 3 in my book "Read the Damned Books And Leave The Old Man Alone" is
entitled "The Old Man Would Probably Disappoint You"
Thor
>Though there's been a flurry of media speculation over the last few weeks,
>I've never seen quite this take on the letter auction. From Yesterday's
>(June 28) Chicago Tribune Op-Ed Page:
>
>
>
>Return to Sender: Salinger's letters
>
>There used to be term for the likes of J.D. Salinger: dirty old man.
>
>Salinger, who at some point became as well known for his reclusiveness as
>for his writing, was 53 years old and famous when he seduced 18-year-old
>Joyce Maynard into leaving Yale University to live with him in a cottage in
>Cornish, N.H.
>
>That means that he was four years older than Bill Clinton and she was three
>years younger than Monica Lewinsky when they began their now-infamous
>affair. Indeed, Maynard was very nearly what in benighted old days used to
>be called "jail bait."
>
>Yet, oddly, as Maynard in recent years has begun to reveal details of her
>long-ago relationship with the author of "Catcher in the Rye" - first in a
>memoir and now by auctioning off his letters to her - all the opprobrium
>seems to have fallen on her. She has been scorned for trading on the
>relationship for money, for violating a lover's expectation of privacy and
>so forth.
>
>So much so that, when Sotheby's last week auctioned off on Maynard's behalf
>14 letters that Salinger wrote to her over a 17-month period in 1972 and
>1973, the winning bidder, California philanthropist Peter Norton, said he
>did so because he was "sympathetic to Mr. Salinger's desire for privacy"
>and
>would return the letters to the writer.
>
>Fair enough, perhaps.
>
>Actually, more than fair to a dirty old man.
>
>________
>
>*grin* Gotta love our paper here in Chicago.
>
>Cecilia.
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