Subject: Re: First Bibles: Was Re: Neither a Borrower nor Lender Be
From: Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Date: Tue Mar 21 2000 - 13:34:07 EST
Bruce, et al.:
Hey c'mon.... If we're going to quote the bizarre autobio:
>
>J.D. Salinger was born in New York City in 1919 and attended Manhattan
>public schools, a military academy in Pennsylvania and three colleges (no
>degrees). "A happy tourist's year in Europe," he writes, "when I was
>eighteen and nineteen. In the Army from '42 to '46, most of the time with
>the Fourth Division.
>
>"I've been writing since I was fifteen or so. My short stories have
>appeared in a number of magazines over the last ten years, mostly--and most
>happily--in _The New Yorker_. I worked on _The Catcher in the Rye_, on and
>off, for ten years."
>
...We'd be remiss to skip the preceeding paragraph of publisher's puff:
There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices,
underground voices--but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all.
Transcending his own vernacular (PK--Have a kick at that old can, all you
post-structuralists and post-modernists!) yet remaining marvelously faithful
to it, he issues a perfectly articulate cry of mixed pain and pleasure.
However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he
keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or
sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle
it to keep.
That's pretty MAROON prose, if you ask me.
Now it's me (PK) again, refusing to let a dead horse--in the form of the
animal on the cover that Bruce so ably described as "red"--die. The horse
on the cover of the Little, Brown 1951 hardback is RED. RED, RED, RED!
Blood red, maybe. Barn red, perhaps. But red! In fact it's almost exactly
the same colour of red as the plain old cover of the classic Bantam
paperback. (Just like the yellow used for the title is the same yellow--OK,
Cecilia, I'll give you mustard yellow, but you gotta drop the maroon,
OK?--used for the title on the same paperback.... I wonder why? Surely, if
Jerry had any say in the design--and we all know that he had SOME say, since
he was fairly loud in denouncing the original paperback cover, which you've
got to admit looks a bit like a Harlequin for tweenagers--surely there
should be an army of Ph. D. candidates frantically researching Jerry's
peculiar predilection for red and yellow.... blood and bile? ...anger and
jealousy? ...who knows what other colourful couplets?
>It's (Bruce) again. The price has been snipped so I can't help Paul with that
>data project he's got going. I must say though before I leave this keyboard
>that I clearly recall that the Bantam edition of _Catcher_ was NOT textured.
>Perhaps there's a difference between USA and Canadian editions. Or your
>printing had some sort of different paper stock for the cover.
>
I didn't mean to imply that my precious first personal edition was
"textured" in any way. It's flat. In fact, it's "flat" in the sense that
paint is flat--as opposed to gloss. As a result, it "wears" the way old
suede wears, making each particular mass market paperback somehow seem
utterly unique. Although my eyesight's failing since it looks like I'm as
old as Bruce (....which means that he might NOT have been the first boy
to.... But that's another story....) I'd easily recognize my precious
August 1966 edition from twenty metres (25 yds for anybody unfortunate
enough to own a maroon edition!)
Bruce again:
>As for data, I propose including (if Paul didn't), the age when first read,
>and the last time read.
>
15 (back in 1966), although I remember reading it first from cover-to-cover
(and I'd be the first to admit that my memory is one of the most 'romantic'
parts of me) when I was 12.... I read it again about a year ago, shortly
before my first dive into this bananafishbowl....
Bruce again:
>Just want to end by saying: I miss Louise.
>
>
Strange thing here is that I didn't even know that I missed her... Where's
she gone?
Cheers,
Paul
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