Subject: Re: uncollected stories
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Sat Mar 31 2001 - 10:27:46 GMT
On Sat, Mar 31, 2001 at 01:59:32AM -0600, lray wrote:
Hi, Levi!
> i am new to this list and cant quite understand why everyone is constantly
> arguing, and not about what this list is supposed to be about or what i was
> under the impression that this list was for. i am a 19 year old college
> student, but i feel like the mature one on this list because i feel like
> salinger and his works have almost completely taken the back seat since i
> have
> been on this list the past two weeks or so. is it always like this?
No, you've caught the place at a bad point in time. Things here
follow their own Circadian rhythms, and ours is in the trench right
about now. We are delighted at the prospect of an infusion of fresh
blood, and hope you will not be scared off by the temporary
squabbling. We also (I hope I'm not being presumptuous in sounding as
if I speak for everyone) enjoy seeing new threads of discussion tossed
in the ring.
> how about a conversation starter like what impact did catcher have on
> everyone
> the first time they read it?
Well, I had some preconceived notions. I had seen it carried around
by one of the kids on my block who, like me, used to get beat up all
the time by the bigger kids. This boy (we were about 12 at the time)
was a big reader of sports books; I remember him reading things about
the Mets (!) and about sports figures like Ty Cobb. So when I saw him
carrying around a crumbling copy of the original paperback edition,
with the painting of Holden in what appears to be Times Square, with
that lurid text that ended, "... but you will never forget it" (or
something along those lines), I thought it was some inspirational
sports book about a baseball catcher. Score one "D'oh" point for me.
Fast forward ahead a year or two and I was in high school, very
unhappy there and feeling intensely alienated. I stayed for a weekend
with my aunt and uncle at their weekend bungalow, where my aunt told
me I could take a book, any book, for the ride back to the city. I
found NINE STORIES and selected that one. The most memorable image I
have is of reading "The Laughing Man" while driving down the
Palisades, where some of that story took place. When I was finished
with the stories, I was enchanted. I felt that I had found a magical
place that only I knew of. I never connected it with that wacky
sports book about the baseball catcher that had been read by the kid
down the block. I sought out other books by him and Catcher was the
first one I found. However, I got the hardcover, so it took a couple
of extra years before I put together the Salinger of the hardcover
with the author of the book with the lurid paperback cover.
And so it was that my alienated self found a soulmate in Holden
Caulfield. I couldn't run away from my dreadful "prep" school (I use
the word loosely; it didn't do much "prepping" and it was a loathsome
place), but I could escape vicariously through him. Like him, I
wandered the streets of Manhattan alone at night, though I came from
a decidedly lower class and couldn't afford taxicabs ever. But I
loved the movies and spent many nights tucked away in a repertory
movie house (all of which are now, sadly, closed). I didn't feel
superior to people around me, only separate. I began to keep a
journal and start to write fiction. I also photographed like (as
Holden would say) a madman, and I have plenty of Cartier-Bresson-ish
street scenes of the times I passed through. In all of it, Holden was
like my big brother, my wisecracking protector, the person through
whose eyes I saw what went on around me. I read the book countless
times; it was embarrassing on the subway, because I would laugh until
I was in tears. I didn't know anything about Salinger at the time,
and I guess it never occurred to me to look at the copyright date on
the back of the title page, because the book seemed so fresh that it
never seemed plausible that it had been decades since the book had been
published and that the author might have opted out of the publishing
business. Eventually I tracked down Franny and Zooey and Raise
High the Roofbeam, Carpenters. When I realized that that was it, in
terms of Salinger, I started rationing the books slowly.
> personally, i felt so similar to holden that it was frightening. thoughts
> about a superficial society, suicide, not fitting in, having no one to talk
> to, etc, etc, basic teenage feelings.
Yes, absolutely. That's where my journal came in. It was my only way
of letting off steam.
> i felt that there was a beauty to
> holden because he had retained the ability children have for seeing the TRUTH
> in things and not allowing oneself to be swept up by all the crap and still
> being able to recognize things around him. it is after two and i am not
> articulating well, but im sure that these thoughts make sense to someone who
> has read catcher and felt like "here is someone that i understand."
Your articulation is pretty clear to me. I definitely understand.
> salinger
> said so much in catcher and it is sad that 50 years later things still havent
> changed, if anything they are worse.
I don't know if they're worse, so much as different. Young people are
still alienated -- it's just that the alienated drift away in
different ways than Holden did. They have more avenues of escape.
Alienation is actually big business in America, at least, as corporate
America figures out ways of co-opting alienation. (There's something
awful in seeing corporations like Viacom, et al., seizing irony as a
means of expression to reach teenagers for whom irony is second
nature.)
And I'm not referring to the really bad cases that end up in high
schools getting shot up by off-the-wall students who feel a grudge. I
agree that THAT is something unthinkable in Holden's world, and that
makes it look magically innocent in comparison to the daily headlines.
His odyssey is free of politics, free of hurt to others, since he
perpetually thinks instead of hurting himself.
I still think -- as Paul Kennedy discovered in the radio show he did
about two years ago (!) -- that there's a huge groundswell of
affection for, and devotion to, Holden. Holden's still like a
touchstone for young people who look around themselves and think that
there has to be more to life than the surface of life they see. For
those who lack friendships, Holden offers the tantalizing hope that
there's at least one kindred spirit out there who might be a best
friend if only we can find him. That's why Salinger is so
sought-after by the crazy and the enchanted and the hypnotized.
People find Holden and, like Holden, they want to talk to the author
who created him. (How many times, I wonder, in the last fifty years,
has Salinger cursed what he wrote about finding a favorite writer and
wanting to call him up?)
Well, I normally wouldn't toss in such a large message, but I figure
that since we've had a dearth of posts about Salinger and his work
lately, I might stir the pot a bit.
I hope some readers will join me, so I don't stand out there like some
kind of stick-figure freak!
--tim o'connor
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