Subject: Sunday Times Article
From: Sundeep Dougal (holden@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in)
Date: Sun Mar 09 1997 - 16:03:11 GMT
In today's Times of India is a Sunday Times (presumably London) article
by one Appleyard that must obviously have originally been published
sometime back. I just shot off two letters to them and thought some of
you may want to read them too. So here goes (word for word, etc..)
March 9, 1997
To
The Editor,
The Sunday Times of India Review
New Delhi.
Dear Sirs,
I write to point out the following inaccuracies in Bryan Appleyard's, The
Catcher is Shy, in The Sunday Review, March 9, 1997:
1. "But a couple of weeks ago...announcement that a new Salinger book was
about to be published."
Couple of weeks? The news has been on the front pages of major world
newspapers since early January this year. Makes it couple of months, I'd
imagine.
2. " Excitement subsided...when it emerged that this was not a new book..."
>From the very first report on the book in the world press or, indeed, at
Bananafish mailing list (where incidentally the "news" had been available
since October 16, 1996), it was very clear even to a non-Salinger fan
that the book in question was an old story. So there is no question of
excitement abour a "new" book that could have subsided.
3. "His four published books...Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1963)"
His last published book in 1963, in addition to Raise High...mentioned in
your article, included "Seymour an Introduction"
4. "Now in his 78th. year.."
J.D. Salinger was born on January 1, 1919. So he is now in his 79th. year.
5. "..apparently tricked by one Betty Eppes into an interview that
appeared in the Baton Rouge Advocate in 1980."
Betty Eppes' story appaeared also in syndication in a number of other
newspapers including the Boston Globe, and a far fuller account of her
experience appeared in The Paris Review, 80 (24 July, 1981). This,
incidentally, is the interview where Salinger said that "publishing was a
vicious, vicious thing".
6. "One biography has appeared with which Salinger did not co-operate.."
As if no other has? Or that he has cooperated with the rest?
7. "He lives alone.."
He lives with his third wife: Colleen O'Neil
8. His two children, Matt and Peggy...
Matt and Peggy indeed! Is Mr. Appleyard rather intimate with these two
children (Margaret Ann, now in her 40's and Matthew 37) to refer to them
thus?
9. "Salinger has a massive satellite dish, suggesting that he surfs the
channels as enthusiastically as he surfs the net"
A satellite dish suggests that he surfs the net? If that doesn't, what
does? Has it even been established or reported that he has a computer,
leave alone a modem or, indeed, whether he knows how to use one?
10. "Caulfield even wears a hunting cap back to front in clairvoyant
anticipation of the reversed baseball caps that still lope down our streets."
Clairvoyant anticipation? Hah! What exactly is Mr. Appleyard trying to
suggest? That reversed baseball caps are specifically a Holden Caulfield
meme?
Phew! I am appalled. (And all this from the very first column of the
article.) How do you expect your readers to swallow the analysis, if it
can be called that or, loosely speaking, literary judgement, of such a
careless reporter, who can't even get the bald facts right? As a Salinger
fan, I do not mind reading an informed indictment based on a serious
analysis, but to be presented with airy-fairy gobbledygook interspersed
with immature and misleading interpretations based on misreadings is not
something which goes down well.
While it may be quite a laborious task to point out all the places where
Mr. Appleyard has erred, in the interests of parsimony, let me just take
one more instance from his masterpiece:
"His own educational failures made him extremely touchy," rules Mr.
Appleyard.
Which educational failures? (And if I may ask, merely as a parenthetical
aside, from when is an academic qualification de-riguer for serious
literary merit?) If he had bothered to read through Warren French's book
on Salinger, he would even have been presented with Salinger's academic
grades, as well as recorded IQ, and to indulge in some ad-hominem myself,
I wouldn't really be very surprised to find them to be better than Mr.
Appleyard's.
Incidentally, as also documented in Hamilton's In Search of J.D.Salinger,
Salinger also served as the literary editor of his class yearbook,
Crossed Sabres. Not that it matters. (And, oh, just by the way, from when
is Norman Mailer highbrow?)
In Salinger's last published story, Hapworth 16, 1924, a small book is
referred to as "alternately priceless and sheercrap". I wish I could say
that about this article from Sunday Times.What I can say, quoting again
from the same story, though is: "It is a very conversational theory, but
sheer crap, unfortunately."
Salinger may well have been speeaking of Mr. Appleyard and those of his
ilk in Hapworth 16, 1924:
"This is a cruel and harsh statement, to be sure. It fails to be harsh
enough!...No single day passes that I do not listen to the heartless
indifferences and stupidities passing from the counselors's lips without
seecretly wishing I could improve matters quite substantially by bashing
a few culprits over the head with an excellent shovel or stout club!"
Yours etc.
(Sundeep Dougal)
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Sundeep Dougal (Sonny, to friends) Holden Caulfield, New Delhi, INDIA
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