by Jenny smith (Tue Feb 09, 2010)
What about old J.D. Salinger leaving us then? How many
of us have read that famous book, eh? I myself read it at 16 and learnt how to
talk American. In 1975, there was a group of schoolgirls going around saying
‘flunked out' and ‘goddam it!' Two expressions we had never remotely heard of
before (these terms not being used in ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show'). And it was
a novelty, training yourself to read in an American accent for the story
to flow properly. What larks!
Do you know my husband has never read Catcher in the Rye? Not ever! There he is, an ex-public
schoolboy, studied Latin and other posh subjects, and he never read that book! Twice the education I have had and he
doesn't even know good literature. His parents were so ripped-off, I tell
you.
The damndest thing being, I picked up this very same book
again a few years ago at forty-something, and couldn't get past the first page.
I put it down in disgust and termed it ‘incomprehensible,' feeling a sharp
sense of loss from that turning point in the summer of the mid-seventies.
Gad! That bloke Salinger was good-looking in 1951,
going by the obituary photograph. I would have gone on that sad and
soul searching journey with him anytime, I tell you. Of course, one
of the last pictures of him was not the case. The bitterness seemed
to ooze out from his sallow skin. Then, in fairness, the bloke
was ninety-something and drinking his own piss. You've got to make some
allowances.
That aside, my pussycat got into a magazine
recently. On the Reader's Letter's page of ‘My Weekly.' I'd emailed
the thing back in June and had completely forgotten about it, until I opened
the magazine on the bus. Pet's Corner is usually very cut-throat with
stiff competition from Labradors and budgies. It's not for the
faint-hearted. You have to have nerves of steel to even compete. And
there she was, my little Rosie, looking up from a glossy page.
Husband suggested that Anna Wintour herself wafted in and
handpicked Rosie from a lightbox thing, just like in ‘The September Issue'
(an amazing and
fascinating docu-film).
I recounted this to my pal yesterday afternoon. I also
harked back to Holden Caulfield or Salinger, or whatever his bloody - sorry,
goddam name was. I recalled that he started his writing career by selling
stories to magazines. I can identify with this, well, in terms of cat
pictures published anyway. But then he wrote for ‘The New Yorker' and
other posh papers. I started to feel deflated. However, my mate
emphasised, that compared to a classic like ‘My Weekly,' 'The New Yorker' was
the equivalent of ‘Hello' magazine. And where were the problem pages and
word-link crosswords eh? When was the last time they showed you how to bake a cake? That's what he wanted to
know!
Also, he continued, when did J.D. Salinger ever get a
picture of his pet in a weekly journal, eh? And we came to the theory that
this very failure to do so must have driven him to live an insular and
reclusive existence.
Gad! That Jerome must have been in awe of
me!
