The American writer, J.D. Salinger, is famous for two things: for writing The Catcher in the Rye, and for being a recluse. He lived from 1919 to 2010, and published short stories and novels – although, given his long age, his output was sparse. The Catcher in the Rye was his first novel, and dates from 1951, and it has earned for Salinger enduring fame and respect.
As to Salinger’s reclusiveness: in the near sixty years after Catcher, Salinger kept close to his home in New Hampshire (having moved from New York City in 1953). As early as 1961 he was cover-profiled by TIME magazine as living the life of a recluse. This is not to say that Salinger lived a hermit’s existence – he had marriages, children, and relationships - merely that he spurned the curiosity of his readers, the press, and the public at large. He rejected numerous overtures for the rights to film Catcher.
The Catcher in the Rye recounts two days in the life of Holden Caulfield, a discontented 16-year-old senior student – on the loose in New York having been expelled from his elite college prep school for underperforming. It is written in the first person, and Holden’s interface with the reader is direct and appealing. From the start the book was a great success and, according to Salinger’s biographer, “became the book all brooding adolescents had to buy, the indispensable manual from which cool styles of disaffection could be borrowed”. But there were accusations of immorality and perversion, and anti-religious sentiment; and the book was banned in some American schools, and in several countries (including Australia, from 1956 for a year or so). The mindset of the era is betrayed by one angry attack on the book’s “237 instances of 'goddam', 58 uses of 'bastard', 32 'Chrissakes”' and one incident of flatulence”. I quote from Wikipedia, who note the irony of The Catcher in the Rye as having “the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the nation and the second-most frequently taught novel in public high schools” – the first-most being Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (also for a time banned in Australia!).
If the mark of a great book is simultaneously to earn the respect of the reviewers and critics, and to attract the attention and devotion of a wide readership, then The Catcher in the Rye is great indeed. It has sold, we’re told, more than 65 million copies; and the words written about it must be numberless.
---------------------
One day in May 1973 I was travelling from the city on an unusually crowded tram, while reading my Penguin edition of The Catcher. I was distracted and amused by activity around me, so much so that later that evening I penned a short description of the journey and, given what I’d been reading, I wrote that description in what I perceived to be the manner Salinger had used for Holden Caulfield’s ruminations. I then had the temerity to envisage it in print. At that time we were blessed to have the weekly, Nation Review [published 1972 to 1981], and I submitted my essay to that journal for publication. Time proved my wisdom in also sending a stamped return envelope – which was, in due course, used to convey my manuscript back to me, without comment! I had called it Tram Catcher.
There’s a special feeling about a crowded tram - particularly during a train strike. Well, there I was the other evening, squeezed up tight, with my head on one side trying to read The Catcher in the Rye. Twenty-year-old modern classic and all that, so how anyone of my age could have escaped reading it till now is a real puzzle, believe me. Anyway, there I was.
The people on the tram were pretty funny. This group of pimply jerks were horsing around. One of them raised a laugh when he sat on another one’s knee. A third one hung out the door, and eventually got down on the running board……..until the conductor yelled out: “Get inside the car. Get off the goddamned step.” You can’t blame him for being a bit terse, what with all the extra people, and the trip taking twice as long as usual.
And there was this guy who was a bit of a joker. Well dressed and all that, but with quite a sense of humour. Actually, if you want to know the truth, he was one of those people who plays up to an audience. Boy, I hate that sort of thing. His audience was mainly two women, middle-aged and plump and all, but sort of chirpy. One of them had a real belly laugh, but she managed it through clenched teeth. I’m not kidding. As the funny man reached his stop he said: “Make way for the pregnant man.” It wasn’t very funny, but the two women wet themselves. Then everyone else started laughing too.
Mind you, not everybody felt like being amused. Standing next to me was an older guy who mumbled his destination to the conductor, and was charged a higher fare than he expected. I saw him blink, then mouth a protest, but the conductor had moved on and it was too late. You can imagine the guy wasn’t too happy after that. People always get upset when they know they’ve done something stupid, and they usually try to get annoyed with someone else. Sure enough there was someone else, this little kid about eight years’ old. His mother had moved inside, but he stayed outside in the smoking compartment. He really was little too, no height at all. His head just reached everybody’s groin. And he was the greatest old fidgeter of all time. I don’t mind someone who wriggles – I do it myself pretty often - but this sour guy next to me was none too happy. The kid just couldn’t stand still. He bumped around, faced every direction in turn, and every time he moved this guy frowned or snorted or something. I think he was having his feet trodden on. What was really driving the guy crazy, I guess, is that the kid looked so dopey – all pale, and with thick-lensed glasses. The poor little kid had nothing going for him, and you had to feel sorry as soon as you looked at him. You know how it is. The guy was probably annoyed by the fact that he was more embarrassed to tick the kid off than he was by the kid being a nuisance.
Anyway, I was reading the bit where Holden Caulfield has skipped school and has made friends with this lady in the subway. He’s lying like a real phoney about who he is, and where he’s going, and she asks him how come he’s out and about when school doesn’t break for vacation until later in the week; and he says he has to have this operation. It isn’t very serious, just a tiny tumour on the brain. Well, that’s a very funny line, and it just about killed me. Right at that moment the little kid decided to join his mother inside, and the sour guy muttered under his breath, ‘Thank Christ”. I gave this almighty guffaw, and the guy thought I was laughing at him, and shot me a filthy look.
Looking back, it was a very funny ride. I think so anyway. As I said, there’s a special feeling about a crowded tram.
Gary Andrews
No comments:
Post a Comment