Me, Holden Caulfield And The Big, Green Pods
Apparently half the world is waiting to find out if the late J.D. Salinger had a secret cache of unpublished manuscripts. Of course, not everyone is salivating at the prospect. Owen Dudley-Edwards, for one, appeared on Good Morning Scotland this morning to echo the view that "Salinger had nothing to say and he said it very well".
Anticipating these occasions I keep a sledge-hammer near the radio, just along from my big bowl of walnuts. In a matter of moments I was sweeping up a pile of plastic knobs, circuit boards and leaky batteries.
That is to say, I disagreed.
For yes, gentle reader, I was one of those angst-ridden teenagers who came across The Catcher in the Rye at the perfect age. I was sixteen and already suspecting that adulthood was going to be something of a disappointment. Salinger, through the voice of Holden Caulfield, gave me a teenager's guide to phonies. Almost everything - religion, Christmas, school, movies, sex, actors, and musicians - could be dismissed and dumped in a New York garbage chute and only childhood had any authenticity.
Growing up, I believed, was a bit like going to sleep next to a big green pod and being replaced overnight by an unfeeling being from another planet. I'd seen this happen in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. Most of my teachers, I could believe, were aliens...and the school janitor was probably their secret leader.
Catcher became my bible, my sheild against hypocrisy. I carried it around with me at school and, where other teenagers decorated their bedroom walls with posters of pop and football stars, I tacked up a grainy black & white newspaper image of Salinger himself.
I even wrote a letter to my adult self, describing my view of the world and urging the 'me' of later years not to distrust the sincerity of my feelings. I think that letter still exists, in a drawer in my dad's house.
But then this morning...betrayal. Listening to the coverage of Salinger's death I did ask myself why I ever thought his writing was so important to me.
At some point in my past, I must have slept with the pods.
There's some great coverage of Salinger - including a slideshow - in magazine.
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