73 years ago, when the world was still licking the fresh wounds World War Two had so generously given, and humanity seemed to have suffered enough, J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye.
Like all great writing, it spoke from the deepest parts of the human experience, to those same parts that the human experience often holds in silence - and by doing so, gave voice to our shared loneliness, angst, and innocence.
73 years later, the world has not yet learned that, even though children have to, eventually, leave the golden, wind-swaying arms of the rye field, they still need a field to be children in.
As our planet starts her new, undiscovered yet ubiquitous path around the sun, hope - that only good will come to us - colors the smoke of sky-high fireworks, long-due hugs, and drunken eyes.
And, even though it might be a fickle little thing, hope is what keeps us watering that rye field.
On Salinger’s birthday, we remember the beautiful conversation between The Catcher in the Rye’s hero, Holden Caulfield and his beloved little sister, Phoebe.
“Daddy’s going to kill you. He’s going to kill you,” she said. I wasn’t listening, though. I was thinking about something else -- something crazy. “You know what I’d like to be?” I said. “You know what I’d like to be. I mean if I had my goddam choice?” “What? Stop swearing.” “You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye’? I’d like--” “It’s ‘If a body meet a body coming through the rye!’ ” old Phoebe said. “It’s a poem. By Robert Burns.” “I know it’s a poem by Robert Burns.” She was right, though. It is “If a body meet a body coming through the rye.” I didn’t know it then, though. “I thought it was ‘If a body catch a body,’ ” I said. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around -- nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.” Old Phoebe didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, when she said something, all she said was, “Daddy’s going to kill you.”
Get the first edition of the book (pictured above) at Whitmore Rare Books.
About J.D. Salinger
Born on January 1st, 1919, in Manhattan, New York, Jerome David Salinger was an American author best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye.
A son to a Jewish father and a Christian mother, Salinger grew up in New York City - like The Catcher in the Rye's hero, Holden Caulfield.
He spent a brief period at New York and Columbia universities, and after, devoted himself entirely to writing. Salinger’s stories began to appear in periodicals in 1940, and, after returning from service in the U.S. Army (1942–46), he became increasingly associated with The New Yorker magazine.
The New Yorker published most of his stories, with many of them making use of his wartime experiences: “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (1948) concerns the suicide of the sensitive, despairing veteran Seymour Glass, and “For Esmé—with Love and Squalor” (1950) describes a U.S. soldier’s poignant encounter with two British children.
Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, and major critical and popular recognition followed. He became a recluse, and, empathetically declined when asked for the rights to adapt the novel for Broadway or Hollywood.
The last work Salinger published during his lifetime was a novella titled Hapworth 16, 1924, which appeared in The New Yorker in 1965.
He died on January 27th, 2010 (aged 91), in New Hampshire.