Учебно-методическое пособие по работе с книгой Девять рассказов Дж. Сэлинджер

3.Я ещё на вечере хотел тебе рассказать. Только не успел в этой суматохе.

4.Чёртов псих Витторио с самого начала травил меня как зайца.

5.Седовласый опять повернулся к женщине – может быть, хотел показать, как терпеливо, даже стоически он всё это выслушивает.

6.Мы не пара, вот и всё.

7.– Нет, нет. Я как раз… нет, нет, – сказал седовласый, всё ещё заслоняя глаза рукой, и откашлялся.

8.…и Боб упросил Джоанну поехать с ними ещё куда-нибудь выпить, пока всё не утрясётся.

II. Paraphrase the underlined parts of the sentences. Translate the sentences into Russian.

1.Every bloody one of these foreign guys keep an open for a little free legal advice.

2.For all you know, you're making – I honestly think you're making a mountain – …

3."I don't think he'll necessarily hit the ceiling, Arthur," he said quietly.

4.I should've gone through with it last summer, when I really had the ball rolling – you know that?

5.That's the whole thing in a nutshell.

6.Every time I get all set to put my foot down, we have dinner out, for some reason…

7.Anyway, so she's home. What a rat race.

8.…we'd be goddam stupid not to at least have a go at it.

9.You mind if we cut this short?

III. Explain the following colloquial expressions in your own words.

1.You know her when she gets all tanked up and rarin' to go.

2.I'm through beating my brains out.

3.All three of 'em'll probably barge in on you any minute…

4.Nightcap! I'm so plastered now I can hardly –…

5.Is it going to do any good to sit around and stew?

6.You go out of your way – I mean this, now –…

41

7.I'd like to beat some sense into that head of yours, boy, that's what I'd like to do…

8.I'm not going to hang up on you, Arthur. I'd like to help you…

IV. Find and translate into Russian the sentences containing the following words.

ADDITIONAL TASKS

Group project. You are going to dramatize the story. Prior to this, discuss the following points:

1.How do the people in the story relate to each other?

2.Into how many scenes would you divide the story?

3.How can you define the atmosphere of each part?

4.For each scene describe the following:

Analyze the information you have got. What changes throughout the story have you noticed?

Group work. Now transfer this story into a play. You are free to edit it a little – to add or to eliminate some details. Discuss your changes. Dramatize it. (Make sure that you pool your ideas, efforts, activity and performance on equal scale.)

42

Lesson 8

De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period

GENERAL COMPREHENSION

1.How does the character evaluate his stay in New York? What circumstances might have aggravated the situation?

2.What episodes does he provide as illustration of his feelings while being in NYC?

3.Describe the relations between the young man and his stepfather. Citations will help you illustrate your words.

4.What does he mean by saying: "I used our stateroom mirror to note my uncanny physical resemblance to El Greco" (p.143).

5.Why do you think the young man decided to go to the art school to teach?

6.Where is the school located? Which words add to the unpleasant impression of its environs?

7.Does the interior of the school look different?

8.What attracted the boy’s attention in the room?

9.What does the word inscrutable mean? When does the boy use it? Does he imply any additional shades of meaning in it?

10.Do you think you would like the school? What attitude does the boy show when he arrives? Give examples. Can you explain the reasons of such behavior?

11.What emotions does he reveal by saying: "To me, they [envelopes] had an almost freshly brushed-and-combed look, like new pupils." Where else does he express the same idea?

12.Was M. Yoshoto a good artist and teacher? Prove your opinion.

13.Did the boy’s mood change thereafter?

14.Where in the story does the tone of the boy’s words change to express his real feelings?

15.How does he describe his first two students? What details are especially characteristic of them as students of art?

16.What do we know about Sister Irma and what is left blank?

17.As for the artistic talents of the third student, how were they different from those of Bambi Kramer’s and Ridgefield’s? What peculiar detail is mentioned?

43

18.Read the first letter to Sister Irma. What does the character say directly? What feelings does he communicate?

19."I am comparatively speechless in English owing to my varied and largely insensible upbringing." (p.168) How do you understand the utterance? Can you agree that he is speechless?

20.Comment on the episode with a girl in the display window. What does the boy express and imply about life? Do you share such views?

21.What prompted him to write the expelling letters to his students? How does he explain his action?

22.Why do you think he did not send the second letter to Sister Irma? Would you? Why?

23.What does he decide to do after his Experience? How does his overall mood and attitude change after it, as far as we can judge from his actions and the way his opinions are expressed?

WORD STUDY

I. Find in the text and translate the sentences containing the following words.

To dedicate elated, uncanny, capricious, vivacious, inscrutable, non-committally, flair, frantically, retarded, to delude, incipient genius, obnoxious, magnanimous.

II. Replace the underlined parts of the sentences with the words and phrases from the text.

1.… I feel it's a vital matter to get them in here.

2.A few weeks later, early in 1930, all three of us moved from New York to Paris…

3.At length, with a red light in his favor, the exhausted man swung around in his seat and looked up at me.

4.He addressed me in a lowered, an almost cautious tone of voice.

5.I drew laughing, high-breasted girls, living absolutely carelessly…

6.The next few days I spent waiting impatiently…

7.… and since he sensed in me the true vocationary spirit, he hoped I wouldn't be upset much.

44

8.At length, in effect to get rid of these unpleasant resemblances… I swung over to the subject of my parents' oldest and dearest friend: Pablo Picasso.

9.It was not, need I add, that he was consciously or unconsciously hiding his talent, or deliberately saved it, but that it simply wasn't his to give away.

10.Then, while I stood stunned and incessantly nodding…

11.She said she only hoped that she could some day paint as well as or even better than they.

12.There were no other serious defects in the picture.

13.You will see that I have drawn them rather rapidly and they are by no means perfect and even can't be praiseworthy.

14.I wondered, in a real panic, how I would manage not to go crazy through the next thirteen days …

III. Paraphrase the underlined parts of the sentences. Translate the sentences into Russian.

1."Oh, darling, don't be a horrible wet blanket," Mrs. X said to him.

2.My opening paragraph ran some three pages, and very nearly smoked.

3.I stood up to meet him – head on, if necessary – with a fresh little Picasso story, but, to my horror, by the time he reached me I was minus the plot.

4.After he'd returned to his own desk, it took me several minutes to pull myself together.

5.…who said that his wife had been after him for years to branch over into the painting racket.

6.…when I was nineteen, my funny bone invariably had the distinction of being the very first part of my body to assume partial or complete paralysis.

7.She said the only reason she was teaching it was that Sister somebody had passed on and…

8.Her favorite painter was Douglas Bunting. (A name, I don't mind saying, I've tracked down to many a blind alley, over the years.)

9.She wore no part of her grief, so to speak, on her sleeve…

10.I asked her (and I knew what long shot it was) if she had ever seen any reproductions of paintings by Antonello da Messina.

45

11.Incidentally, if you have a command of the French language, I hope you will let me know…

12.…an American from Bangor, Maine, who said in his questionnaire, with wordy, Honest-John integrity, that he was his own favorite artist.

13.…I decided to let my reservation at the Hotel Windsor go by the board.

14.They'll be something to see, if she hasn't lost her touch.

IV. Find in the text the English equivalents for the following words.

Мольберт; автопортрет; эскиз; экспонировать (картины); псевдоним; оттенок; передний план; обнажённая фигура (в живописи, скульптуре); картина, написанная маслом; акварель(2); полотно; тонкая, искусная работа.

V. Think of the definitions for the following words.

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION

1.What is the general tone of the story? What are the passages where the narrator becomes very serious? Why?

2.Do you think the young man was a talented artist? Explain and prove your point of view.

3.What is the young man’s pseudonym supposed to mean? How does it sound?

4.How old do you think sister Irma is? Describe how you see her.

5.What might be the reason that she was not allowed to correspond with the art school?

6.Consider the passage at the top of page 169. Give your understanding and interpretation of it.

46

7.How do you understand the following words: "… the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid." Do you agree? Give your examples.

8.What does the boy mean by saying: "Everybody is a nun"?

9.Why do you think the young man decided to dedicate this story to his stepfather?

ADDITIONAL TASKS

1.Write the letters the teacher wrote to his students to expel and to reinstate them. (You may write a personal or a general one.)

2.You are Sister Irma. Tell the story of your correspondence with the art school teacher.

3.You are to contribute an article to a newspaper. In your article you may campaign against or for something. You must use the content of the story as factual source of your reasons and argumentation.

4.Prepare the back translation of the following passage:

Как и многие другие, по-настоящему хорошие художники, месье Йошото как преподаватель стоял ничуть не выше любого посредственного живописца с кое-какими педагогическими способностями. Его практические поправки, то есть его рисунки, нанесенные на кальку поверх рисунков учащихся, вместе с письменными замечаниями на обороте рисунков вполне могли показать мало-мальски способному ученику, как похоже изобразить свинью или даже как живописно изобразить свинью в живописном хлеву. Но никогда в жизни он не сумел бы научить кого-нибудь отлично написать свинью и так же отлично хлев, а ведь передачи, к тому же заочной, именно этого небольшого секрета мастерства и добивались от него так жадно наиболее способные ученики. И не в том, разумеется, было дело, что он сознательно или бессознательно скрывал свой талант или не расточал его из-за скупости, он просто не умел его передать. Сначала эта жестокая правда как-то не затронула и не поразила меня. Но представьте себе мое положение, когда доказательства его беспомощности все накапливались и накапливались. Ко второму завтраку я дошел до такого состояния, что должен был соблюдать величайшую осторожность, чтобы не размазать строчку перевода потными ладонями. В до-

47

вершение всего у месье Йошото оказался на редкость неразборчивый почерк. И когда настала пора идти завтракать, я решительно отверг приглашение четы Йошото. Я сказал, что мне надо на почту. Сбежав по лестнице, я наугад углубился в путаницу незнакомых, запущенных улочек. Увидав закусочную, я забежал туда, проглотил четыре «с пылу, с жару» кони-айлендские колбаски и выпил три чашки мутного кофе.

Все три ученика писали нам по-английски. Первый конверт прислала двадцатитрехлетняя домохозяйка из Торонто – она выбрала себе псевдоним Бэмби Кремер, – так ей и надлежало адресовать письма. Все вновь поступающие на курсы «Любители великих мастеров» должны были заполнить анкету и приложить свою фотографию. Мисс Кремер приложила большую глянцевую фотокарточку, восемь на девять дюймов, где она была изображена с браслетом на щиколотке, в купальном костюме без бретелек и в белой морской бескозырке. В анкете она сообщила, что ее любимые художники – Рембрандт и Уолт Дисней. Она писала, что надеется когда-нибудь достичь их славы. Образцы рисунков были несколько пренебрежительно подколоты снизу к ее портрету. Все они вызывали удивление. Но один был незабываемым. Это незабываемое произведение было выполнено яркими акварельными красками, с подписью, гласившей: «И прости им прегрешения их». Оно изображало трех мальчуганов, ловивших рыбу в каком-то странном водоеме, причем чья-то курточка висела на доске с объявлением: «Ловля рыбы воспрещается». У самого высокого мальчишки на переднем плане одна нога была поражена рахитом, другая – слоновой болезнью – очевидно, мисс Кремер таким способом старалась показать, что он стоит, слегка расставив ноги.

Вторым моим учеником оказался пятидесятишестилетний «светский фотограф», по имени Р. Говард Риджфилд, из города Уиндзор, штат Онтарио. Он писал, что его жена годами не дает ему покоя, требуя, чтобы он тоже «втерся в это выгодное дельце»

– стал художником. Его любимые художники – Рембрандт, Сарджент и «Тицян», но он благоразумно добавлял, что сам он в их духе работать не собирается. Он писал, что интересуется скорее сатирической стороной живописи, чем художественной. В под-

48

держку своего кредо он приложил изрядное количество оригинальных произведений – масло и карандаш. Одна из его картин – по-моему, главный его шедевр – навеки врезалась мне в память: так привязываются слова популярных песенок. Это была сатира на всем знакомую будничную трагедию невинной девицы, с длинными белокурыми локонами и вымеобразной грудью, которую преступно соблазнял в церкви, так сказать прямо под сенью алтаря, ее духовник. Художник графически подчеркнул живописный беспорядок в одежде своих персонажей. Но гораздо больше, чем обличительный сатирический сюжет, меня потрясли стиль работы и характер выполнения. Если бы я не знал, что Риджфилд и Бэмби Кремер живут на расстоянии сотен миль друг от друга, я поклялся бы, что именно Бемби Кремер помогала Риджфилду с чисто технической стороны.

Не считая исключительных случаев, у меня в девятнадцать лет чувство юмора было самым уязвимым местом и при первых же неприятностях отмирало иногда частично, а иногда полностью. Риджфилд и мисс Кремер вызвали во мне множество чувств, но не рассмешили ни на йоту. И когда я просматривал их работы, меня не раз так и подмывало вскочить и обратиться с официальным протестом к месье Йошото. Но я не совсем представлял себе, в какой форме выразился бы этот протест. Должно быть, я боялся, что, подойдя к его столу, я закричу срывающимся голосом: «У меня мать умерла, приходится жить у ее милейшего мужа, и в Нью-Йорке никто не говорит по-французски, а в комнате вашего сына даже стульев нет! Как же вы хотите, чтобы я учил этих двух идиотов рисовать?»

Но я так и не встал с места – настолько я приучил себя сдерживать приступы отчаяния и не метаться зря. И я открыл третий конверт.

49

Lesson 9

Teddy

PRE-READING TASKS

While reading the story, make up a flowchart of episodes.

GENERAL COMPREHENSION

1.What does the boy look like? What details about his appearance are subtly mentioned several times?

2.What is Teddy’s reaction to his father’s threats in the opening conversation? Does the boy intentionally ignore his father’s words, or is it something different?

3.What is the man’s attitude to his son? Support your opinion by citations.

4.Reread the episode of Teddy’s encounter with the girl at the Purser’s desk. Why does the boy behave that way? What does he intend to demonstrate?

5.Is Teddy willing to talk to Mr. Nicholson? Who is more interested in the conversation? What does Nicholson want to discuss? Do the interlocutors understand each other? Why?

6.In his diary Teddy wrote: "It will either happen today or February 14, 1958 when I am sixteen. It’s ridiculous to mention even." What does he mean by it?

7.What made Nicholson hurry to the pool?

8.What happened there?

WORD STUDY

I. Find in the text and translate the sentences containing the following words/

A new-looking cow-hide Gladstone; singularly; narcissistically; precocious; perfunctorily; affinity; reincarnation; single-mindedness; condolence letter; sacrilege.

50

II. Replace the underlined parts of the sentences with the words and phrases from the text.

1.Teddy was not leaning out of the porthole quite so far or so precariously as small boys are prone to lean out of open portholes – …

2."You’re so goddam funny it isn’t even funny," Mr. McArdle said, lying languidly on his back again.

3."Someone just threw a whole garbage can of orange peels out the window."

4.Below the Sports Deck, on the board, after end of the Sun Deck, in the open air, were some seventy-five or more deck chairs…

5.Only one or two of the reclining passengers spoke to him – that is, made any of the ordinary jokes adults are sometimes prone to make a ten-year-old boy…

6.Teddy seemed to have forgotten the fact that someone was standing at the foot of his chair…

7.It was, of course, a normal, adult-size deck chair, and he looked distinctly small in it, but at the same time, he looked perfectly relaxed, even tranquil.

8."Isn’t that your strong point, so to speak?"

9."You’re just being logical," Teddy said to him calmly.

10.I could fracture my skull and die at once.

III.Explain in your own words the meaning of the following phrases.

1."I’d like to kick your goddam head open."

2."Life is a gift horse in my opinion."

3."From what Al told me, you all had quite a little lethal bull session late one night – the same night you made this tape, I believe."

4."I never saw such a bunch of apple-eaters," he said.

IV. Find in the text the English equivalents for the following words (mind your pronunciation).

Монета в десять центов; оценивающе; противоречивый; нефрит; мириады; трое, группа из трёх; рисунок «в ёлочку»; божественный; педант; благословение.

51

V. Think of the definitions for the following words and phrases.

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION

1."Each of his phrasings was rather like a little ancient island, inundated by a miniature sea of whiskey." How do you interpret this simile? (p. 183)

2."That’s a very nice, perfect example of the way –". Give your continuation of the sentence. (p. 186)

3."His youngness and single-mindedness were obvious enough, but perhaps his general demeanor altogether lacked, or had too little of, that sort of cute solemnity that many adults readily speak up, of down, to." (p. 193) How do you understand this statement?

4.To what extent do you share the following statements of Teddy’s:

a)"Life is a gift horse";

b)"…to love sentimentally is too unreliable" (p. 203);

c)"They [parents] love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love us, and most of the time more".

5.What does the boy mean by saying: "I never saw such a bunch of apple-eaters"?

ADDITIONAL TASKS

Group work. Dramatize the dialogue between Teddy and his parents in the opening scene of the story. Before doing so, in class discuss the attitudes you are going to express, intonational peculiarities you might employ, words that will be under stress, etc.

Note. Ascribe attitude to each of the phrases. For this purpose, look up the necessary adjectives and phrases (e.g. menacing, amiable, seeking revenge, with guilty conscience etc).

52

Individual tasks. Write an essay on one of the topics below. You are supposed to show your ability to analyze and understand the stories, to develop ideas using the clues from the text and your knowledge of the peculiarities of the author’s style.

1.What is mystical in this story and what is quite real?

2.Teddy and his parents.

3.Teddy and his sister.

4.Teddy’s diary.

5.The conversation between Teddy and Prof. Nicholson

6.The ending of the story: What happened there and what might it mean?

7.What kind of spirituality and/or philosophic views does Teddy express?

8.The statement of Teddy’s that I most agree/disagree with. (You may use any of the introductory phrases, such as

I could not agree more…

The controversial point here is… It might be true but…

There is no way that I can agree…

Under no circumstances can I agree that… In no case can I support the statement… My firm belief is… or any other)

9.The story of Teddy as it might appear in a newspaper. You may choose any type of articles – editorials, brief news items, etc. Make an oral presentation of your essay in class.

Lesson 10

Summing up

1.Can you recite the punch line of every story? How do they correlate with the rasa (poetic mood) of each story?

2.Dwell on the overall ideas of the stories and the ways they are conveyed by the writer. Attempt to explain them as a reflection of his philosophic views.

53

3.How do you understand the following words of John Updike (a famous American writer of the second half of the 20th century) about J.D. Salinger:

Few writers since Joyce would risk such a wealth of words upon events that are purely internal and deeds that are purely talk.

Support it or argue with this characterization giving examples and/or citations from the text. In class, compare your findings.

In your opinion, is it a weak or a strong point of Salinger’s writing?

4.Choose any episode you like most of all. Sketch it. In class, verbalize your sketch, highlighting the background, the foreground, the people and their pose, expression on their faces etc. marking the details. But: don’t mention names – your group mates are supposed to guess what story it is from and who is depicted on your sketch.

5.Write a reflective essay on one of the following topics:

i.Your first impressions of the stories and how your perception of them changed (if it did) after reading the book up.

ii.Your impressions of the author’s manner of writing and your acceptance or reluctance to accept it.

iii.Any character of any story whom you understand or sympathize most with. (You are to explain what attracts you in the personage and why.)

Note. You are strongly encouraged to use the vocabulary you have learnt through reading. (Wording is a most important constituent of any piece of writing!)

6.What questions would you ask J.D. Salinger as to his writings and philosophy? Make up a list of questions. In groups, roleplay an interview with the author. (One member of the group will be Salinger, and the rest – interviewers. Swap your roles.)

54

APPENDIX 1.

General information about the author and critics of his writing.

Jerome David Salinger

American novelist and short story writer, Salinger published one novel and several short story collections between 1948–59. His bestknown work is "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951), a story about a rebellious teenage schoolboy and his quixotic experiences in New York.

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

(Holden Caulfield in "The Catcher in the Rye") However, had Holden called his celebrated but reclusive creator J.D. Salinger, the odds are he would have hung up on him. Mind you, that's certainly the author’s prerogative. He is not obliged to chat with his many admirers or reporters from newsweeklies or gabby talk-show hosts or even to sit still for serious biographers, however well intentioned.

The other thing he can not stand is giving autographs. Once asked about the reasons he said he didn't believe in giving autographs. It is a meaningless gesture. It is alright for actors and actresses to sign their names, because all they had to give are their faces and names. But it is different with writers. They have their work to give. Therefore, it is cheap to give autographs. He said, "Don't you ever do it! No self respecting writer should ever do it."

In spite of his hating to speak of himself the bald facts about J.D. Salinger are known & run as follows:

J.D. Salinger was born into New York affluence of a sort on January 1, 1919. He grew up in the fashionable apartment district of Manhattan. The will-be writer was the son of a prosperous Jewish importer of Kosher cheese and his Scotch-Irish wife. After restless studies in prep schools, he was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy (1934– 36), which he attended briefly.

55

When he was eighteen and nineteen, Salinger spent five months in Europe in 1937. From 1937 to 1938 he studied at Ursinus College and New York University.

In 1939 Salinger took a class in short story writing at Columbia University under Whit Burnett, founder-editor of the Story Magazine. During World War II he was drafted into the infantry and was involved in the invasion of Normandy. In his celebrated story "For Esme – With Love and Squalor" Salinger depicted a fatigued American soldier. He starts correspondence with a thirteen-year-old British girl, which helps him to get a grip of life again. Salinger himself was hospitalized for stress according to his biographer Ian Hamilton.

After serving in the Army Signal Corps and Counter-Intelligence Corps from 1942 to 1946, he devoted himself to writing. In 1945 Salinger married a French woman named Sylvia. They were divorced and in 1955 Salinger married Claire Douglas, the daughter of the British art critic Robert Langton Douglas. The marriage ended in divorce in 1967.

Salinger's early short stories appeared in 1940. In 1948 appeared "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", which introduced Seymour Glass, who commits suicide. It was the earliest reference to the Glass family, whose stories would go on to form the main corpus of his writing.

The "Glass cycle" continued in the collections "Franny and Zoey"

(1961), "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" (1963) and "Seymour: an Introduction" (1963). Several of the stories are narrated by Buddy Glass. "Hapworth 16, 1924" is written in the form of a letter from summer camp, in which the seven-year-old Seymour draws a portrait of him and his younger brother Buddy.

When I look back, listen back, over the half-dozen or slightly more original poets we've had in America, as well as the numerous talented eccentric poets and – in modern times, especially – the many gifted style deviates, I feel something close to a conviction that we have only three or four very nearly nonexpendable poets, and I think Seymour will eventually stand with those few.

(From "Seymour, An Introduction")

56

Twenty stories published in between 1941 and 1948 appeared in a pirated edition in 1974, "The Complete Uncollected Stories of J.D. Salinger" (2 vols.) Many of them reflect Salinger's own service in the army. Later Salinger adopted Hindu-Buddhist influences. He became an ardent devotee of "The Gospels of Sri Ramakrishna", a study of Hindu mysticism, which was translated into English by Swami Nikhilananda and Joseph Campbell.

Salinger's first novel, "The Catcher in the Rye", became immediately a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and gained a huge international success. It sells still some 250 000 copies annually. Salinger did not do much to help publicity, and asked that his photograph be not used in connection with the book.

Yet a real artist, I've noticed, will survive anything. (Even praise, I happily suspect.)

(From "Seymour, An Introduction", 1963)

First reviews of the work were mixed, although most critics considered it brilliant. The novel took its title from a line by Robert Burns, in which the protagonist Holden Caulfield misquoting it sees himself as a "catcher in the rye" who must keep the world's children from falling off "some crazy cliff". The story is written in a monologue and in lively slang. It is a study of a troubled adolescent boy. When asked if it was in any way autobiographical, Mr. Salinger said: "Sort of, I was much relieved when I finished it. My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book, and it was a great relief telling people about it."

A 16-year old restless Caulfield runs away from school during his Christmas break to New York to find himself and lose his virginity. He spends an evening going to nightclubs, and meets next day an old girlfriend. After getting drunk he sneaks home. He meets his sister to tell her that he is leaving home and has a nervous breakdown. The humor of the novel places it in the tradition of Mark Twain's classical works, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", but its worldview is more disillusioned.

Holden describes everything as "phony", is constantly in search of sincerity and represented the early hero of adolescent angst.

57

Rumors spread from time to time, that Salinger will publish another novel, but from late 60's he has successfully avoided publicity. "There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It's peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure," said Salinger in 1974 to a New York Times correspondent. However, according to Joyce Maynard, who was close to the author for a long time from the 1970s, Salinger still writes, but nobody is allowed to see the work.

Ian Hamilton's unauthorized biography of Salinger was rewritten, when the author did not accept extensive quoting of his personal letters. The new version, "In Search of J D. Salinger", appeared in 1988. In 1992 a fire broke out in Salinger's Cornish house, but he managed to flee from the reporters who saw an opportunity to interview him. Since the late 80s Salinger has been married to Colleen O'Neill. Maynard's story of her relationship with Salinger, "At Home in the World", appeared in October 1998.

58

The Themes of His Writings

Nonconformism in the Works of J.D. Salinger

A recurring theme in J. D. Salinger's stories concerns people who don't fit in with the traditional American culture. Salinger's most successful tales are of those who cannot adjust to the real world. His main characters are super-intelligent humans who must choose between the phony real world (American culture) and a morally pure, "nice" world. Salinger's "misfit hero(es)" (Levine Paul. "J.D. Salinger: The Development of the Misfit Hero."), unlike the rest of society, are caught in the struggle between a superficial world and a conscious morality.

In the aftermath of World War II, America was desperate for a homogenous society. Different was definitely not better. "The 50s were a period of supreme disillusionment" (Warren French. "The Age of Salinger. Fifties"). Those who did not fit the mold were shunned, treated as pariahs in the land of opportunity.

Zen Buddhism

That's why the writer-nonconformist is seeking for the light of Verity in religion. Religious symbols and references are abounding in his writing. Often the first thing a reader of Salinger's writings will ask him – or herself after reading one of his stories is "What did that mean? What was the point behind my journey?". As one critic puts it "Salinger's mode of Zen Buddhism offers for this uneasy and unresolved conflict".

The teacher/student relationship is integral to Zen Buddhism. Often Salinger's characters will play the part of the teacher, while we – that of the student, and/or another character will receive from them (and their author) a koan to solve and thus reach our next stage of enlightenment. One of the main ways Salinger uses this student/teacher relationship to express his spirituality is to equate his characters to various real religious figures and principles, in a way updating their teachings to educate a modem audience who, like Holden in The Catcher in the Rye, do not realize until after the journey how much they have learned.

59

There are a lot of minor details proving the religion influence. Here are some examples:

Like Buddha, Holden receives his flash of enlightenment after "meditating" amongst wild animals (at the Zoo). He receives it not at a river, but in the rain, water being a baptismal symbol in many religions. He says,

My hunting hat really did give me a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked anyway. I didn't care, though. I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around.

Holden says it at the conclusion of the second last chapter, as he witnesses his sister who he has worried about being exposed to the harshness of adult life and change, sitting happily on the carousel – itself a "cycle".

The same enlightenment makes the famous Glasses' family be unlike the rest of the world as they were religiously enlightened by their two oldest brothers, Seymour and Buddy: "We're freaks, that's all. Those two bastards got us early and made us into freaks with freakish standards, that's all. We're the Tattooed Lady, and we're never going to have a minute's peace, the rest of our lives, till everybody else is tattooed, too" (Franny 139). As Zooey says, "the only thing that counts in the religious life is detachment" (Franny 198).

Salinger applies to Zen Buddhism not only for ideas but also uses the religion techniques of writings in his own writings. Often, as stated before, his stories are koans, which the reader is beseeched to solve. But he has also been quoted as saying in relation to his writing (and before "Catcher" was published) "I'm a dash man, not a miler. I will probably never write a novel." He is more content with short story writing -a method of writing characterized by its compactness of narration and message. And one important aspect of Zen is to "convey the message in as few words as possible ".

One of the Four Statements of Zen is "no dependence on words and letters", and Salinger's message always comes across in the most

60