LOVE AND SQUALOR

La semana pasada murió J.D.Salinger a los 91 años de edad. Llevaba años alejado del mundo, sin conceder prácticamente entrevistas ni aparecer en público desde la publicación de su primera novela, "Catcher in the Rye" (El Guardián entre el centeno, titulada  El Cazador Oculto en algunos países sudamericanos) en 1951.

Hay muy pocas fotografías suyas y me ha hecho gracia ver que en los telediarios y en un vídeo colgado de YouTube aparece una foto de un anciano sonriente que NO es Salinger, sino John Updike, también recientemente fallecido.

Publicó un total de 35 cuentos en The New Yorker y Esquire. Entre ellos el magnífico A Perfect Day for Bananafish.  Su selección personal de los nueve mejores: Nine Stories.                                                                                                           La novela, en la que se narra la vida del adolescente Holden Caulfield en primera persona, es  considerada hoy como una de las mejores novelas del siglo 20. En los años cincuenta el lenguaje explícito del discurso egocéntrico y deslabazado que utiliza el adolescente, levantó ampollas.
Fue vilipendiada  (incluso censurada) y alabada a partes iguales. Lectura prohibida en algunos colegios y parte del currículo escolar en otros, Holden es el "catcher" con el que se identificaron e identifican millones  de adolescentes.  

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
...
(Coming Through the Rye, by Robert Burns)

Esta estrofa del poema de Robert Burns, "Comin'Through the Rye" (canción popular escocesa) inspira el título del libro. Holden Caulfield, el protagonista entiende "catch a body, gin a body" y se imagina ("catching") sujetando a los niños que juegan en un campo de centeno para evitar que caigan al vacío de un precipicio.

Un tal Fredrick Colting escribió una supuesta segunda parte del libro de Salinger con el nombre del poema de Burns. (El protagonista es Holden Caulfield con 70 años).
Salinger lo llevó a los tribunales en 2009 para evitar la publicación de lo que consideraba un plagio en toda regla.

Muchos intentaron comprarle los derechos del libro para el cine (Sam Goldwyn, Weinstein e incluso Spielberg) y muchos actores soñaban con interpretar a Holden. Siempre se negó. En esta carta explica por qué:

Transcription:
R. D. 2
Windsor, Vt.
July 19, 1957

Dear Mr. Herbert,

I'll try to tell you what my attitude is to the stage and screen rights of The Catcher in the Rye. I've sung this tune quite a few times, so if my heart doesn't seem to be in it, try to be tolerant....Firstly, it is possible that one day the rights will be sold. Since there's an ever-looming possibility that I won't die rich, I toy very seriously with the idea of leaving the unsold rights to my wife and daughter as a kind of insurance policy. It pleasures me no end, though, I might quickly add, to know that I won't have to see the results of the transaction.

I keep saying this and nobody seems to agree, but The Catcher in the Rye is a very novelistic novel. There are readymade "scenes" - only a fool would deny that - but, for me, the weight of the book is in the narrator's voice, the non-stop peculiarities of it, his personal, extremely discriminating attitude to his reader-listener, his asides about gasoline rainbows in street puddles, his philosophy or way of looking at cowhide suitcases and empty toothpaste cartons - in a word, his thoughts. He can't legitimately be separated from his own first-person technique. True, if the separation is forcibly made, there is enough material left over for something called an Exciting (or maybe just Interesting) Evening in the Theater. But I find that idea if not odious, at least odious enough to keep me from selling the rights.

There are many of his thoughts, of course, that could be labored into dialogue - or into some sort of stream-of-consciousness loud-speaker device - but labored is exactly the right word. What he thinks and does so naturally in his solitude in the novel, on the stage could at best only be pseudo-simulated, if there is such a word (and I hope not). Not to mention, God help us all, the immeasurably risky business of using actors. Have you ever seen a child actress sitting crosslegged on a bed and looking right? I'm sure not. And Holden Caulfield himself, in my undoubtedly super-biassed opinion, is essentially unactable. A Sensitive, Intelligent, Talented Young Actor in a Reversible Coat wouldn't nearly be enough. It would take someone with X to bring it off, and no very young man even if he has X quite knows what to do with it. And, I might add, I don't think any director can tell him.

I'll stop there. I'm afraid I can only tell you, to end with, that I feel very firm about all this, if you haven't already guessed.

Thank you, though, for your friendly and highly readable letter. My mail from producers has mostly been hell.

Sincerely,

(Signed, 'J. D. Salinger')