Warning: The Treegap Governess does not support profanity (on the site that is). In appropriate memory of J.D. Salinger, mild curse words do appear in this post.
Today a literary legend passed away, less a person than an elusive shadow who was somehow able to leave a giant footprint on the way literature is read and debated. Like most readers of books and short stories or even people who attended high school and did one assignment, I read J.D. Salinger. And I liked what I read. I had a phase for about a year where I read a bunch of his other works, but, like so many others, Catcher in the Rye was my favorite. At some point I probably snipped, 'oh, Raise High the Roofbeams is so much cooler'...but I didn't mean it.
Although technically this is a poetry blog, and the obvious thing to write about is the ever famous Robert Burns poem “Comin’ Thro The Rye,” which Holden Caulfield so famously “misremembers,” that's not really the focus. Holden's take on the poem, and I think he was loaded at the time, was that he wants to be the “catcher in the rye,” who saves children before they plunge to their deaths after running through a field off of a cliff. This is slightly off from the "meet a body" from the Burns poem...meet a body, catch a body…either way, I like the way Holden envisioned it. And who is to say, anyway, how people interpret poems, goddamit, as Holden would say. I like the Holden version and I believe Salinger was smarter than all of us and knew what he was doing.
My favorite memories of the book are not the way in which the name is tied in to the poem of reference, but I loved his hunter’s cap. In high school, I wrote an entire essay on the symbolism of wearing that plaid hat and how he isolated himself from the world at times wearing it, furry earflaps down and all. Sometimes I still feel my inner Holden when I’ve got my earphones in, my fleece winter cap on and I love the dialogue when he talks about not seeing the ducks on the frozen pond. I don’t know where the ducks go, exactly, but I think I know how he felt sometimes. Screw the world, cynicism-- game on.
And then I remove my left earpiece and thank the bus driver...
Okay, no one is 100% Holden, except for, maybe, Salinger himself. So that’s why this passage from Chapter 20 is especially poignant today:
Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.
Amen to that. What’s funny is that I feel a connection with Salinger, as so many others do and yet he was completely inaccessible. Maybe not actually knowing him did his legacy a favor, because no one wants to know that the guy who wrote Catcher in the Rye was a bastard, let alone see him act the a-hole on a reality TV show, or see his mug shot after punching out a member of the paparazzi (you know, all of those high speeding bookworms on a mission to catch classic book authors when writer's block drives them to the edge).
What I do know is that J.D. Salinger wrote a group of 15 poems which he submitted for publication to the New Yorker in 1945 and all of them were rejected. I cannot find them (yet), but if anyone knows journalist Ben Yagoda or the number of Salinger’s agent, please pass that information on.
It makes me curious and happy to know that Salinger tried his hand writing poetry and while he may have failed in the New Yorker’s opinion at the time, I truly wonder how his voice would be received now, how those poems—however good or bad—would sound to average ears like mine. It looks like the mystery continues where it left off for me with Salinger, whether dead or alive.
And now, because I have to do it, here is the “mis-read” poem Holden speaks about in Catcher. Who can resist finally posting a Robert Burns original, especially for any future Jeopardy hopeful when “Burns” is the inevitable answer to anything related to poetry. But also, because this is how Salinger would want it, I think. Think about him, honor him, and move on.
So we will and we do.
Comin Thro' The Rye
(The Burns Original) Translation follows.
O Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
1.
Comin thro' the rye, poor body,
Comin thro' the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
2.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
3.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warld ken?
4.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the grain,
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing's a body's ain.
And now, in modern English:
Coming Through The Rye
O Jenny is all wet, poor body,
Jenny is seldom dry:
She draggled all her petticoats,
Coming through the rye!
Coming through the rye, poor body,
Coming through the rye,
She draggled all her petticoats,
Coming through the rye!
Should a body meet a body
Coming through the rye,
Should a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
Should a body meet a body
Coming through the glen,Should a body kiss a body,
Need the world know?
Should a body meet a body
Coming through the grain,
Should a body kiss a body,
The thing is a body's own.
Thanks for the great reads, Mr. Salinger, you will not be forgot.
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