Thursday, February 04, 2010

If You Fall, I Will Catch You

I suppose it must have been in the far away days of the Triassic period when I first found out that I had fallen in love with him. The reason was never really clear, but then, when it comes to these things, what is? All I remember is that he had a sort of intense, albeit comical hatred for almost everyone and everything around him, accusing them of being phony and all that. I did find that particularly endearing. Of course this was way after the Permian period of my life when all idealistic thoughts of the knight in shining armour had been thrown away and flushed into the nearest toilet.

Alas, it went all unrequited due to the fact that he was only 16, and above all, a fictional character who went by the name Holden Caulfield, a fragment of the imagination of a man who was known as JD Salinger.

I had found out last Friday that JD Salinger had died, not as surprising as me finding out that he had been alive all this while, although I do remember reading about him some time ago, where I found out that he led a  reclusive life, and pointedly refused to allow the Catcher in the Rye to be made into a movie. How did the fact of him being alive escape me? I must admit that I was rather appalled at one of the articles about him where it states that he probably has a few unpublished works which they hope to look for (and do what, may I ask?) Yes, The Catcher in the Rye may have been splendid, but if someone wants to keep their manuscripts to themselves, then that's the way it should be. Dead or alive.

Anyway, it's been almost a week, and I have forgotten what was my objective of starting out this post... (the flu had prevented me from thinking very clearly this past one week, I'm afraid) and I leave you with this link which you may enjoy, or not.

12 comments:

  1. Ahhhh....Th Catcher in The Rye...still stands till today as one of my fav books and Holden is undoubtably one of my favourite characters!

    RIP J.D.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, he was very fascinating... so fascinating that I did want to meet the grown up version of him (forgetting that he's fictional and all for a moment)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am equally surprised that he was alive too, until recently that is.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have that experience all the time when someone dies and I think "Oh! Was he/she still alive?"

    ReplyDelete
  5. GB: At least I'm not alone on this one!

    SAW: This was one of the first for me, I think...

    ReplyDelete
  6. A great book but the author was said to be pretty strange and controlling. His daughter, I belive, wrote a book on how hard it was to live with him.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I suppose him being reclusive contributed to that... thanks for the info. Learned something new today

    ReplyDelete
  8. JD Salinger died? Oh gosh! ... urmmm, actually doofussy old me doesn't even know JD Salinger is :D

    ReplyDelete
  9. The older you get, the more it will happen. :{

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nick: LOL... It's never too late. I got to know a few good authors after they died too.

    SAW: I suppose so...

    ReplyDelete
  11. All I know of Catch in the Rye is what I've heard other people say about it. I somehow managed never to read the book.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I know a lot of people find it overrated, but I really do like it for some reason.

    ReplyDelete

IT's THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Time for the Annual Appraisal again.  It's a cloudy Sunday afternoon, and I had just finished giving scores to my subordinates on their ...