![]() There are many reasons why I love Salinger, some obvious, others not, but one of them is captured perfectly in the following snapshot: when Elia Kazan asked Salinger’s permission to produce The Catcher in the Rye on Broadway, Salinger simply replied: “I cannot give my permission. I read it many times thereafter and a lot of books since, including all of Salinger’s, but now looking back I think it was that particular book and that particular writer who singlehandedly shaped my reading preferences and thus his death was like a dissolution of a part of my own childhood. My interest in books began at the age of 12 with the reading of The Catcher in the Rye. A somewhat ridiculous reaction perhaps but one of spontaneity rather than premeditation. I cried – suddenly, childishly – assailed by brackish melancholy and funerary newsprint and later, spent the evening looking for answers at the bottom of a vodka glass. ![]() Salinger’s death, on 27th January 2010, came as unexpectedly as the ending in A Perfect Day for Bananafish. ![]() I fear it is a little too late for my culinary erudition. The similarity was completely coincidental, but truth be known I would have rather read the aforementioned feature than one on baking. Funnily enough, the story opens with a girl in a hotel room reading an article in a “pocket-sized women’s magazine” called “Sex is fun – or Hell,” while waiting for a long-distance phone call. Eventually, benumbed by the thought of having to read a feature on how to make your own four-tier wedding cake, I plucked a book of short stories from my bag and began reading A Perfect Day for Bananafish. Sitting anxiously on an unwieldy polypropylene chair and perusing one of those consummately moronic-fashion magazines to pass the time while waiting to be called in for my 5:45 appointment, I snarled and fawned at numerous depictions of girls lacking any vestige of verisimilitude.
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