Page 18 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • February 5, 2014 Catching the catcher by leaving out Cather PBS recently celebrated the excellent “American Mas- ters” series by broadcasting an extended version of “Salin- ger” by Shane Salerno and David Shields. The “American Masters” show attempted to catch the catcher: Holden Caulfield of “The Catcher in the Rye.” Any book that sells 65 million copies, and purportedly inspired the murder of John Lennon, is worth some serious study. Shane Salerno spent 10 years and $2 million of his own money on the project and he discovered some things no one else had substantiated before. I think he caught the catcher better than anyone -- but he left out Cather. In 1905, McClure’s magazine published “Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament” by Willa Cather, the turn-of- the-century poet laureate of maladjustment. Paul is the would-be snobbish son of a lower-middle-class family from Pittsburgh whose father adopts the American suc- cess story as the family anthem. Paul is often in trouble at school, not in a violent way, but because he refuses to fit in and cannot understand the people who want to. He dresses flamboyantly and very much outside the norm with a flower on his lapel. Paul cops some money, takes off for New York City, and fills his room with flowers. Cather offers some hints about Paul. “He burnt like a faggot in a tempest.” “He fell in with a wild San Francisco boy, a freshman at Yale.” “They had started out in the confiding warmth of a champagne friendship, but their parting in the elevator was singularly cool.” Paul runs out of money, heads back to Pittsburgh is dis- grace, thinks it over, and walks into a moving locomotive. All things considered, American kids are much better off with Caulfield as a role model. However, the Cather story contains so many aspects of the scared-but-straight Caulfield’s adventures in “The Catcher in the Rye” that I think a conjecture that it served as a subconscious inspira- tion is not irresponsible. Cather’s story never turned up in the PBS “Salinger.” Salerno notes that Salinger volunteered for World War II, was rejected, and then volunteered again successfully. Wikipedia says he was drafted. There is no shame in that. Most of the other U.S. soldiers were also drafted. Salinger’s first combat experience was the D-Day landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944. The documentary shows Americans landing on Omaha Beach, which was a slaughter that killed or wounded 2,500 Americans, some of whom died screaming for their buddies to use them as sandbags because they had been mortally wounded or hated the idea of going home without eyes or legs. The Omaha landing was a heroic tragedy and a near-disaster. The German shore fortifications had proved impervious to naval gunfire, the U.S. amphibious tanks sank at sea, and 500 second-string German infantry inflicted horrific casualties on a landing force of 30,000 U.S. troops. Then the Germans ran out of ammunition and retreated inland. Salinger landed on Utah Beach with the Fourth Infan- try Division, a very tough outfit. The Utah Beach defenses were manned by Russian “volunteers” who had signed up with the Wehrmacht rather than starve in prison camps. These hapless men overpowered and sometimes killed their German officers and came out of the bunkers with their hands up shouting “Me Polski! Me shoot high!” They surmised that Americans would be more merciful to Poles than Russians. (Russian collaboration with the Nazi gov- ernment was massive. Polish collaboration was zero.) The 23,000 Americans suffered one percent losses at Utah Beach, mostly from long-range artillery and land- mines. Why show carnage shots of Omaha? Salinger had a rough war after that, though he served primarily in military intelligence rather than combat infantry. He spoke German and French, and his role was more combat-support than combat, though his life was absolutely at risk. He was horrified by the discovery of the Nazi death camp at Dachau and retained an instinc- tive, angry, and justified hatred of anti-Semitism for the rest of his life. Conversely, the PBS documentary reveals that he had a first (previously undiscovered) marriage to a German woman whom he brought back to New York. She was described as “a member of the Nazi party,” which can mean just about anything. This is treated as completely inexplicable. Salinger claimed a psychic link with his German war bride. His family, who still supported him, hated her on principle. A quick, quiet divorce soon followed. The docu- mentary reveals this for the first time. What the documentary does not dwell on is that Salin- ger had a strong affinity for Christianity in all his books. Caulfield never makes fun of Jesus, and he likes nuns, though he is not Catholic. He was also interested in Bud- dhism, and the documentary links him to Hinduism. Salinger reportedly carried six chapters of “The Catcher in the Rye” in his pack “as a talisman.” Oddly enough, “Catcher,” published in 1951, is so clearly set in the prosperous and self-confident aftermath of the war that the chapters must have been revised. The name, but not the character, of Caulfield reportedly turns up in an unpublished story Salinger sent back from Europe during the war. In 1947, another Holden--Caulfield constellation appeared as William Holden starred opposite Joan Caul- field in “Dear Ruth,” a romantic comedy about teenage bamboozlement. Is this coincidence? In 1950, Holden starred opposite Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard,” which features a young screenwriter who hates Hollywood, like B.D. in “Catcher.” The Holden character in “Sunset Boulevard” is three months behind in his rent. Caulfield has been kicked out of three prep schools. The film contains an expensive formal funeral for a chimpanzee. Caulfield mocks funeral directors -- a char- acter called Rudy, and says many things are “phony.” The Holden film character is almost redeemed by an innocent younger woman -- Caulfield’s sister? Then he is destroyed by a creepy woman twice his age, just as Caulfield finally flakes out after a come-on from an apparently gay middle- aged former instructor. The previous, unauthorized biography of Salinger reported that he ran around like crazy asking various women to marry himself just before “Catcher” came out. Then he started out on a career as a recluse as far as the New York literary scene was concerned. Why? The PBS documentary broke a lot of new ground, interviewed former lovers or close friends of Salinger, and revealed him as a man who was fascinated by much younger women but responsibly refused to kiss a 14-year- old (she says) or to sleep with an 18-year-old virgin as a matter of principal (she says.) The film also reveals how Salinger’s reclusive lifestyle broke up his second marriage and led him to split with his live-in lover Joyce Maynard when she wanted kids and he had two and wanted no more. In the end, the program included a great many things about Salinger’s personal life that most people probably did not need to know. I really felt that his privacy had been violated. He was a good soldier, a very good writer, and with allowances for his rampant eccentricities, a good man who urged people to live decent lives. I wrote him a letter about Cather and the two movies some years before he died in 2010, and he never answered, but I promised that whether he answered or not, I would not go public during his lifetime. I kept my word. Salinger had a very rough war, behaved honorably in an eccentric way, and opposed racial, religious, and economic prejudice all his life. He deserves respect. Letters to the Editor Recycling information appreciated Dear Editor: As a member of the Franklin Lakes Green Team, and therefore someone involved with the environmental com- mission, recycling is of course a priority. Not only does recycling affect and improve the environment and our lives, but it also makes financial sense. An increase in recycling and decrease in items being placed into the stream of gar- bage would save many thousands of dollars for Franklin Lakes. I would like to thank the Borough of Franklin Lakes for its efforts to increase recycling in town and for dis- tributing the very thorough and informative mailing that included the 2014 garbage and recycling information. The mailing is instructive and easy to follow, and all of us on the Green Team and environmental commission hope that this endeavor on the part of the town’s governing body and administration will be effective in increasing our recycling efforts. Larissa Symbouras Franklin Lakes Love Fund makes appeal Dear Editor: Valentine’s Day is a time of year when we make a point of showing our love and commitment to those we hold dear. It’s also the time when the Midland Park Children’s Love Fund, Inc. traditionally kicks off its annual town-wide campaign. We are asking those who are financially secure to consider helping the children of our Midland Park neigh- bors whose families may be going through a difficult time. A mailer is being sent to your home describing what the Children’s Love Fund is all about. Please take a moment to read it over to get an idea of the kind of help that the Love Fund provides. The Children’s Love Fund depends on your continued support each year. The Midland Park community has a long tradition of giving generously to our organization, and we are hopeful that this will continue in 2014. As our economy continues to be uncertain, many families are still in need of some financial assistance to make ends meet. Your gener- osity means more than ever to families in our community coping with personal and financial emergencies. Any contribution that you make is an act of LOVE, and is greatly appreciated. Your donation goes directly toward helping families right here in our Midland Park commu- nity. Please consider making a donation to the Midland Park Children’s Love Fund, Inc., P.O. Box 327, Midland Park, NJ 07432. Noreen Desbiens Midland Park