january 27 2010 rIp

On this date one of my favourite authors; J.D. Salinger died.  Like all modern day celebrity deaths I stumbled across this information on the internet.  Proclaimed in uncompromising Ariel size 14 and cruelly emblazoned in bold on the BBC News website, the title read: 'J.D Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye, dies at 91'.  I stopped. 

It might seem strange to be this upset about a very elderly author who died of natural causes; my only reasoning is that JD Salinger had all the qualities that endear me to a person.  He's half Jewish.  He made the decision not to give interviews stating that the books speak for themselves. His writing, feck. His writing..  the characters he created like the deeply independent but cynical Franny, Zooey and his cutting witacisms, the despondancy that Holden Cauldfield feels towards humanity seem to give articulation to the despair and confusion that every human in the world must have felt at some point in their lives.

To further my creepy Salinger fandom here is a quote from a scene in 'Franny and Zooey' in which I think Zooey is having a soak in the bathtub and is disturbed by his mother who seems intent on having a conversation:

"I wish you'd get married," Mrs. Glass said, abruptly, wistfully.

Relaxing his stance, Zooey folded a linen handkerchief from his hip pocket, flipped it open, then used it to blow his nose once, twice, three times. He put the handkerchief away saying, "I like to ride on trains too much. You never get to sit next to the window anymore when you're married."

"That's no reason!"

"That's a perfect reason. Go away, Bessie. Leave me peace in here. Why don't you go for a nice elevator ride? You're going to burn your fingers, incidentally, if you don't put out that goddam cigarette."

But then deftly and with ease Salinger can create characters that give a voice to that need for detachment and wanting to be alone like Holden:

I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone.

It makes it all the more poignant to think that we have all collectively felt like this at some point.  Even if we didn't get a job at a gas station or stop talking.  It's that need to switch off from everyone and everything and just be left alone.  I remember sleeping in my wardrobe when I was young which might seem weird and funny but I was so bored with the routine of everything and just wanted to wake up some place different.  It's easy to write off depression as something 'teenage' and 'adolescent' but it exists at all points of life  It might seem hilarious to limit it to those darn emos that seem intent on slicing the veins of their wrists open, or to make an antagonistic jibe at people who jump in front of trains but then maybe that person's way of coping with life is to be a dick rather than self harm with a razor blade, maybe it is to make crude remarks rather than face the fact that they aren't anyone's favourite person.  My point is that everyone has a coping strategy whether it's to cut off from the world or cut into their own body.  Life is hard.

Anywho back to DEATH.  Upon hearing about the death of JD Salinger, that night I found it difficult to sleep.  I was tossing and turning. Counting sheep.  Staring into the deep, cavernous depths of David Mitchell's eyes.  The usual.

At this point  I was in my final year studying English and American Literature at the University of Kent and during that night which may or may not have been been conveniently dramatic with the eery silence suddenly broken by clashes of thunder and lightening bolts thrown by Zeus himself emerating the sky.  Lost in my grief, tossing and turning and feeling the dampness of my pillowcase as my tears soaked into it, I came to a decision.

I felt I owed it to the world, to Zooey, to Franny, to Holden, to the entire Glass family, to the spirit of J.D Salinger himself to commemorate his death in some way.  My idea was heartfelt, genuine and apt whilst also remaining dignified, respectful and meaningful.  It was what Salinger would have wanted.  My groundbreaking idea was this:

The next day as I handed in my essay.  I planned to leave a post it note with the words 'RIP J.D Salinger 1919-2010' which would be laboriously and carefully caligraphised by yours truly.  No.  That's stupid.  No effort should go into it, it should be a quick stroke of the pen and without a second glance I would take my post-it-note tribute upto campus  I would then pin it up on the department notice board for all to see. 

On seeing this, all of the other students would stare in awe, open-mouthed at this staggering expression of reverence.  Whilst at the same time wishing and hoping that some other linguistic cult figure, say Dave Eggers would drop down dead so that they too could emulate my deed.   And the lecturers and professors I admired, they would also stand in academic awe at the post-it-note surveying it for a satirical stance, ambiguity and poetic fallacy but would find nothing citing that it would detract from the latent meaning that this intellectual maverick has left us.

And then, not so dissimilar to Salinger, I would retreat and live my life as a recluse, knitting and perhaps waiting for the next authorial death that would grip the world.  I would sit in pre-emptive expectance knitting the abbreviation 'RIP' over and over again, constantly refreshing BBC News in the hope that today was the day that Noel Edmonds had finally phoned the banker- in heaven but then sighing in disappointment that it was just a lowly race car driver.     

I was obsessed, Like some sort of obituary obsessed Banksy, I gravitated towards the obituary pages on the internet, constantly keeping my beady eye on facebook statuses incase any of those insincere fools got there before me.  No one could out-RIP me.  I was untouchable. I had this all planned-  my spawn would then take over.  Then his child would take over.  And so on.  It was a family business. When a celebrity died the world looked to me, for that awareness and that abbreviation of comfort. 'RIP' 'rip' 'r.i.p' 'r-i-p'.  With or without dashes or stops.  It really didn't matter anymore.  We needed to show the world that we are aware of death and that we hoped that the once famous corpse was resting somewhere, perhaps on a scented lavender pillow and that it was in 'peace'.

But I didn't find a post-it-note.  Or take it to the department's notice board.  Or pin it up. Or dedicate my life to 'RIP'ing the death of celebrities. Or even plan my own succession. Because like Holden would say, that would be a phony-ish thing to do.