"...don't ever tell anybody anything..."

I think there is a certain irony in the fact that the front cover of the 2010 UK paperback edition of The Catcher in the Rye, if looked at right, resembles a £ symbol. Salinger had been dead less than a month when it appeared in the shops, an almost indecent haste with him barely cold before these new editions showed up. On top of that, it looks rubbish too. Now I know there are all sorts of restrictions on what new editions of covers of JDS's books can have on them (no pictures, no plot summary, no author biog, no author photo etc), but this new covers shows a supreme lack of imagination. It is almost as if it was polished off in five minutes in order to get the edition out quicker. It's massively inferior to the old, red, edition; that had class and style, and there was a uniformity of design across the yellow (Seymour), blue (Esme), and green (F&Z) books. Oh, and whilst they've re-done Catcher, they didn't bother with the other three books... ho-hum.

I had intentionally not posted on Salinger's death until now, as really I needed time to reflect. I remember finding out about his death upon reading a flippant comment on an message board (which seems to be the method du jour of findind out these things), and doing a double take. First things I did was to head to the BBC site for corroboration (best news site out there, and thought that it might be neutered by stupid people makes me sick; but that's for another time), and there it was. He'd died. Only three weeks after his 91st birthday. Now, I know it's a cliche to say that it was a shock, but it genuinely was. He was 91, so it's not like it shouldn't have been unexpected, but it did sadden me immensely.

His uncompromising nature was legendary; if things were not done his way, they didn't get done. He had such clout, despite his not publishing anything new since 1965, that he could make the demands as mentioned above about his covers. His steadfast refusal to submit any more material for publication would have got many lesser authors struck off from their publishers, their books allowed to slide out of print. But, I guess when you have a title that still shifted (apparently) circa 250,000 copies a year that must have counted for something.

The thing I most admired about him, though, was his refusal to allow his work to be adapted in to other media. There was no Catcher in the Rye move, stage play, TV show or anything; I really do agree with him on this point. The trouble with, for example, movies of books is that whether bad or good they affect the book. A bad movie can taint the book on which it is based; it will be supposed by many that as the adaptation was bad, the source novel will be also.

A great movie of a book can also be bad for the book in that it will supplant the original text in the minds of the public, so that the only thing people think of is the movie. Now, this is one of those areas where I often say contradictorary things; for example, I love the movie A Clockwork Orange, but I am aware that when I think of Alex, what he looks like, what he's wearing, his swagger, the image in my head is the one designed by Kubrick, and Alex is Malcolm McDowell. Even when I read the book, I picture Alex in his white outfit, with the bowler hat on; even though Anthony Burgess tells me that Alex looks completely different, and his Droog outfit is completely different. I just can't help it. Ditto with Trainspotting; Renton is Ewan McGregor, Begbie is Robert Carlye, and so on.

Now, when I read The Catcher in the Rye, there is a picture in my head of Holden. There is a rhythm to how he speaks. I imagine him narrating the book at a frantic pace, with words tumbling out of his mouth; almost fighting to get out. He's yammering, he's got to get it all out, he's digressing all over the place, he's fast.

Ten years ago, the BBC did a list of best books, and in one programme they did Catcher, and in this they had someone reading the book. But they read it in a really slow drawl, that almost sounded like the K-Billy DJ in Reservoir Dogs... That wasn't how Holden should sound... but clearly someone thought that was how he spoke.

So, should they make a Catcher movie, it will be the director's Holden. They'll get it wrong. Anyone doing it would get it wrong. I'd get it wrong.

And, within days of Salinger's death, there were talks that there may now be a movie... it would all depend on his will. There was talk that a couple of decades ago he made a comment that once he was dead it was up to his estate if his unpublished work was published, and if movies were made; and that he was just glad he wouldn't be around to see it.

I'll tell you this; I don't want to see it. It could be the best movie ever, but I don't want someone else's version of Holden to interfere with mine. I've read that book a million times, and I'll read it a million times more, but I want to read it my way, unpolluted by actors and directors.

There'll be more books by him published in due course, and I'll devour each new one as it arrives. Chances are, most (if not all) will be about people called "Glass", but we shall see.

There's a bit in Catcher where Holden talks of reading a book and wishing that the author was a really great friend of yours you could call up at any time and shoot the breeze with; I always got that feeling every time I'd read Catcher. I would have loved to have called Jerry up and shot the breeze about anything and everything.

He loved the movies, apparently...