Monday, November 26, 2007

Those Were the Days

I didn’t do much over the Thanksgiving break (thankfully), but I did manage to read Volume One of the Uncollected Stories of J. D. Salinger – a bootleg edition of old magazine stories that had not been published in book form. Some were fantastic, others weren’t. Of note here was one character wishing himself to be elegant and suave, "like a magazine illustrator." Ahhh, to be back in the days when illustrators were household names and featured in high society gossip columns. Oh well.

Of absolutely no interest to anybody that hasn’t just read the uncollected stories of J. D. Salinger...If you go to Salinger.org you can see a few of the original illustrations that accompanied these stories -- none of which are particularly inspired, including this pre-Catcher in the Rye depiction of Holden Caulfield.


As an aside: Can we insert “swell’ back into our vernacular? And call each other “grand” and “marvelous”?

6 comments:

Mike Dutton said...

Raise High the Roofbeams Carpenters and Seymour - An Introduction is still my favorite book by Salinger. Who doesn't love Buddy Glass? And For Elsa, With Love and Squalor from Nine Stories. So beautifully written.

I'd still love to get my hands on those collected stories, even if they're hit and miss.

Speaking of which, he'd most likely disapprove, but I did a portrait of Salinger a while back:

http://www.duttonart.net/2/lg/Salinger.htm

I think it'd be a lot more fun to illustrate some of the actual stories.

Mike Dutton said...

And incidentally, as far as bringing back words like "swell", "grand" and such, I'd like to nominate "incidentally" in place of "by the way" at the beginning of our sentences.

And "Delighted" as a yes to invitations.

Anonymous said...

A grand post! Thanks for sharing the link--the illustrations are swell. ;)

Irene Gallo said...

Hey Mike - I completely agree with you. In fact, I think _Catcher_ is my least favorite of the books. But it was interesting to read a bunch of stories that either mention or feature Holden Caulfield in them about 6 years before _Catcher_ was written.

Oh, and, it was no accident that I picked your screen for the Last Man post. I let a few others cycle through. They were all great, but i like your work and hadn't shown any here before.

Lana - Simply marvelous of you to stop by. ;-)

Anonymous said...

wait a minute... Illustrators are still elegant and suave!!! aren't they...?

I enjoy your blog Irene, just thought I should say ^^

greets

Anonymous said...

read all of salinger's "uncollected" stories, as well as a selection of rare early material here:

http://www.terebess.hu/english/salinger.html