Salinger, Jerome David

Group of 5 autograph letters signed ("J.") and 11 typed letters signed ("J.", "J.D.S.", and "Jerry"; one with typed signature "Emil"), 34 pages (most, 11 1/2  x 8 in.; 293 x 203 mm) on yellow typing paper, a few on foolscap and other types of paper, [Cornish, N.H.], 7 March 1976—27 March 1981, to Olga Pastuchiv; condition generally very good with folds, one letter with small stains.  4 autograph and 10 typed envelopes bearing his Windsor, Vt., post office box return address; condition varies.

A remarkable group of letters by J. D. Salinger, discussing literature, health and homeopathy, movies. Chinese food, and a wide range of other subjects, and documenting an important and hitherto unknown  friendship.

Olga Pastuchiv first wrote to J. D. Salinger in early 1976.  She was in bed with the flu and a friend had given her Catcher in the Rye to read as a distraction.  She loved the book and wrote a 7-page fan letter while still down with the flu. Salinger immediately felt comfortable writing to Ms. Pastuchiv, who worked in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, foreign-language bookstore, was of Ukranian extraction and had attended Vassar.  The friendship blossomed and the two met from time to time, either at the author's home in New Hampshire or at Chinese lunches and dinners and expeditions to used bookshops in Boston and Cambridge.

From his very first letter (17 March 1976), Salinger is eager to discuss literature with his new friend.  He comments on his own writing, criticizing his long story "Seymour—An Introduction" as too excessive, clever, and overdone.  He goes on to say he has no idea when he'll publish any of his unpublished material.  He detests dealing with publishers and would like to delay doing so for as long as possible.

In this same letter he remarks that he sometimes goes mushrooming with a Russian woman.  She teaches him about mushrooms and, in return, he has cured the ringing in her ears with homeopathic treatment.  This leads him to reflect on Russian literature.  He's 57 and has not reread The Brothers Karamazov or The Possessed, but considered them important in his youth.  Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Turgenev were also of great value to him early on, but he did not read Gogol till later.

Most of Salinger's discussions of literature eventually return to the Russians.  Discussing Irish literature, he says he doesn't enjoy Yeats's autobiographical writings. He admires the poetry, but not Yeats the man.  His feeling for Synge and O'Casey are the same.  James Joyce is a "blank" for him, but he does grudgingly admire the work of Edna O'Brien.  He likewise admires Heinrich Heine and Robert Burns—as poets—not as men.  (He alludes to working on a "script" in which a character quotes Heine).  He concludes by saying he prefers the Russians—as men—to the Irish, reserving special scorn for Irish mysticism.

Salinger makes a similar point in discussing Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa.  He admires the book, but loathes the woman, claiming he is too middle-class to be comfortable with an aristocrat (especially a woman) and her love affairs.  Sounding a familiar note, he exempts Tolstoy from this anti-aristocratic prejudice. 

Perhaps the biggest surprise—as far as literary preferences goes—is Salinger's devotion to the works of Arnold Bennett, particularly The Old Wives' Tale, which he considers a masterpiece.  When Ms. Pastuchiv is not impressed with the novel, Salinger concedes that it may be too tame or "rococo" for someone who reads Dostoevsky.  Reading the blurb on the dust jacket of the Modern Library edition of the book causes Salinger to damn Bennett Cerf and Random House for their lack of sympathy for one of his favorite authors.  He then turns his scorn on Scribner's for dropping The Great Gatsby from its list in the early 1940s.  He finds nothing good to say about Somerset Maugham (an "outsider").  The Moon and Sixpence  is not about Gauguin, not about anybody, and is simply a book written to be made into a movie.  He does enjoy reading the detective novels of Georges Simenon, but his French is rusty and he must read them in English.

In a glimpse into Salinger's daily routine, he says he is at the typewriter from early morning to late afternoon, which makes him wary of taking on a new correspondent.  He suggests visits would be preferable to letter-writing.  Of his correspondents, he comments that the extraordinary ones are "girls"—never males.

He has much to say about his well-known love of privacy, admitting that it irritates journalists and publishers.  He worries that his children will be hounded the way he has been.  In order to satisfy the curiosity-seekers, he plans to compose an autobiography, written in the style of his fiction.  He says he's "keyed up" and ready to begin it and expects the project to take a few months to complete.

Inevitably, the subject of homeopathy comes up in most of these letters.  In his second letter to Ms. Pastuchiv (24 March 1976), he admits he is generally indifferent to the beauty of flowers, looking at plants as things to be used for medicinal purposes or for food.  (He does, however, admit that morning glories are "spellbinding".)

Affixed to a letter of 25 April 1976 are two tiny packets containing Igratia amara 10m (derived from a "strychnine-like" plant used in homeopathy).  He recommends this to his correspondent as a cure for a nervous stomach and as a sleeping aid.  He goes on to say he has prescribed homeopathic remedies for his housekeeper's excessive sentimentality and non-stop talking.  He says he first got interested in homeopathy around 1960 when he was bothered by the advice and treatments prescribed for his children by various doctors.  Salinger is never hesitant to dispense homeopathic advice: he recommends a Greek female homeopath for help with Ms. Pastuchiv's double vision, and offers suggestions for her father's Russian flu and grandmother's arthritis.

Another important topic for Salinger is cinema.  He mentions driving to a nearby town to see One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest on a Canadian friend's recommendation, and finding the film displays the qualities he least objects to in professional acting.  He praises an interview with 83-year-old film director Howard Hawks, contrasting Hawks's plain speaking with the pointless drivel coming from academic writers on film.

Several letters mention plans for meetings in Chinese restaurants or recount Chinese meals.  In one letter, Salinger tells of stopping a stranger on a Cambridge street and asking him to recommend a good Chinese restaurant.  He takes the stranger's advice and finds himself in a good restaurant.  The fact that most of the Caucasian diners in the place are not ostentatiously attempting to use chopsticks (and other "annoying bunk") pleases him even more than the excellent food.

These long, densely packed letters are filled with various observations and insights into the life of a celebrated recluse.  He expresses his admiration for many things Japanese: their brush-painting, swordsmanship, haiku-writing.  He claims to hate most given names, especially "Jerome," and contemplates changing his name to a Roman numeral. 

He discusses his garden with Ms. Pastuchiv and says he's planting beets in the hope that she will teach him to make make borscht, which he will freeze in large quantities.  Canning and freezing food are important to the frugal writer.  He shares his receipe for bottling ripe olives: mint, garlic, cloves, olive oil and lemon slices.

In other interesting asides, he mentions  in September 1977, his legal actions to keep the Moonies from buying property adjacent to his own.  Having previously considered Australia as a place where crude people live, surviving on sirloin steak, beer, and American rock 'n' roll, he has second thoughts after having Australian house guests.  He might even consider moving there, especially to an off-shore island.

Salinger explains his feelings for Ms. Pastuchiv in terms of Vedic affirmation.  Nothing subject to change is real; God or Brahmin is real and the two friends exist as one.  In the next letter, however, he worries that his friend may feel more connection of Holden Caulfield than to J. D. Salinger.  Salinger gives Olga his phone number, asks her to memorize it and tear it up ("CIA-like").  He also worries about Ukrainian girls who do not obey his instructions to destroy his letters. Several times Ms. Pastuchiv comes to New Hampshire at his invitation, staying in his daughter Peggy's vacant bedroom. His 13 April 1976 letter is written at 3:55 a.m.—Olga's absence keeps him awake.  In another letter, he comments on his correspondent's discomfort with hand-holding by remarking that 99% of human physical contact is most likely unsuccessful.  Humans were probably not meant to touch more than one or two other persons in a lifetime.

One of the most important collections of literary letters to come on the market in several years.