A Pedophile Fantasy in the Rye

As we pass the two-year anniversary of J.D. Salinger’s death, why is it that no one remarks on the obvious? In his life and in his fiction, Salinger had a predilection for young girls and women that, at least from a 21st century lens, does not seem all that healthy.

The first story in Salinger’s collection, Nine Stories, includes a scene at a beach with a “young man” (in his twenties) and a little girl. She is described as wearing a two-piece bathing suit that she would “not be needing” for nine or ten years. That’s slightly creepy coming from a grown guy. But he knows her by name, and our inner parent lets out a sigh of relief — until he compliments her again on her bathing suit. Soon he is holding her hand as they walk further down the beach where they go swimming together, and, in an intensely described scene, he helps her float by holding her ankles.

A story or two later in the collection we find a soldier in World War II, who, after reading some letters from his wife, goes out for tea. He encounters a governess and her ten-year-old charge. The little girl is quite friendly, and wears anklets and has “lovely” feet. When it’s certain they’ll talk, the soldier becomes concerned about the gap in his teeth, and the color of his mustache. Weirdness Alert: why, when about to talk to a young girl, would a grown man be concerned about his looks?

And if you look closely at Catcher In The Rye, there are odd moments of Holden watching the skater, or sitting in his young sister’s bedroom — Holden with his gray hair, remember. But an Existentialist reading, in full critical flower when Salinger was publishing and still fragrant in his work today, forgives almost everything. It’s all about “alienation,” his fans maintain. Okay. But these facts remain: about 75 percent of Salinger’s fiction centers on characters under the age of 21, and of that, about half on girls under the age of twelve.

Though only ten years old, Phoebe is considerably more mature than Holden. She is a voice of reason throughout the novel, both in Holden’s thoughts and in the advice she gives to him in person. Phoebe is also unusually perceptive: her insight into Holden’s misanthropy, his hatred of almost everything, is a key turning point in the novel. It’s no coincidence that perhaps the most level headed and intelligent character in the novel is a child. Holden idealizes childhood and values children’s ideas and opinions more than those of adults. Phoebe’s intelligence and wise counsel offer a strong contrast to the lectures he receives from the various teachers and headmasters that he despises.

The trouble was, that kind of junk is sort of fascinating to watch, even if you don’t want it to be. For instance, that girl that was getting water squirted all over her face, she was pretty good-looking. I mean that’s my big trouble. In my mind, I’m probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw. Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn’t mind doing if the opportunity came up. I can even see how it might be quite a lot of fun, in a crumby way, and if you were both sort of drunk and all, to get a girl and squirt water or something all over each other’s face. The thing is, though, I don’t like the idea. It stinks, if you analyze it. I think if you don’t really like a girl, you shouldn’t horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you’re supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it. It’s really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes. Girls aren’t too much help, either, when you start trying not to get too crumby, when you start trying not to spoil anything really good. I knew this one girl, a couple of years ago, that was even crumbier than I was. Boy, was she crumby! We had a lot of fun, though, for a while, in a crumby way. Sex is something I really don’t understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away.

But you ought to see old Phoebe. She has this sort of red hair, a little bit like Allie’s was, that’s very short in the summertime. In the summertime, she sticks it behind her ears. She has nice, pretty little ears. In the wintertime, it’s pretty long, though. Sometimes my mother braids it and sometimes she doesn’t. It’s really nice, though. She’s only ten. She’s quite skinny, like me, but nice skinny. Roller-skate skinny. I watched her once from the window when she was crossing over Fifth Avenue to go to the park, and that’s what she is, roller-skate skinny. You’d like her.

Old Phoebe. I swear to God you’d like her. She was smart even when she was a very tiny little kid. When she was a very tiny little kid, I and Allie used to take her to the park with us, especially on Sundays. Allie had this sailboat he used to like to fool around with on Sundays, and we used to take old Phoebe with us. She’d wear white gloves and walk right between us, like a lady and all.

One other thing I just thought of. One time, in this movie, Jane did something that just about knocked me out. The newsreel was on or something, and all of a sudden I felt this hand on the back of my neck, and it was Jane’s. It was a funny thing to do. I mean she was quite young and all, and most girls if you see them putting their hand on the back of somebody’s neck, they’re around twenty-five or thirty and usually they’re doing it to their husband or their little kid–I do it to my kid sister Phoebe once in a while, for instance. But if a girl’s quite young and all and she does it, it’s so pretty it just about kills you.

I started walking over toward Broadway, just for the hell of it, because I hadn’t been over there in years. Besides, I wanted to find a record store that was open on Sunday. There was this record I wanted to get for Phoebe, called “Little Shirley Beans.” It was a very hard record to get. It was about a little kid that wouldn’t go out of the house because two of her front teeth were out and she was ashamed to. I heard it at Pencey. A boy that lived on the next floor had it, and I tried to buy it off him because I knew it would knock old Phoebe out, but he wouldn’t sell it. It was a very old, terrific record that this colored girl singer, Estelle Fletcher, made about twenty years ago. She sings it very Dixieland and whorehouse, and it doesn’t sound at all mushy. If a white girl was singing it, she’d make it sound cute as hell, but old Estelle Fletcher knew what the hell she was doing, and it was one of the best records I ever heard. I figured I’d buy it in some store that was open on Sunday and then I’d take it up to the park with me. It was Sunday and Phoebe goes rollerskating in the park on Sundays quite frequently. I knew where she hung out mostly.