The list now continues at random.
The complete works, quite in full, of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with the exception of any books that are not utterly concerned with Sherlock Holmes, such as The White Company. Oh, here is cause for mental frolic and amusement when I tell you what happened to me in this regard one day quite recently! I was quietly swimming in the lake during Aquatics Period, quite without a thought in my head, merely recalling sympathetically to myself the pleasant passion of Miss Constable, at the main library, for the great Goethe's works in full. At this quiet moment, a thought occurred to me which raised my eyebrows unmercifully! It was suddenly borne in upon me, utterly beyond dispute, that I love Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but do not love the great Goethe! As I darted idly through the water, it became crystal clear that it is far from an established fact that I am even demonstrably fond of the great Goethe, in my heart, while my love for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, via his contributions, is an absolute certainty! I have rarely ever had a more revealing incident in any body of water. I daresay I shall never get any closer to drowning in sheer gratitude for a passing portion of truth. Think for a stunning moment what this means! It means that every man, woman, and child over the age, let us say, of twenty-one or thirty, at the very outside, should never do anything extremely important or crucial in their life without first consulting a list of persons in the world, living or dead, whom he loves. Remember, I implore you, that he has no right whatever to include on this list anybody he merely admires quite to distraction! If the person or the person's contributions have not roused his love and unexplainable happiness or eternal warmth, that person must be ruthlessly severed from the list! There may be another list for that person, and quite a pleasant one, let us presume, but this list I have in mind is exclusively for love. My God, it could be the finest, most terrible, personal guard against deceit and lies both to oneself and to any friends or acquaintances in casual or heated conversation with oneself'. I have already made quite a number of such lists in my leisure time, for private consultation, embracing many types of people on earth. As a very revealing example of where this can lead, and which I think you "ill enjoy to the hilt, who would you say casually is the only singer on my list whose voice is represented either on Victrola record or personal appearance? Enrico Caruso? I am quite afraid this is not the case. Excluding family members, whose voices have never failed to charm me, to be sure, the only singer I am utterly prepared to say I love his singing voice, without fear of lying or quite intelligently deceiving myself, is my incomparable friend Mr. Bubbles, of Buck & Bubbles, merely singing softly to himself in his dressing room next to yours in Cleveland! This is not to disparage Enrico Caruso or Al Jolson, but facts heartlessly remain facts! I cannot help it! If you make a terrible list of this kind, you are quite stuck with it. For my own part, I give you my word of honor that when I return to New York I will never again leave my room for a moment without a very telling few of my lists on my person, saving a simple trip to the living room or bathroom. I do not know where it will all lead to, I can freely confess to you, but if it does not lead to more lies in the world, it is something. The worst it can do is to show that I am a stupid boy, quite without any impeccable taste in the last analysis, but this may not be exactly the case, thank God.
Moving rapidly along, kindly send any unflinching book on the World War, in its shameful, exploitive entirety, preferably unwritten by vainglorious or nostalgic veterans or enterprising journalists of slight ability or conscience. I would greatly appreciate anything not containing excellent photographs. The older one gets, the more inclined one is to trample on excellent photographs.
Please send me the following, choice, foul books, perhaps coupled together for convenient packaging, also that they may avoid contaminating any books by men or woman of genius, talent, or thrilling, modest scholarship: Alexander, by Alfred Erdonna, and Origins and Speculations, by Theo Acton Baum. Quite without exerting yourselves or my good friends at the library, please do your utmost to drop these in the earliest mail at your convenience. These are invaluably stupid books that I would like Buddy to have under his belt before entering school next year for the first time in this appearance. Do not trample too quickly on stupid books! One of the swiftest ways, though very enervating and torturous, to have a young, utterly competent boy like Buddy avoid shutting his eyes to daily stupidity and foulness in the world is to offer him an excellent, stupid, foul book. Perhaps in utter silence one can then say to him, avoiding emotional sorrow or rank fury in the voice, merely handing over the invaluable books on a silver platter: "Here, young man, are two books both of which are subtle, admirably unemotional, and unnoticeably rotten to the core. Both are written by distinguished, false scholars, men of condescension, exploitation, and quiet, personal ambition. I have personally finished reading their books with tears of shame and anger. Without another word, I give you two, godsent models of the feculent curse of intellectuality and smooth education running rampant without talent or penetrating humanity." I would not say a single, additional syllable to the young man in question. You may quite think this sounds very harsh again. It would be only foolish and humorous to deny it' it is very harsh. On the other side of the ledger, you may not know the dangers of these men. Let us clear the air momentarily by examining them with simple brevity, proceeding with Alfred Erdonna first. A professor at a leading university in England, he has written this biography of Alexander the Great in a leisurely, readable fashion, despite its size, frequently making references to his wife, also a distinguished professor at a leading university, and to his charming dog, Alexander, and his former, old professor, Professor Heeder, who also lived off Alexander the Great for a number of years. Between the two of them, they have made an excellent living off Alexander the Great, quite in their spare time, if not in monetary gain certainly in fame and prestige. Despite this, Alfred Erdonna treats Alexander the Great like just another charming dog in his damned possession! I am personally not crazy about Alexander the Great or any incurably, militant person, but how dare Alfred Erdonna finish his book quite giving you the subtle, unfair impression that he, Alfred Erdonna, is superior to Alexander the Great in the last analysis merely because he and his wife, and possibly dog, are in a very cozy position to exploit and patronize Alexander the Great! He is not even in the least bit grateful to Alexander the Great for having existed so that he, Alfred Erdonna, could have the privilege of quite sponging off him in a leisurely, distinguished way. I am not even taking this false, scholarly personage to task because he quite personally dislikes heroes and heroism from the word go, even devoting a chapter to Alexander and Napoleon, in similar capacities, to show what harm and bloodful nonsense heroes have wrought upon the world. The germ of this is very sympathetic to me, in acknowledge frankness, but two things are necessary to write such a daring, unoriginal chapter. Surely it is worth a moment's casual discussion; I beg you to be patient and blindly affectionate with me till it is over! There is also a third thing necessary.
1. You are in a much stabler position to dislike heroes and heroism utterly if you yourself are quite equipped to do something heroic. If you are not equipped to do anything heroic, you may still enter the discussion honorably, but with terrible caution and reasonableness, very deliberately and painstakingly turning on every single light in your body, also perhaps re- doubling your fervent prayers to God not to go astray in any cheap way.
2. You must have a model of the human brain handy for general reasons. If you do not have a model of the human brain handy, a peeled chestnut will do only too damn well! But it is quite necessary to see with your own eyes, in a matter of this kind, involving such matters as heroes and heroism, that the human brain is just a charming, likable, quite dissectible agency, without a shred of reliable ability to understand human history in full or what temporary role, heroic or unheroic, it is time to play with all one's heart and conscience.
3. He, Alfred Erdonna, freely acknowledges that Alexander the Great's personal teacher, when a lad, wa
s Aristotle. Not once, at any decent time, does Alfred Erdonna sadly take Aristotle to task for failing to teach Alexander the Great to avoid becoming great! There is utterly no mention, in any book on this interesting subject I have ever read, that Aristotle ever even at least begged Alexander to accept only the mantle of accidental greatness and refuse, quite like excrement, if you will pardon me briefly, any other kind of greatness whatsoever.
I will gladly close the damnable subject here. My nerves are quite raw now; also I have quite forfeited the decent time I was going to give to Theo Acton Baum's dubious and very dangerous, untalented, coldhearted work of literature. However, to repeat, I will not answer for my peace of mind if Buddy is allowed to enter school and the long, utterly complicated road of formal education until he has had these perilous, conceited, utterly commonplace books under his belt.
Moving along quite at a trot now, humorously speaking, please send me any thoughtful books on human whirling or spinning. You will recall, quite with my undying, humorous sympathy, that at least three of your children, in sheer independence of each other, and utterly untaught, have picked up the delicate custom of spinning the body around with alarming speed, after which regrettably ostentatious experience the person who does the whirling can often, though not always, by any means, arrive at a decision or an impressive answer to a problem, usually quite sin all. The practice, to be sure, has been invaluable to me on more than one trivial occasion in the library, provided one can find a place unseen by the naked eye. To date, of course, I have discovered a few people spread widely throughout the world who have used this practice with success, even the touching Shakers, to a sin all extent. Also, there is an impressive rumor that St. Francis of Assisi, a marvelous person, once asked a fellow monk to do a little spinning when they were on an important crossroad with hesitation which direction to take. There, to be sure, you have the Byzantine influence on the Troubadours, but I am far from convinced that the practice can be limited to one corner of this thrilling globe. While I am very shortly going to give tip the practice for the rest of my life, leaving more responsibility on another portion of my mind, the fact quite remains that copious information on the subject will be very welcome, as the other children may, for personal reasons, prefer to continue the practice well into maturity, though I doubt it.
To continue and mercifully conclude this list, I would be thankful to read anything in English written by the tolerable Cheng brothers or anybody else passably gifted and heartrendingly ambitious who had the disagreeable luck to do any religious writing in China after the two geniuses of Lao-tse and Chuang-tse, not to mention Gautama Buddha! One need not approach Miss Overman or Mr. Fraser with kid gloves on this subject, as I have already broken the ice repeatedly, but delicacy of approach is still quite advisable! Neither Miss Overman nor Mr. Fraser has ever been even slightly bitten by the subject of God or essential chaos in the universe, therefore casting quite a cool, dissembling countenance on my consuming interest in such affairs. Their concern, thank God, is far from petty or unaffectionate, the distinguished Edgar Semple having told Mr. Fraser that I have the makings of a splendid American poet, which is quite true in the last analysis. They are quite fearful, one and all, that my consuming admiration for God, straight-forward and shapeless, will upset the delightful apple cart of my poetry; this is not stupid; there is always a slight, magnificent, utterly worthy risk that I will be a crashing failure from the word go, disappointing all my friends and loved ones, a very sober, rotten possibility that brings the usual fluid to my eyes as I bring the matter into the open. It would be quite a moving, humorous boon, to be sure, if one knew quite well, every single day of one's splendid current appearance, exactly where one's everlasting duty lies, obvious and concrete! Quite to my regret and secret delight, my glimpses are ludicrously helpless to aid me in such matters! While there is always a flimsy possibility that one's beloved, shapeless God will surprise one out of the blue with a charming, useful command, such as "Seymour Glass, do this," or "Seymour Glass, my young foolish son, do that," I utterly fail to warm up to this possibility. This is quite a gross exaggeration, to be sure. I am utterly warming up to the possibility when I am freely and deliciously pondering it, but I am also utterly and eternally abhorring it, from the very roots of my dubious soul! Vulgarly speaking, the whole possibility of getting charming, personal commands from God, quite shapeless or adorned with an impressive, charming beard, stinks to high heaven of sheer favoritism! Let God raise one human being up over another, lavishing handsome favors upon him, and the hour has struck to leave His charming service forever, and quite good riddance! This sounds very harsh, but I am an emotional youth, frankly mortal, with innumerable experiences under my belt of mortal favoritism; I cannot stand the sight of it; let God favor us all with charming, personal commands or none of us! If You have the stomach to read this letter, dear God, be assured that 1am meaning what I say! Do not sprinkle any dubious sugar on my destiny! Do not favor me with charming, personal commands and magnificent short cuts! Do not ask me to join any elite organization of mortals that is not widely open to all and sundry! Recall quite fervently that I have felt equipped to love Your astonishing noble Son, Jesus Christ, on the acceptable basis that you did not play favorites with Him or give Him carte blanche throughout his appearance! Give me one, single inkling that You gave Him carte blanche and, I will regretfully wipe His name from the slim list of those human beings I respect without countless reservations, despite His many and diverse miracles, which were perhaps necessary in the general circumstance but remain a dubious feature, in my forward opinion, as well as a nasty stumbling block for decent, likable atheists, such as Leon Sundheim and Mickey Waters, the former an elevator operator at the Hotel Alamac, the latter a charming drifter without employment. Foolish tears are coursing down my face, to be sure; there is no decent alternative. It is humorous and kindly of you, Your Grace, to allow rue to remain absorbed in my own dubious methods, such as industrious absorption with the human heart and brain. My God, you are a hard one to figure out, thank God! I love you more than ever! Consider my dubious services everlastingly at your disposal!
I am freely resting for a moment, dear Les and Bessie and other loving victims of the above onslaught. Across the empty bungalow, through the view offered by the window above Tom Lantern's fortunate bunk, the afternoon sun is shining in a very moving manner, provided my brain is not merely shining in a very moving manner. With or without absolute proof, it is sometimes folly not to accept the happiness of which ever is shining.
I will conclude the interrupted list of books for Miss Overman and Mr. Fraser with a few, brisk strokes:
Please send anything on the colorful and greedy Medicis, as well as anything on the touching Transcendentalists, quite in our own backyard. Also send copies, preferably without exhibitionistic pencil marks on the page, of both the French edition and Mr. Cotton's translation of Montaigne's essays. There is a charming, shallow, delightful Frenchman! Let one's hat be doffed to any gifted, charming fellows; my God, they are rare and impressive!
Please send anything interesting on human civilization well before the Greeks, although quite after the list of civilizations in the pocket of my raincoat with the unfortunate gash in the shoulder, which Walt humorously declined to wear in public.
This is of unspeakable importance. Please send any books on the structure of the human heart that I have not read; a fairly compact list last lay in the top drawer of my chiffonnier, either beneath my handkerchiefs or in the vicinity of Buddy's guns. Unusual, accurate drawings of the heart are always welcome, as any well-meaning, crude likeness of this incomparable organ, the finest of the body, is a pleasure to see; however, drawings are not essential in the last analysis, merely covering the pure, physical characteristics, leaving out the uncharted, best parts entirely! Unfortunately, quite to one's eternal chagrin, the best parts can only be viewed at very odd, thrilling, unexpected seconds when one's lights are quite definitely turned on; without a healthy talent fo
r drawing, which I utterly tack, one is at a terrible loss to share the view with one's intimate and interested acquaintances. This is an unpretty state of affairs, to say the least! The entire view of this magnificent organ, without compare in the human body, should be in the possession of everyone and not merely of dubious young fellows like the undersigned!
Conveniently on the subject of the body, seen or unseen by the naked eye, please send any book devoted exclusively to the formation of callus. It will be very difficult or impossible, so please do not ask Miss Overman or Mr. Fraser to strain. However, if a book on this compelling subject should be found, be assured that it will be consumed eagerly around here, particularly any discussion of callus that unites a broken, human bone while it is healing, its intelligence being quite staggering and delightful, quite knowing when to begin and cease, without intentional assistance from the brain of the injured person. Here is another magnificent accomplishment that is maddeningly attributed to "Mother Nature." With all quite due respect, I have been sick, for many years, of hearing her dubious name.
In February of this memorable year, I had the unspeakable pleasure of chatting back and forth, for a delicious quarter of an hour, with a handsome woman hailing from Czechoslovakia, a figure in somber costly clothes, yet with interesting, touching, dirty fingernails. The incident occurred in the main library, a month or so after the Honorable Louis Benford, in reply to my letter, swiftly and humorously made my dubious presence possible. Professing to be the mother of a young diplomat, which had a comfortable ring of truth to it, she softly introduced the subject of her favorite poet, Otakar Brezina, a Czech, urging me to read him. Perhaps Mr. Fraser can find one of his works for me, in English translation, I am afraid. The possibilities are quite hopeful, as this stunning woman, though very nervous and unbalanced in the last analysis, had a marvelous, lonely spark! Mr. Brezina has a stunning champion there! God bless ladies with costly, tasteful clothes and touching, dirty fingernails that champion gifted, foreign poets and decorate the library in beautiful, melancholy fashion! My God, this universe is nothing to snicker at!
22 Out-of-print J. D. Salinger Stories Page 35