Salingers THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

As the first-person narrator begins his tale he explicitly foreswears telling

us what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied
and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap [. . .]
(Salinger 1, my emphasis). Methinks the hero doth protest too much. Dickenss great novel is a felt presence, not only in general but in the sharp particular of the heros name.
The surnames Copperfield and Caulfield are very like. Obviously
enough, they share initial C and concluding -field. They also have a very similar phonological patterning. Semantically or connotatively they both sound
ordinary enough as English surnames, while actually being quite distinctive.1
I infer they were carefully chosen by the two authors, and possibly even
coined. I conclude, further, that Caulfield came out of Copperfield, and
was chosen to remind us of it; that is to say, not to make us dismiss that
David Copperfield kind of crap (a dismissal which after all would have been
more simply achieved by not alluding to Dickens at all), but rather to bring it
to our minds, and energize it there.
The Caul component of the surname Caulfield looks back to the opening
of David Copperfield, to Davids half-humorous account of his birth, to his
being born with a caul. Here is the passage, from that novels fourth paragraph, along with the note on it which appears in the Annotated Dickens:
I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at
the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of
money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets [lifejackets], I dont know: all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding,
and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who
offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be
guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. (Dickens 19)

Alongside this opening consider these editorial suggestions about the point of
Dickens equipping the hero at birth with a caul:
born with a caul. The thin tissue enclosing the foetus: sometimes a fragment of it emerges on the babys head at birth. Possession of a caul was
supposed to protect the owner from drowning. [. . . ] [T]his folklore reference establishes an element of fantasy and magic running alongside the
novels more realistic qualities, besides initiating questions about how
lucky the hero is to prove. (19)

Mutatis mutandis, the Caul of the name Caulfield surrounds the new
hero with a penumbra of the above possibilities, and indeed of others. First, it
connotes escape and protection. Protection against drowning relates to his
idea of being the catcher in the rye, standing on the edge of some crazy
cliff, to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff (Salinger 179180).
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But if so, he is the one standing on the edge of the cliff of craziness, because
the mind, mind has mountains, cliffs of fall. Sheer, no-man-fathomed [. . .].
Even Holden, again an ordinary enough forename, sounds the same as
Hold-on, suggesting catcher.
The caul also suggests an unusual person, fate, status: will he be lucky, or
fated? Again, to take Dickenss conceit in a new direction, Holdens caul
implies he has a skin too many, or a dangerously thin skin.
Finally, although it is easy to be taken in by the books charm, or instead to
stand off from the charm as mere sentimental cuteness, I can do neither,
because of the rich texturing. Whether funny or sad, crazy or serious, the tone
is always multiplex. And no small part of that is the thread of indebtedness to
Dickenss great work which I have begun charting here.
JOHN K. HALE, University of Otago
NOTE
1. I looked in some telephone directories to check this. I found one Caulfield and no Copperfield.
WORKS CITED
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield in The Annotated Dickens. Ed. Edward Giuliano and Philip
Collins. Vol. 2. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. London: Penguin, 1958.

Larkins HIGH WINDOWS

When I see a couple of kids
And guess hes fucking her and shes
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, Thatll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
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