JD Salinger's letters reveal admiration for Tim Henman

Catcher in the Rye author was fan of tennis, tenors and Burger King

JD Salinger was regarded as a recluse for much of the last 50 years of his life but previously unseen letters written by the author to a friend in Britain show that while he may have shunned the limelight, he enjoyed a simpler life of gardening, eating hamburgers and following the tennis career of Tim Henman.

50 letters and four postcards, written by Salinger to Donald Hartog a Londoner whom he met in 1938, reveal that at a time when the Catcher in the Rye author was widely believed to be a near-hermit he was actually enjoying group bus trips to Niagara Falls and regularly indulging a passion for the theatre.

The letters were donated to the University of East Anglia by Hartog's daughter, Frances, after her father died in 2007, and the university has made them publicly available on the first anniversary of Salinger's death.

"Salinger had this reputation as a recluse, that he kept himself to himself," said Chris Bigsby, professor of American studies. "This is another Salinger, this is an ordinary Salinger, not the reclusive, angry person people thought he was."

The letters reveal the author enjoyed listening to the Three Tenors Jose Carreras was his favourite and particularly liked watching tennis, with Salinger disclosing a particular fondness for "Tiger" Tim Henman.

Salinger also told Hartog that he thought Burger King hamburgers were better than those from other chains, while he described trips to the Niagra Falls and the Grand Canyon.

The letters are not the only surviving correspondence by Salinger, but they cover a period late in his life when he was at his most elusive.

Hartog and Salinger met as teenagers in Vienna, sent there by their families to learn German.

They kept up their correspondence through the second world war. Salinger travelled to Britain in 1989 for Hartog's 70th birthday.


guardian.co.uk Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UK greenhouse gas emissions fall 8.7%

Image
Total UK emissions plummet as recession lowers electricity and fuel use A dramatic fall in greenhouse gas emissions following the recession has brought the UK's climate change targets for the next five years within easy reach, taking the pressure off government and business to comply. Government estimates released on Tuesday showed greenhouse gas emissions fell by 8.7% from 2008 to 2009, the biggest drop since records began in 1990. Carbon dioxide levels plunged 9.8%, a fall only matched in 1980, in records extending to 1970. The unexpectedly deep slump in emissions mirrors the fall in industrial output in the recession, with high-emitting sectors including construction and transport hit particularly hard. But it also means that government-set climate change targets of cutting emissions by 35% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, now look much easier to meet. The UK has already met the targets for 2016, provided emissions stay at 2009 levels. This raises the prospect that business...
Keep reading

Top flyer boo-boo : Shut off noisy engines

LONDON: It's too noisy, could you please turn off the engines ? Could you please open the window? These are some of the "foolish" and "bizarre requests" flyers often make to flight attendants, according to a new survey. The survey of some 3,000 Virgin Atlantic cabin crew members found that some passengers fail to understand why they are prevented from opening the window, others think "turning down" the engines could reduce the noise. "Please, can you open the window?" was among the most common unusual queries made by uncomfortable passengers who seem to be unaware of the benefits of a pressurised cabin at 35,000ft. Other unique questions included "could you turn the engines down because they are too noisy?" and "please can the captain stop the turbulence?", the Telegraph reported. The survey also laid bare the level of comfort and service some customers expect, with several asking flight attendants "can you sho...
Keep reading

Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, Japanese researchers say

Image
Experiments show that labrador retriever's sense of smell can identify minute traces of chemicals circulating in human body Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, even when the disease is in its early stages, researchers in Japan claim. In a series of experiments that involved sniffing the breath or stool samples of patients, a specially-trained labrador retriever proved nearly as good at identifying those with cancer as a conventional colonoscopy examination. The team, led by Hideto Sonoda at Fukuoka dental college hospital, said some dogs have such a keen sense of smell that they can detect minute traces of chemicals that appear to circulate in the bodies of people who have cancer. The finding builds on previous experiments in which researchers used dogs to sniff out cancers in the skin, lungs, bladder and ovaries. Writing in the journal Gut , the researchers describe how the eight-year-old dog was trained to distinguish between the smell of a patient with colorectal canc...
Keep reading