Rebel in the Rye

Dear Whit..

...l regret to inform you

that Holden Caulfield is dead.

I know you thought he could protect me.

Or, at the very least

give me refuge from my sarcasm.

But Holden is gone forever.

And I don't know if anything can save me now.

Six years earlier

Oh, where's your girl, Jerry? Where'd she go?

Ah, she wanted to dance with her brother.

Oh, it's a tight family.

You know, the Lusitania making it to England

is more hopeful than getting laid at this rat trap.

Oh, I don't know, spoiled rich girls love college dropouts.

They're all dying to tell their fathers

"He's not only broke, daddy, he's also a Jew."

Hey! Half-Jew.

Oh, God. Why do we keep coming here?

I can't stand all these flits and phonies.

To give girls like that the time.

- Who is that? - Oona O'Neill.

What? As in Eugene O'Neill?

That's her dad.

Rumor is, she's got a thing for writers.

Maybe I can get her drunk and read her one of my stories.

The drunk part, yes, not so sure about the second

I've read your work.

You're a real prince of a guy.

Who are the bodyguards?

Blythe Chaucer and Carol Flourentine

her protectors from morphine addicts

and boys without trust funds.

If you even try to give Oona the time

they'll take your watch away.

Okay.

I'm going in.

Ladies.

- Oona. - Hello.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

I'm Jerome David Salinger.

My friends call me Jerry.

It's a pleasure to meet you, Jerome David Salinger.

I'm a huge admirer of your father.

I'm a writer myself, and his plays have been

a great source of inspiration to me.

What do you write?

I, uh..

I write short stories.

- Really? Have you - Have you been published?

Come on, Oona, I want to introduce you to Billy Chanler.

- He's here? - Yes.

Oh, right now?

- Great. - Let's go.

Until we meet again, Jerome David Salinger.

Come on, Oona doll.

Billy!

Excuse me, sir, do you happen to know the time?

That went well.

Through the course of my fascinatingly dull life

I've always found fiction so much more truthful than reality.

And, yes, I'm aware of the irony.

He had neither the looks, personality, or good clothes

to gain Shirley's interest.

He didn't have a chance.

And as I said before

to write a really good boy-meets-girl story

it's wise to have the boy meet the girl.

I can't concentrate with you staring at me like that.

Well, do you like it?

- It's really good. - You can tell me the truth.

I am. It's...terrific.

Tie your shoes, honey.

So, what do you think, mom?

I love the kids. I love the way they talk.

Yeah, 'cause in the slicks, the teens always sound phony

because they're written by 50-year-old drunks.

You know, it just kills me.

Well, you're really talented.

I think I want to try to publish.

How would you do that?

I want to go back to school, to study creative writing.

You what?

You get kicked out of every school I send you too

because of that smart alec mouth of yours.

How do you possibly believe

you could be a professional writer?

I don't know, I just like doing it.

He's very talented, Sol.

Even if he is, it's impossible to make a living at it

even for the best of students

and you're not even a good student.

I can't do anything right.

Ah -- ah, sonny, sonny..

Come here, sit down. Sorry. Please.

I -- I -- I just don't want you to be disappointed

when it doesn't work out.

And it won't.

It never does.

Listen to me, meat and cheese distribution

has been very good to this family.

Six years ago, Buddy Richman was practically broke.

He buys a slaughterhouse

and now he's king of the bacon.

That could be you, sonny boy!

Jerry is not going to sell cheese

or pigs, or cows, or milk.

He is not going to be the king of the bacon.

He is going to go to Columbia.

He is going to study writing.

That's what Jerry is going to do

and you are going to pay for it.

I bet if I never walked into your class that day

then Holden Caulfield probably wouldn't even exist.

So, in a way, this whole mess

is as much your fault as it is mine.

There is nothing more sacred

than story.

The Bible, the Koran, the Torah.

The stories contained in these books

are so powerful

that people actually believe

they were written by a God.

That is the power

that a story can hold.

And in the course of this semester

you will be given the tools and the techniques

to be able to create your own stories

so that you can enrapture people, move..

I was always a lousy student.

Even when I wanted to be there.

It was pretty embarrassing, if you want to know the truth.

How does that sound, Mr. Salinger?

I'm so sorry, you lost me at Bible.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Salinger

did you think that this course was a study in atheism?

No. No, I didn't.

But I'm hoping there really is a God

that'll give you something interesting to say.

- Oh! - Oh!

Funny, I had the same thought

when I read your admissions essay.

Although they still let you in

it must be a very lean year for Columbia.

Mr. Salinger wrote an essay

very funny

brimming with exactly the sort of sarcasm

that he so beautifully displayed here

in the first five minutes of the course.

And yet, after that Mr. Salinger failed

to turn that clever voice of his

into an actual narrative.

Which is a shame, because there is some potential there.

But this is the work

we will all be striving to achieve.

And by the end of the semester

God willing, or in Mr. Salinger's case, unwilling

you will all understand

the difference between wanting to be a writer

and actually being one.

My countrymen, and my friends

I had hoped against hope that some miracle would prevent

a devastating war in Europe

and bring to an end

the invasion of Poland by Germany.

I have said many times that I have seen war

and I hate war.

I hope the United States

will keep out of this war.

I believe that it will.

Oh, Mr. Salinger.

Come in, have a seat.

Would you like a drink?

- Coffee, please. - Coffee, please.

So, how did you find me here?

Oh, I used to go to NYU, and I always saw you

grading papers in the window.

Hey, why do you come all the way down to the Village?

I couldn't think of a better place to read the work

of the next Fitzgerald or Hemingway

than right here in Greenwich Village.

- Sir. - Thank you.

And what about you? What happened at NYU?

They kick you out for that mouth of yours?

No, it was a mutual understanding.

They wanted me gone, and I wanted them dead.

Well, you're not the first wise-ass I've taught, you know.

You act out at authority figures like me

because you're emotionally repressed at home

and you also think you're the cleverest boy

that ever walked the planet, and no one

recognizes what a genius you are.

It's pretty typical stuff, if you want to know the truth.

But enough of my dime-store Freud.

What can I do for you, Mr. Salinger?

Uh, well, I -- I -- I wanted to ask about

what you talked about in class.

You know, my voice overwhelming the story.

I always thought my voice is what defines me as a writer.

Absolutely.