"Where do the ducks go?" - At Last, External Evidence!

A central aspect which has puzzled people both inside and outside the novel for 50 years is Holden's question where the ducks go when the lagoon in Central Park freezes over.    The first cab driver Holden asks in chapter 9 thinks Holden is trying to kid him. Then, in chapter 12, Holden has this famous and very funny conversation with Horwitz, the second cabbie. Horwitz hasn't got a clue where the ducks go and gets incredibly excited about the question, also comparing the ducks' situation to that of the fish in the lagoon. In fact, he gets so sore that he drives off "like a bat out of hell". (Rumour has it that he is so unnerved that he actually ( drives into lampost.)    Alas, Holden himself never finds out where the ducks go (or does he, years later? ;-)  . However, exactly 50 years after the publication of CR there is, at last, the answer to this mind-boggling question. It was published in the New York Times on July 22, 2001 by Thomas Beller. In his article, "Holden's New York", we learn (I paraphrase):

The park commissioner said that every year his office is contacted by people inquiring about a mystery posed by Holden: What happens to the ducks when the lagoon freezes over?    According to the commissioner, the lagoon does not really freeze anymore. "Usually the ducks go to the middle of the lake, which is the least likely to freeze," he said. "If that freezes over they have been seen in the Hudson and East Rivers. In fact ducks travel much less than they used to, because it is really much easier for them than it was in 1951.

So what?     Well, the point is: Horwitz was (basically) right: Mother Nature takes care of the fish - and the ducks, too. Holden cares about the ducks because he cares about  (from his point of view) helpless, innocent creatures who he feels should be protected from the brutal world. That goes for the ducks (can you imagine Ackley or Stradlater asking themselves where the ducks go? - Me neither!), it goes for the nuns, for Jane Gallagher, and of course for his sister Phoebe. Therefore, just like Holden eventually realizes in the carrousel scene that he has to allow Phoebe to make the experience of possibly falling off the horse or the carrousel (of life) - see my #18 Internal Aspects - he should not worry too much about the ducks...

Books Banned in the USA

• The Catcher in the Rye  by J.D. Salinger
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  by Mark Twain
(due to alleged racism - of all the things!) 
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer  by Mark Twain
• The Grapes of Wrath  by John Steinbeck
• Of Mice and Men  by John Steinbeck
• Little Red Riding Hood  by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
(No kidding!  An illustrated edition was banned in two California school districts in 1989. Following the Little Red-Cap story from Grimm's Fairy Tales, the book shows the heroine taking food and wine to her grandmother. The school districts cited concerns about the use of alcohol in the story.) 
• Lord of the Flies  by William Golding
• Slaughterhouse 5  by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Color Purple  by Alice Walker
• Twelfth Night  by William Shakespeare

cont

The Title of the Novel in Foreign Publications

Languages so far (the translations follow below):

1. German
2. Norwegian
3. Turkish
4. Spanish
5. French
6. Bavarian
7. Dutch
8. Italian
9. Portuguese
10. Japanese
11. Catalan
12. Hungarian
13. Russian
14. Danish
15. Swedish
16. Polish
17. Mandarin Chinese
18. Romanian
19. Icelandic
20. Hebrew
21. Finnish

1. German:
   DER FÄNGER IM ROGGEN
   - which is the literal translation of the original title
      
2. Norwegian:
   Hver tar sin - så får vi andre ingen
   translation: EACH TAKE ONE AND THE REST GET NO ONE
   Amazing.
      
3. Turkish:
   CAVDAR TARLASINDA COCUKLAR
   = Kids in the Rye Field
   I have been told that the first Turkish translation was  GÖNÜLCELEN, which means The Heart Catcher
      
4. Spanish:
   El Guardian entre el Centeno
   "guardian" translates into Hüter, Wächter, Wachmann in German;
   guardian, protector, custodian in English
      
5. French:
   L'attrape-coeurs
   = The Hearts Catcher  (??)
      
6. Bavarian:
   Der Narrische auf der Alm
   sorry - just a joke for my German fellow-countryfolk... ;-)
      
7. Dutch: 3 different translations:
   a. 1958: Puber  (= Adolescent)
   b. 1967: De kinderredder van New York (literally New York's child saviour)
   c. 1989: De vanger in het graan (The Catcher in the Grain)
      
8. Italian:
   Il giovane Holden
   = The Young Holden
      
9. Portuguese:
   O Apanhador no Campo de Centeio ( = literal translation)
      
10. Japanese 
    Rai Mugi Batake de Tsukamaete
    The literal translation would be something like Catch it in the Rye Field. The Japanese title doesn't specify what's being caught, since a subject is not always necessary, so it is impossible to tell whether they mean it to be a he, she, or it. Rai Mugi is rye, Batake is a variation of hatake, which is field, de would mean at or in, and Tsukamaete is a variation of Tsukamaeru, meaning to catch. Thanks, Makiko!
       
11. Catalan
    El vigilant en el camp de sègol. 
    This is more or less the literal translation of the title.
       
12. Hungarian
    Zabhegyezõ
    A sharpener of oats. This is an idiom in magyar - 'zabot hegyezni' means to do something very pointless equivalent to Taking coal to Newcastle, but more playful in style value.
    (Thanks, Ferenc!)
       
13. Russian
    Nad propastju vo rzhi
    It can be literally translated as "over the precipice in the rye". And Russian "propast'" refers to (and is the translation) of the word "cliff", which we read in the novel. But in this title there is not the subject. And everything concerned with "catcher, to catch" is absent.
       
14. Danish
    Forbandede Ungdom
    It means "Damned Youth"!  Amazing...
    (Thanks, Anna Frederiksen!)
       
15. Swedish
    Raddaren i noden
    Meaning "Savior in a Crisis" (!)
    Thanks, Jenny!
       
16. Polish
    Buszujacy w Zbuzu
    "Literally it translates: "Romper in the Grain", which is quite a good translation in my opinion as Polish does not have a nice translation for "Catcher". And "romper" does not have a negative meaning, it just describes someone that runs through the grain looking for things."
    Thanks, Niki!
       
17. Mandarin Chinese
    It's "mai tian bu shou". There are four words in Mandarin Chinese. The first two words "mai tian" mean "rye field". The last two words mean "catcher". So "mai tian bu shou" in Mandarin Chinese means "the catcher of the rye field", nearly means "a catcher belongs to a rye field" rather than the original meaning "the catcher in the rye".
    Thanks, Alice Kao!
       
18. Romanian
    Well, in my language it sounds like this "de veghe in lanul de secara", meaning the one that stands on guard in the rye" because the word catcher has no equivalent in Romanian.
    Thanks, Daniela Barbu!
     
19. Icelandic
    In Icelandic the title is: Bjargvætturinn í grasinu, which in direct translation means: The Savior in the Grass. Bjargvættur: someone who saves someone or something (and usually ends up as a hero) í grasinu: in the grass
    Thanks, A. Hilmarsson in Iceland!
     
20. Hebrew
    Old 1954 edition, translated by Abraham Danieli:
    אני, ניו יורק, וכל השאר
    Transliterated as A'ni, New York, Ve'kol Ha'Sh'ar
    Literally "Me, New York, and Everything Else."
    
    1975 edition, translated by Daniel Doron and Abrham Yavin:
    התפסן בשדה השיפון
    Transliterated as Ha'tafsan Besdeh Ha'shipon
    Which means, literally, "the catcher in the rye field."
    Thanks a lot, Dror Lahat!
     
21. Finnish
    The title Sieppari Ruispellossa is identical with the original one.
    Thanks for the info, Ville Tavio!

The Catcher: 73,000 Words in a Row

Writing a novel is a cinch: you just put lots of words in a row. Not even necessarily different words - maybe there are only around 15,000 different words in CR - probably less. Usually all these words (apart from the odd name) already exist, so you do not have to be inventive either.    Stupid thoughts? Maybe. Then again, I believe it is interesting to think about this for a while, because in a sense it is also mind-boggling...    Of course, there is a tiny difference between lots of words in a row and a novel. Here's what someone said about 2,300 years ago: The whole is more than the sum of its parts. ARISTOTLE, Metaphysica 10f-1045a    Below you'll find a number of words from CR and how often they appear in the novel...
TOTAL NUMBER OF WORDS  (approx)	73,921
school	66
friend(ly)	24
Christmas	33
museum	18
Sally	54
Jane	50	(funny - fewer than Sally's)
fuck	6
nun(s)	14
Allie	38
Phoebe	116	!!
phony	36
goddam	245	including people like Stradlater using it

Summary of the Novel

Holden Caulfield, the seventeen-year-old narrator, is in a resthome in California, looking back on events which happened around Christmas. Having been expelled from Fencey Prep, a boys' school in Pennsylvania, Holden pays a final visit to Mr Spencer, his history teacher. The latter lectures him on his poor scholarship; when Spencer suddenly tries to sell him an old Navajo blanket for no apparent reason, Holden excuses himself and leaves in a hurry. Outside his dorm he meets Mr Ossenburger, an "old fart" after whom one of the wings of the school was named. In his room Holden is briefly visited by Ackley, a sensitive boy whom Holden admires. Later Stradlater, Holden's room-mate, arrives. An argument flares up between the two boys about Jane Gallagher, Mr Ossenburger's stepdaughter. In the ensuing fight Holden is beaten, after which he finishes packing and leaves. 
   On the train to New York he has a conversation with a woman who turns out to be  Mrs Yester, the mother of one of the few classmates he likes. In NYC Holden checks into a second-rate hotel. After midnight, in the hotel's night club, he dances with three girls from Seattle and has a heated discussion with one of them about the Statue of Liberty. In the hotel lobby he recalls an afternoon with Jane Gallagher during which they played checkers; eventually she annoyed him by constantly putting all his kings in the back row. Later he has an argument with a prostitute and her pimp about the impending dollar crisis.
   Next morning, at a sandwich bar near Grand Central Station, he meets two nuns. After an enchanting conversation he inexplicably tries to steal their straw baskets. Then he has a date with Sally Hayes, a rather plump girl who considers herself an ice-skating champion. Holden tries to persuade her to drive with him to Vermont in the near future and live in a cabin camp in the woods; reluctantly she agrees.
   In the evening, feeling lonely, Holden finally decides to go home and see his kid sister Phoebe. Fortunately, their parents are out. When she challenges him to name one thing in life that he likes, Holden eventually admits that he liked playing baseball with his brother Allie in a rye field near a duck pond in the vicinity of Central Park South. Although it is quite late, Holden then visits a former teacher of his, Mr Antolini. However, he has to leave rather suddenly because the spaghetti served by Mrs Antolini have a devastating effect on his stomach.
   In the morning, suffering from diarrhea and vainly attempting to get a lift from the Holland Tunnel to the West, he tries to meet Phoebe at her school. Unfortunately, the principal catches him writing obscene words on the school walls and threatens to call the police. After a while he finally does meet Phoebe; she drags a big suitcase with her, intending to go West with him. When, however, she inadvertently opens it, thus spilling all her belongings on the ground, they decide to go to the carrousel in Central Park instead. Phoebe goes for a ride on it, although she claims she is too small. Holden just watches her falling off now and then until the smoke from his cigarette gets in his eyes and he decides to take a Greyhound bus to California in order to visit his brother D.B. in Hollywood and possibly collaborate with him on writing movie scripts.