The winning team

One of the more agreeable ripple effects of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, is that South Africa is suddenly all the rage, not only on sport fields but also in the field of cinema and literature.

I might not recognise soccer superstars like Beckham or Renaldo if I fell over them in the street, but I surely recognise the prolific talent in a spate of recent movies like District 9, Invictus and Disgrace, all based on South African stories.

And talking of stories: At the London Book Fair from 19 to 21 April the spotlight will fall on South African writing with authors like Antjie Krog, Marlene van Niekerk, Deon Meyer, Breyten Breytenbach and quite a few others taking part. Do keep this in mind if you live anywhere close to Britain and are interested in books from the southern tip of Africa. And if you don't yet know South African literature, well, this is the year of getting acquainted. No more excuses.

Even here in France, South African authors seem to be riding the crest of the literary wave. Three months ago Karel Schoeman was awarded the prestigeous Prize for the Best Foreign Book of 2009 (PMLE) for the French translation of his novel Hierdie lewe (see my blog post titled 'This literary life', November 2009) and last month Breyten Breytenbach won the equally impressive Max Jacobs Prize for the best foreign poetry volume of the past year for Outre-Voix/Voice Over. The poems in this bilingual French-English publication (described as 'a nomadic conversation' with his Palestinian friend and fellow poet, the late Mahmoud Darwich) was originally written in Breytenbach's mother tongue, Afrikaans.

Both these prizes have glorious histories of at least half a century, but had never before been given to a South African author. For two Afrikaans authors to win both these prizes within the space of three months is a major achievement. Quite as great as winning a Football World Cup, in my immodest opinion.

Catching the catcher(s)

It took the death of JD Saliger last week to make me realise that two of my all-time favourite books deal with catchers and catching. Actually three, if I count Don DeLilo's Underworld, which starts with an interminable baseball game, and in which a ball from this game plays a major role. So once again catching is of the essence - rather ironic for a reader like me who has never had any ball sense.

But in Underworld there are no catches or catchers in the title, as there are in Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Another difference is that I read the last two books when I was very young and impressionable. Who is it who said that it is perhaps only in our youth that books can truly influence us? Before the age of twenty we are like blank pages. Even a single sentence can make a huge difference to a previously empty page. Now that my page is all messy with decades of scribblings, books don't influence me as easily or as profoundly as when I was young. Sad but true.

Or maybe it's not so sad. Maybe I should rejoice that as a young and naive reader I was influenced by books as great as Catch-22 and The Catcher in the Rye. These novels gave me an emotional compass which I used to steer the rest of my reading life. They showed me that 'good' doesn't have to mean 'difficult', and that a serious story about a serious subject can be really entertaining and - sometimes - also really funny.

The only consolation, when a beloved author dies, is that he lives on through his books, often even acquiring a whole new readership immediately after his death. There are apparently two great career moves for a writer who wants to sell more books: one is to give in to Hollywood, the other is to give in to death. During the past week my adolescent son and his friends were frequently confronted with JD Salinger's name - not on the arts pages of newspapers, but on the front page. Or, more appropiately for their age group, on internet and on their mobile phones, as hard news. Some of these young people even started wondering about the meaning of a title as catchy as The Catcher in the Rye. What is 'a rye', one of my son's friends wanted to know. Honestly.

Which sent me back to my pale yellow Penguin version of this classic coming of age novel published nearly 60 years ago. In Chapter 22 Holden Caulfield, one of the most unforgettable adolescent characters ever created in fiction, talks to his sister Phoebe about what he wants to do in life.

'You know that song "If a body catch a body comin' through the rye"? I'd like - '
'It's "If a body meet a body coming through the rye"!' old Phoebe said. 'It's a poem. By Robert Burns.'
'I know it's a poem by Robert Burns.'
She was right, though. It is 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'. I didn't know it then, though.
'I thought it was "If a body catch a body",' I said. 'Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.'

There you are, I said to my son's friend. 'Do yourself a favour and read the rest.' This single passage was enough to remind me why I had loved the book when I'd been my son's age - and why I still loved it when I reread it fifteen years later. (Now another fifteen years have passed, so I guess I'm ready to read it again.) Salinger had an ear for dialogue that simply jumped off the page. The amazing thing is, it still does, half a century later.

Im memory of Salinger I also looked up Robert Burns' poem, Comin Thro' the Rye. The Scottish farmer Burns, known as 'the ploughman's poet', wrote this in 1782, and it remains an enchanting ballad of sensual liberty.

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?


Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warl' ken?

Do yourself a favour and read the rest at: http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/Comin_Thro_The_.htm?p=1

Salinger was in the unique position, among important post-World War 2 writers, of 'dying' fifty years before his actual death at the age of 91 last week. Ever since he went into hiding in Cornish, New Hampshire, he was as good as dead to the literary world. His last book was published in 1963 and his last work to appear in print was a story (Hapworth 16,1924)in the June 19 1965 issue of The New Yorker. But his few books never stopped selling; The Catcher in the Rye alone has sold more than sixty-five million copies, at an annual rate of about 250 000 copies. These are the kind of sales figures most living writers can only dream of achieving, perhaps for a year or two. To sell like this, consistently, for half a century, is truly extraordinary. And now that the author is officially dead, the sales will no doubt increase.

There is also the possibility of posthumous publication. In a rare press interview in 1974 he told The New York Times, 'There is a marvelous peace in not publishing... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.'

The burning question, of course, is what the writer did with whatever he wrote during the last fifty years. Maybe he destroyed everything. Maybe he wrote the same phrase over and over. But maybe, just maybe, we'll soon be able to read another great story from The Catcher.

No phony goddam crap - to use three of Holden Caulfield's favourite words.

Now that would really be something, wouldn't it?

On borrowing books

Like almost all passionate readers I prefer to own the books I really love. But since my budget has never been big enough to satisfy my hunger for new books, I often have to opt for the practicality of borrowing books.

Ah, borrowing books - a beautiful but dangerous road if ever there was one. Whenever I borrow a book from a friend, I risk falling into one of two treacherous traps. Either I love the book so much that I can't bear to live without it ever again. In which case I absolutely have to buy my own copy as soon as possible. Preferably even before I return the borrowed book. So much for stretching my budget by borrowing books.

Or, even worse, I enjoy the book so much that I can't possibly return it to its owner because anyone can see that it has been thoroughly enjoyed: caressed; carried around; opened and closed numerous times in numerous places; collecting small scars, slight stains, even faint odours along the way. In which case I simply have to buy a new copy for the old owner. And keep this slightly tattered one for myself. So much for stretching my budget...

Not that I mind the tattered look. I believe books take on a secret life of their own as they are read and reread and borrowed and swopped and sold and shared. To me reading is not an abstract intellectual or emotional experience, but a physical, sensual adventure in which the look and feel and even the smell of the book offer as much delight as the words and wisdom it contains.

Therefore I prefer not to borrow books in a pristine condition. It's a little like sleeping with a virgin, I imagine. One doesn't want to spoil the pleasure by feeling guilty afterwards. No - rather lend me a book that has obviously been loved by someone before me.

Every once in a while, though, I fall for a 'virginal' book on someone else's shelf, a book that the owner has not had the time or inclination to read, and then I start perusing, perhaps even reading a few pages, and before I know it, I'm hooked. I have to - absolutely, immediately, urgently - read this book.

This happened again quite recently, while spending a few nights in a friend's guest room. Temptingly close to my bed was an immaculate copy of John Updike's Due Considerations (2007), a collection of essays, criticism and short pieces about absolutely anything under the sun. This sixth - and sadly, final - volume of Updike's non-fiction prose was published eight years after More Matter, which in turn followed eight years after Odd Jobs. When the author died exactly a year ago, I posted a blog entry about his influential fiction(January 2009). This time I want to praise his non-fiction.

Due Considerations is a big, fat book of more than 700 pages - the index alone covers 30 pages! - a fine example of the variety and depth of Updike's interests and passions. 'Assembled here are pieces on...Shakespeare, Henry James, Hemingway, Albrecht Dürer, a baseball star, sex in literature, poker, undergraduate life and plenty about the New Yorker', as the Literary Review stated - and then we haven't mentioned the brilliant pieces on cars, Coco Chanel, a visit to China and many, many more. Updike has an opinion about everything, it seems, but he delivers it with such unfailing good humor, fierce intelligence and flashy style that it doesn't matter whether you agree with him or not. As the Sunday Times claimed, these pages 'don't only pay handsome tribute to the pleasures of reading. They abundantly provide them.'

What more could any enthusiastic reader ask from any book about reading (among other things)?

It also happens to be the perfect bedside companion - or guest-room book - because you can dip into it at leisure and find something delectable on almost every page, close it when you grow sleepy, read another page on a totally different subject when you wake up. This is how I started reading it in my friend's home, simply hoping for a few nights' entertainment, but I soon wanted more...

So when my friend kindly offered to lend it to me, I took it home and devoured it from cover to cover - and realised a little too late that the book wasn't looking quite as immaculate as when I first laid my eyes on it. (And to be honest, by this time I couldn't bear the thought of parting with a book that had provided me with so much reading pleasure.) I was obliged to find another copy for my friend - and quickly too.

Thank heaven for internet book shops. Now my friend has her new virgin copy to read, if she ever gets around to reading it, and I'm thrilled to have the frequently fondled familiar old copy next to my own bed. Together with heaps of other books I recently read or still want to read, tomorrow, next week, next month.

To all the readers out there, may 2010 be filled with fabulous books - bought, begged or borrowed - and enough spare hours to enjoy all of them.