Holden Caulfield's Implicature

Speranza

Bob Dylan refers to the “Age of Masturbation,” and it’s funny that there is a line – or two – in the film, “Rebel in the Rye,” – NOW PLAYING – that makes a mention – or two – of the verb out of which that noun (‘masturbation’) derives. It’s uttered by this Columbia don of creative teching whose class Salinger is attending. The don calls the class off after some five minutes – and having assigned some home work for the next meeting – ‘a short story’ – with lines to the effect: “I’ll leave now; in the remaining time you can either write that short story or masturbate [general laughter from students]. Mind, some writers don’t usually make that distinction!”.

The Wikipedia entry for “The Catcher in the Rye” (recall Aristotle, “Wikipedia is Wikipedia”) has a short section on “Interpretations,” according to which, “The Catcher in the Rye” is really about the Second World War – in code as it were. In any case, “Rebel in the rye,” which is based on a biography of Salinger, makes the point too in that it is Holden Caulfield who keeps Salinger through those difficult years.

There are a few good conversational implicatures in the film. Salinger’s literary agent keeps saying, “You know, publishing is EVERYTHING.” She is being hyperbolic, but most New Yorkers are. At the very end, when Salinger communicates to her that he intends to publish no more, she appeals to ANOTHER trope, not hyperbole – but ‘irony’. “Ah well, as I always say, you know, publishing AIN’T anything,” which retrieves a smile from Salinger (played by Hoult).

Salinger’s admiration for Hemingway is well known. It seems Scott Fitzgerald was another of his heroes, and Holden Caulfield makes a passing reference to the Gatsby. In any case, it may have been Scott Fitzerald who ‘convinced’ Salinger to move from New York to Westport – Scott Fizgerald Country – before settling in his Cornish (New Hampshire) ‘cottage’.

It might do to revise Holden Caulfield’s implicatures, but I fear to dub them ‘conversational’. For one, Holden Caulfield is a fictional character, but surely literary critics have applied, say, Grice’s apparatus to the study of fiction. For another, this fictional character DOES HOLD conversations – with other fictional characters. At one point in “Rebel in the right,” Salinger meets the editor of “The New Yorker,” who sounds very Griceian: “One of your problems is that you over-explain.” He would say ‘explicate too much,’ but Grice had not yet coined ‘implicature’. Salinger takes this advice to heart. The editor also says something both Griceian and Wittgensteinian (who disliked the idea of a private language): “You seem to under-estimate your addressee’s ability to understand you – i.e. your implicatures” (I’m rephrasing). In the next scene we see Hoult (well, Salinger) crossing out some lines from his manuscript. In other words, leaving the IMPLICATURES _out_. But for a third, Holden wanted to get a retreat. Let me see if I find the quote

“I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody.”

which I’m unsure how Grice would react to! But when was it that Grice actually qualified his ‘implicature’ with ‘conversational’? In 1967. In 1965, while lecturing at Oxford he had not yet provided a systematic classification of implicature. By 1967 and beyond, his taxonomy goes something like this:

A)      EXPLICATURE

B)       DISIMPLICATURE

C)       IMPLICATURE – This can be

a)        CONVERSATIONAL

b)       NON-CONVERSATIONAL

Both (a) and (b) fall within what Grice calls NONCONVENTIONAL. He gives room for a class of implicature which is conventional, rather, and which he exemplified with the ‘implications’ invited by, say ‘but’ (His example, the Great War song, “She was poor, but she was honest” – what Frege called ‘colouring’.

And so on. By leaving the ‘conversational’ behind, Holden Caulfield can still very well pretend what he wishes and avoid ‘hav[ing] to have any goddam … conversations with anybody.’ JUST HIS SELF?

Cheers,

Speranza