Preppy Handbook redux in 3-D?

Via Gawker comes this news that the editor and co-author of The Official Preppy Handbook is set to release a sequel, called True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World, in September 2010. The original came out in 1980 and sold around 1.3 million copies. One of those copies belonged to me, and I treated it as if it were The Bible. Suffice it to say, I took that sh*t fairly seriously.

For the uninitiated or unfamiliar, here's the Wikipedia entry:

The Official Preppy Handbook (1980) is a tongue-in-cheek humor reference guide co-written and edited by Lisa Birnbach. It describes an aspect of North American culture she styles as prepdom. In addition to insights on prep school and university life at socially acceptable schools, it illuminates many aspects of upper-class, old money WASP society. Topics range from appropriate clothing for various social events to how to choose the correct college and major. While the book addresses "preppy" life from birth to old age, its coverage is in the greatest depth for the school, college, and young-adult years; coverage becomes thinner for subsequent stages of life.

It may have been considered "tongue-in-cheek," but I knew people like the ones parodied on the pages of The Official Preppy Handbook. I had a good friend who was from Massachusetts (Boston), my best friend ended up being sent to Phillips Exeter Academy (like Holden and J.D. Salinger), and two buddies went to Harvard (others to Rice, Cornell, and U.V.A.). I ended up at U.T., pledging the Animal House frat my first semseter (Fall '85). I knew guys who wore clothes like this:



Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
EBiN on floor in the center, yellow tie, probably a little bit drunk, mid-'80s
How interesting it is a sequel to The Official Preppy Handbook is set to be released the exact same year of J.D. Salinger's death - I have both of them sort of intertwined in my mind. Holden Caufield was the ideal "prep," a fact I seem to remember him being mentioned on at least one of the pages in Handbook. And I might not have been so keen to read The Catcher in the Rye at all had it not been mentioned so frequently (as far as my memory recalls) on the pages of The Official Preppy Handbook. So I can at least say that about it. I read the book for the first time that 8th grade school year, at a very impressionable time. In fact, the Handbook and the movie Animal House were the basis for my world view for a long, long, long, long time. Longer than I care to admit, publicly. Long. Not now though. Not too much. Well, maybe a little bit.

Son of Salinger

Wow! Mind exploding here. I'm currently reading (for the very first time) Franny and Zooey (1961), J.D. Salinger's third book, in which he combined two short stories ("Franny" from 1955 and "Zooey," 1957). It is somewhat dedicated to Salinger's son, Matthew, who was a one-year-old at the time of its publication. Despite assuming the son of perhaps the most elusive and hermit-like "celebrity" of our time would possibly be more private, anonymous even, I did an image search for him out of curiosity. But not only is he not camera shy, he is of all things an actor. His first role was as one of the Alpha Betas in Revenge of the Nerds (1984). He is #84 in this scene:


Salinger must have been so proud...
The son of the author of The Catcher in the Rye
Oh, the irony! What a trip, huh? Matthew Salinger was also Captain America in an internationally released film (from 1990):


Maybe this was a well known fact and common knowledge, but it's news to me! It's almost as bizarre a case of worlds colliding as Geraldo Rivera having been married to the daughter of Kurt Vonnegut...

"Comin Thro' the Rye"

Holden Caulfield

This is great. I'm rerererereading (that's at least four times) The Catcher in the Rye. Anyway, that's a nice interpretation of Holden, complete with red hunting cap and the copy of "Little Shirley Beans" he bought for Phoebe. It was done by artist Carmela Alvarado. Check out more like it here. And this is an older, Geocities site, but it has a pretty cool photo tour of NYC as Holden knew it.

Happy B-Day, J.D. Salinger!

From Wikipedia:

Jerome David "J.D." Salinger (born January 1, 1919) is an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. He has not published an original work since 1965 and has not been interviewed since 1980.

Raised in Manhattan, New York, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he published the critically-acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in The New Yorker magazine, which became home to much of his subsequent work. In 1951 Salinger released his first novel, The Catcher in the Rye, an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read, selling around 250,000 copies a year.

The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention and scrutiny; Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently.


"Comin thro' the Rye," by Robert Burns

I refuse to mention the Lohan connection

This is from the film Chapter 27, which is currently in production. It shows Jared Leto in character as Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon shortly after receiving an autograph from the former Beatle. Note how he's holding a copy of the Double Fantasy album, which Lennon graciously autographed, and The Catcher in the Rye. I must say, he looks convinving. He appears to have applied the Deniro method and put on some weight. So much for the killer abs (I'm so jealous. Damn you, genetics!!).



The title is most likely a reference to the fact Chapman, being the disturbed person he was, sat down and read from The Catcher in the Rye only seconds after killing Lennon. The classic J.D. Salinger novel only has twenty-six chapters. Chapman is said to have seen himself as a sort of Holden Caufield (the novel's protagonist). Holden hated phony people, and Chapman believed Lennon was a phony who'd betrayed the values he appeared to promote in songs such as "All You Need Is Love" and "Imagine". In a sense, Chapman "wrote" the twenty-seventh chapter.

"If a body meet a body, coming through the rye..."

Ain't It Cool News is reporting, via Variety, that actor Jared Leto has been cast in the role of Mark David Chapman in a movie titled Chapter 27. Actress/blog fodder Lindsay Lohan has been cast in a role, as well. Chapman is the man who shot John Lennon shortly after receiving an autograph from the former Beatle.


The title is most likely a reference to the fact Chapman, being the disturbed person he was, sat down and read from The Catcher in the Rye only seconds after killing Lennon. The classic J.D. Salinger novel only has twenty-six chapters. Chapman is said to have seen himself as a sort of Holden Caufield (the novel's protagonist). Holden hated phony people, and Chapman believed Lennon was a phony who'd betrayed the values he appeared to promote in songs such as "All You Need Is Love" and "Imagine".

It's sad that we glorify creeps like Chapman by devoting a film to him. I guess our interest in things like that come from the same impulse we have to slow down while driving past a traffic accident.