The Only Book I've Ever Finished*

<< Oxford University: Full of uptight squares who wouldn't know a good book if it punched them in the face. Not that I'm bitter

It's Good Friday, so whilst half the country apparently sat in several miles of static traffic, bitterly weeping onto their plane tickets, I've been eating hot cross buns and learning very little. Fortunately, my brother has informed me of the following:

"The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls", a short story by J.D. Salinger which reveals secrets from "Catcher in the Rye", will not be published until 50 years after his death.

It concerns the death of Holden Caulfield's brother Kenneth, known as Allie in the original book. Oops, looks like I gave the ending away. It's currently locked away in the bowels of Princeton University, and can only be read under supervision, once you have bought your way in with two forms of ID. In terms of inaccessibility, it's up there with trying to give British Gas a meter reading over the phone. While it's true that Catcher in the Rye is a classic novel, I fear Salinger may have slightly misjudged it's importance by holding back a handful of trivial details for what could be 100 years after it's publication. I last read it 7 years ago and can't remember any of the events it throws new light upon - even if Salinger hit the dirt tomorrow, it won't be in Waterstones until I'm 74, by which stage I'll probably be more concerned with controlling my bowel movements than where that baseball glove came from.

As I've previously discussed, for someone with an interest in writing, my perseverance in digesting literature is embarrassingly poor. When I attended an interview at Oxford to bag a place on their English degree course, I had to venture into the head lecturer's office and discuss my favourite novel. As Catcher in the Rye was the only book I had finished in the previous year, I plumped for that, saying I really identified with the main character (a guy who hates being at university, as I recall). I can still remember the mixture of revulsion and pity in his eyes. I wasn't invited back.

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*I'm joking, of course. I have also completed The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and Spot Goes Fishing, both of which I can heartily recommend.