Уна & Сэлинджер

«Hello, my name is Fr'ed'eric Beigbeder. I am a French writer and Nathana"el Karmitz gave me your e-mail. I am fascinated by the life of Oona O’Neill and currently working on a new novel about World War Two. As you know Oona met Jerry Salinger when she was sixteen, in 1940, before he went to England, France and Germany during the war. They had a small affair in 1941 and then she fell in love with Charlie Chaplin in Los Angeles… and they lived happily ever after! The reason why I am bothering you is that all biographers of Oona always mention long letters from Salinger to Oona during his training in the US Army. As a big fan of American literature and an admirer of Salinger’s and Chaplin’s work, I am very curious to see those letters. The Salinger Estate is against any publishing and of course I respect that. But since Mr Salinger’s passing in 2010, I believe these documents are now part of the history of literature of the 20th century. They are treasures and it’s sad that no one can even read them. It would be for me a tremendous honor to be able to spend even a few minutes studying these pages in Lady Chaplin archives. I have a theory about them: it is possible that Salinger used his devotion for Oona as inspiration for the first version of The Catcher in the Rye. Which would mean he started his masterpiece using Oona as a Muse, ten years before publishing his only novel! It would be also interesting to compare the Oona letters with his short stories published during the war in Story, Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, to see if there are similarities. This would contribute greatly to understand the process of Salinger’s writing about World War Two.

Thank you for your time

With my deepest gratitude,

Fr'ed'eric Beigbeder».^[139]

Ответ из «Chaplin Office» не заставил себя ждать. Он пришел мне по электронной почте через несколько часов.

«Dear Frederic

Thank you very much for your email which I have passed on to the Chaplins for their consideration.

As I told Nathanael, to date they have never autorised access to any writer to these letters, but you never know.

I have asked them for a reply for next Monday, so we’ll write to you again next week.

Kind regards

Kate Guyonvarch».^[140]

Двенадцатого марта ответ от семьи Чаплин упал как нож гильотины. На этот раз он был написан по-французски:

«Здравствуйте, Фредерик,

с сожалением вынуждена сообщить вам, что большинство членов семьи Чаплин не желают, чтобы письма их матери были предоставлены в ваше распоряжение для чтения.

Искренне ваша,

Кейт Гуйонварч».

Я ответил письмецом, исполненным печали (тоже по-французски):

«Дорогая Кейт,