A note from J.D. Salinger to aspiring movie director Hubert Cornfield declining an offer to turn The Catcher in the Rye into a movie. (Source. Via.) Salinger consistently refused to permit film adaptations of his novel, but in this case the dashed-off note is actually too kind: in 1953, Cornfield was 24 years old and had never directed a film. There is a hint of disdain in Salinger’s use of “ardor” to describe the young man’s persistence. (Cornfield would go on to a middling career directing B-movies and a few long-forgotten features.) The letter is also interesting in that Salinger, despite his insistence that “I see my novel as a novel and only as a novel,” apparently was toying with the idea of casting and directing a film version himself. Comforting that, at age 34, even Salinger was not above temptation.