Catcher Typo?

[Chris Kubica]

I just finished a Catcher re-read. I have a question for y'all on two things I noticed this time that I didn't before.

First, on p. 196 of the good ole maroon paperback (or a few pages into Chapter 25) Holden says, in my copy, "So figured I was getting cancer." It seems to be missing anither "I" as in "So I figured I was getting cancer." He uses "I figured I" a bunch of other times in the book, but I wasn't sure if this was a typo or just Holden slang.

Your thoughts? If you have a more recent copy or a Little, Brown one, is this line different in yours?

Chris

[James Rovira]

What's the sentence before?  "so figured I was getting cancer" might make sense as a dependent clause attached to a previous sentence that provides a noun for "figures."  Holden may be thinking of it that way, even though he ends the previous sentence before the word "So" -- so the sentence would be written that way to indicate some kind of afterthought, like he decided to continue the previous sentence after he had ended it.

I could see Salinger doing something like this deliberately.

Jim

[Chris Kubica]

"Then I read this other article about how you can tell if you have cancer or not. It said if you had any sores in your mouth that didn't heal pretty quickly, it was a sign that you probably had cancer. I'd had this sore on the inside of my lip for about two weeks. So figured I was getting cancer. That magazine was some little cheerer upper."

It just reads odd to me as is.

-- 

Chris Kubica

[James Rovira]

Yeah, but it's Holden's voice, too, isn't it?

Let's look at the two sentences together:

I'd had (I had had) this sore on the inside of my lip for about two weeks.  So figured I was getting cancer.

The verb "figured" in the second sentence doesn't have a subject (implied "I"), so it reads weirdly to you.  But, if we combined it with the previous sentence:

I had had this sore on the inside of my lip for about two weeks, so figured I was getting cancer.

It's not as bad, as you assume the first verb in the second clause shares the subject with the previous sentence, I.

Jim R