Nine Stories has all the undertones of that classic Salinger off-beat, retro stamp and it is often overshadowed by A Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey despite being a small masterpiece in its own right, but I was apprehensive about picking up the short story collection all the same. It is rather silly to hold on to a writer’s more established and acclaimed work and not venture out to slightly unchartered territory specially when this reader realized that it was not quite unchartered territory for her after all.

Moreover, it feels strange to revisit Salinger’s unique world not merely because his eclectic turns of phrases and marginalized characters make the reader yearn for the yesteryear and a world gone by, but it is also an odd contrast to modern literature and life. Salinger’s oddball, somewhat hostile, and always beautifully vulnerable gang struggling in a pedantic and square world have an immense cultural significance. Indeed, the Rockwellian undertones of Salinger’s pen feels slightly uncomfortable to today’s discerning viewer. In this day and age, intimate friendships and conversations between precocious children and adult men are seen as unnatural if not immediate cause for alarm which is a poor, poor reflection of our society and its crumbling mores. Salinger understands and treats young adults with dignity and serious aplomb which is quite bittersweet and worth revisiting if only to reclaim our own displaced sense of wonder and childlike innocence. ( )

What a bizarrely uneven book.First time I've read Salinger. The first story was shocking and disturbing - the kind of disturbing that seriously makes you wonder about reading more. A good start.But after that, for the most part, the stories ... aren't very good. The writing is generally unremarkable, and most of them don't have anything original to say, or have anything noteworthy actually happen. The recurring theme that returns again and again is simply "War screws you up" - which is valid, and was bound to be in the public consciousness at the time of publication ... but isn't very original, either in the idea or in any of the presentations of the idea.Which is why it was so astonishing to find that the two final stories in the collection - De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period and (to an only slightly lesser extent) Teddy - are absolute gems. They're funny, they're fascinating, the writing is really interesting, and they both really invite careful study. Had the rest of the stories been anywhere near to this level, I'd have rated the collection much higher.A perplexing mix. ( )

This is a great collection of Salinger stories. I especially liked The Laughing Man, Teddy, and A Perfect Day for Bananafish. Though not much generally happens in the stories, it is the essence and feelings that they evoke that really did it for me. ( )

This is a collection of short stories and vignettes which act as snapshots of the lives of the characters within them. Some are rather short and feel a bit incomplete or idle, but I think this was intended by Salinger so as to not bog down the reader with overt themes or ideology and simply to show moments in peoples' lives. I'm thinking particularly of 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut', 'Just Before the War with the Eskimos', 'Down at the Dingy' and 'Pretty Mouth and Green Eyes' when I say that some of the stories feel a little light on purpose. Still, they are well-written and worth reading. The remaining stories are all rather touching, each in its own peculiar way, and rival 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'Franny and Zooey' as Salinger's very best works.

'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' depicts a young man recently discharged from WWII on vacation with his wife, who spends the entirety of the story on the phone with her mother discussing her husband's mental state and reassuring her that he isn't completely dangerous. The husband, the main character, is rather indifferent and distant and only brightens up when he is talking with a toddler-aged girl with whom he swims in the ocean and tells the tragic tale of the bananafish.

'For Esme with Love and Squalor' wins the award both for best title and best story in the collection (rivaled closely by 'Teddy'). It is about a young American soldier who is in training in England not long before the Invasion of Normandy. He keeps to himself and seems to be a rather reflective guy, walking around this small English town. He meets a very young girl, maybe 13 or 14, who is having tea with her family in a cafe. She sits down with him and they share a very personal and odd conversation in which she asks him to write to her from the front and also to write her a story-- preferably "about squalor". The dialogue and strange connection between these two people, who are from rather separate worlds, shows the way people can unexpectedly find each other and have a surprising, almost spiritual connection.

'Teddy', the final story in the book, is about an extremely precocious 6 year old boy who is a dedicated Buddhist and is convinced that he has been reincarnated. He is being studied by scientists and psychologists who marvel at his intelligence and spiritual insights and who, unable to help themselves upon learning that he believes he can predict the future, demand to know their future and when they might die. The boy is on a cruise ship with his parents, an eccentric and somewhat cynical couple. He wanders off on his own and has a long conversation with a man on the deck of the ship in which he casually predicts his own death just before it occurs and finishes the story. This story is really about the conflict between logic and spirituality, the clash between the rational and irrational world. It's one of the most interesting discussions of spirituality and eastern religion that I've encountered. ( )

Not excessively memorable. Standard collection of repackaged and republished magazine short stories. Warm up for imminent reading of Catcher in the Rye. ( )