Nine Stories

The only thing that bothered me about these stories is the dialogue. Sometimes it seemed too Holden Caulfieldish. ( )

The first stories in this collection struck me as illustrations of how selfish and superficial people can be, apparently enough in the first story, ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’, to cause a man returned from war to kill himself. Mind you, with each story punctuated prolifically with references to smoking, I guess all the characters were on the same path.

Then I came to ‘For Esmé with love and squalor’, a story which, while set very much in the WW2 and proceeding years, seems to me to have stood the test of time better than most in this anthology. There’s quite a bit of humour in it and while Esmé seems rather full of herself in the first part, not listening to the young soldier but interrupting him to tell himself something about herself, the way she sends him her father’s wristwatch later shows that basically she is altruistic and the way the man responds positively despite his breakdown adds a touch of optimism lacking in some of the other stories. The crystal in the wristwatch, though, is broken, suggesting perhaps that the damage done to the man cannot entirely be reversed.

On the whole, though, I don’t think Salinger offers much to like in his characters. Perhaps, as in ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, he’s more interested in showing up inadequacies – as in the last story, ‘Teddy’ where Teddy’s parents treat each other and him badly while Teddy, some sort of reincarnated guru, says we have to vomit up logic in order to be able to see things as they actually are. While I can see that logic can restrict the way we think, I didn’t feel there was a lot to the story. In a way, quite a lot has been lost in the passage of time. Salinger’s descriptions of what people were wearing, for example, is presumably part of his characterisation of them, but today these descriptions just reinforce the way this book is set so firmly in its time without the clothes telling the reader anymore than that. ( )

Nine stories connected by an over-all sense of sadness, unfulfilled spiritual searching and mental instability. WWII is in the background of several of the stories showing the effects of post traumatic stress in its victims. The most famous of the stories is For Esme--With Love and Squalor where an unforgettable conversation in an English tea shop right before the Normandy invasion takes place between a US soldier and two young children. Salinger with his gift for making conversation ring true portrays how a chance encounter with precocious children carries the soldier through a battlefield breakdown. A master at communicating feelings. ( )

Alright, well. That was umm... I don't know what that was.

I needed to read a non-Goodreads friend recommended book for a challenge, and this is what I got saddled with. I've never read any Salinger, and honestly, this doesn't have me rushing out to change that fact.

Thankfully, it was short. I started it at the dentist today, thinking that short stories would be suited better to the name-called-then-sit-and-wait, rinse, repeat style of office visits. And it was, because I sure as hell didn't mind being interrupted from these stories.

I have no effing idea what these were supposed to be about. Was there a point? It seemed like most of these were just random bizarre and warped vignettes about well-to-do people standing around like...



Oh wait, there was actually one story in this collection that I almost halfway liked. Because it was the closest to actually BEING a story. With like, a beginning, middle and end... sort of. Not that it was good (it wasn't), or that I identified with the characters (I didn't and pretty much actively disliked all three of them), or even had a point other than the one above (FWP, yo!), but at least I pretty much knew what was happening in it.

Probably I just don't get it. That's OK. Not getting it was painful enough to only try once.

Sayanara, Salinger. May any pity attempts I give your books in the future at least be readable. And coherent. ( )

My only prior experience with reading Salinger was [The Catcher in the Rye]. That was over 30 years ago in high school.
I enjoyed most of the stories in this collection. My favorites were Teddy, and For Esmé - With Love and Squalor (for the first time I get some of the references in[ A Series of Unfortunate Events]). The only story I didn't like was Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut. The stories are all about loneliness and isolation and all invoke slightly sad feelings by the end. Two of the stories have a character that is a member of the Glass family. The Glass family are featured in Salinger's other books; [Raise High The Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction] and [Franny and Zooey]. I'm considering reading those books now just so I have a complete picture of the Glass family.
Recommended. ( )