Nine Stories

Short story time… Nine Stories by JD Salinger, yes the author of the infamous The Catcher in the Rye.  The book was written in the early 1950s, so lots of reflection, post World War II.  Just as the title states the book contains nine separate stories, some more interesting than others, though many refer to life after the war especially with the negative psychological effects of participating in the death and destruction of others.  The stories have a great deal of “sub-text” and level of the unexpected.  Salinger pushes the envelopes with his characters and rarely connects “mainstream” happy endings as was the norm for many of his counterparts writing during this era of the “Leave it Beaver” time period.  I’ll share one of the stories to illustrate my point, A Fine Day for Bananafish follows the vacation of Muriel and Seymour Glass in Florida.  The story begins with the phone conversation between Muriel and her mother who is concerned about her husband’s erratic behavior, wishing her daughter would return home.  We then experience Seymour’s strange behavior sitting on the beach fully covered in a robe and engaging in dialogue with a three and half year-old girl.  After their bizarre exchange about the presence of bananafish in the ocean, Seymour leaves and interacts with his wife.  After they go up to their room and are resting, Seymour finds a gun in the room, brings it to his bed, and proceeds to kill himself.  As noted, Salinger is not afraid to present the “complicated side” of human behavior and he illustrates it throughout his stories.  I believe Salinger’s work is an acquired taste.  He is not afraid to capture the complicated nature of human behavior.  More and more I find Salinger’s characters in my everyday life.  They are not “make believe” and are more easily found in our world every day.  Some of the stories were more interesting than others, though the bizarre was a constant presence in almost all of the stories.  Yes, Mr. Salinger, your characters are all around us… not an uplifting reading, so if you want to feel in a better place after reading one, this may not be on your list.