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Nine Stories

J.D. Salinger

4.17 · Rating details · 137,056 ratings · 4,455 reviews

Nine Stories (1953) is a collection of short stories by American fiction writer J. D. Salinger published in April 1953. It includes two of his most famous short stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor". (Nine Stories is the U.S. title; the book is published in many other countries as For Esmé - with Love and Squalor, and Other Stories. ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, 198 pages

Published May 1st 1991 by Little, Brown and Company (first published April 6th 1953)

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Aug 16, 2008 brian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to brian by: david

i know of three people who are totally obsessed with j.d. salinger:

john hinckley
mark david chapman
goodreads david

i know of four reasons why i (must) love this book:

1) because i don't want to see a list that looks like this:

ronald reagan
john lennon
goodreads brian

2) because in the early 80s salinger was a huge fan of the sitcom mr. merlin which was based on the premise -- wait for it… wait for it... -- that merlin (yeah, that merlin) is alive and well in san francisco and working as a mechanic. ...more

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May 17, 2010 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, fiction, literature, 20th-century

Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger

Nine Stories:
A Perfect Day for Bananafish (1948)
Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut (1948)
Just Before the War with the Eskimos (1948)
The Laughing Man (1949)
Down at the Dinghy (1949)
For Esmé – with Love and Squalor (1950)
Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes (1951)
De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period (1952)
Teddy (1953)

عنوانها: «دلتنگی‌های نقاش خیابان چهل و هشتم (نه داستان)»؛ «نه داستان»؛ نویسنده: جی.دی سالینجر (سلینجر)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: در ماه سپتامبر سال 1998میلادی

عنوان: دلتنگی‌های نق ...more

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Jul 10, 2017 Fatima rated it really liked it · review of another edition

قبلا ناتور دشت رو خونده بودم و حالم از شخصیت هولدن بهم خورده بود و با خودم عهد کرده بودم دیگه دنبال کتاب هایی از این نویسنده نرم که اصولا جو گیرها توی وبلاگ هاشون با آب و تاب میگن عالیه ! هرچند دوباره تحت تاثیر جو این کتاب رو شروع کردم و اوایلش به خودم میگفتم که باز وقتت با یه کتاب نامناسب حروم شد ؛ اما با خوندن چندتا داستان دیگه تازه دستم اومد سلینجر سبکش چطوریه و یک حالت سوییچ بین کودکی و بزرگسالی سر تا سر داستان هاش به چشم میخورد حالا یا به صورت محسوس یا نا محسوس . داستان های "تقدیم به ازمه ب ...more

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Jul 03, 2007 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

If I can get serious for a moment, and cast aside the brittle, smartassed, persona that the social networking aspect of goodreads tends to bring out, I'd like to try to express what it is that drives me in this life. It is the following belief, instilled primarily by my mother, an exceptionally smart woman who never suffered fools gladly, but had the mitigating grace to be one of the warmest, most generous women you could ever hope to meet, as well as having one of the greatest voices you can im If I can get serious for a moment, and cast aside the brittle, smartassed, persona that the social networking aspect of goodreads tends to bring out, I'd like to try to express what it is that drives me in this life. It is the following belief, instilled primarily by my mother, an exceptionally smart woman who never suffered fools gladly, but had the mitigating grace to be one of the warmest, most generous women you could ever hope to meet, as well as having one of the greatest voices you can imagine (Buttercup)

Here's the main thing she taught me: each of us has an inescapable responsibility to take whatever talent we have been given on this earth, and to develop it as far and as well as life allows.

This is so deeply ingrained in my beliefs that I can pretty much trace every major decision I've made in my life back to it.

What does this have to do with the price of eggs? Well, it's the reason Jerome David Salinger makes me as mad as all get out. Because I can certainly understand why, given the perfection of the stories in this collection, any writer might not want to risk spoiling his reputation by following up with work that might not reach the same level. Hell, nothing could possibly reach the perfection of the stories, "For Esme - with Love and Squalor", "The Laughing Man", "Down by the Dinghy", or "Just Before the War with the Eskimos". And while I'm not really a great fan of Seymour Glass, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is pretty damned awesome as well.

So, yeah, J.D. - after those stories, it's hard to imagine anything better. Even anything comparable.

But that's still no excuse for not trying, you arrogant egotistical bastard. You were dealt a monumental, unimaginable, talent. And for you to squat there in-fucking-communicado in your bloody bunker in New England, resting on your admittedly golden freaking laurels, is an act of unconscionable, unpardonable, selfishness. I could almost convince myself that your genius crossing over into madness was the explanation for your lack of output, but you seem craftily able to sic your lawyers on anyone perceived to encroach on your goddamned "privacy".

So, while I can understand the impulse of not wanting to risk your reputation, I sure as hell can't forgive it. You were granted an incredible gift. You should be using it.

And, sorry folks, it's far beyond me to locate exactly where the genius lies in the particular stories mentioned. You really just need to read them for yourselves.

...more

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Sep 10, 2016 Duane rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-book-challenge, american-classics, 50-greatest-short-stories, rated-books, reviewed-books, short-stories, 5-star-books

This is as good of a short story collection that one could hope to find. Salinger was a heck of a writer, certainly well known for his classic, The Catcher in the Rye, but there is much more out there, like this little jewel for example. I give this 5 stars on the strength of two stories alone, but they all were good. The two stories I mention are A Perfect Day for Bananafish, and For Esme - With Love And Squalor. Both have themes involving troubled soldiers returning from World War II. Salinger ...more

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Jun 10, 2009 Paul Bryant rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

If kidnappers had snatched up J D Salinger some time in the early 1970s, driven like madmen through the night and the next day too and imprisoned him in a small but pleasant room somewhere near Boise, furnished him with with all mod cons, and told him he wasn't going anyplace soon until he'd finished at the very least another nine stories, and at best three or four complete novels; and if the kidnappers - due to an endearing cocktail of naivete and compassion (because you know they were just lit If kidnappers had snatched up J D Salinger some time in the early 1970s, driven like madmen through the night and the next day too and imprisoned him in a small but pleasant room somewhere near Boise, furnished him with with all mod cons, and told him he wasn't going anyplace soon until he'd finished at the very least another nine stories, and at best three or four complete novels; and if the kidnappers - due to an endearing cocktail of naivete and compassion (because you know they were just literature fans like you and me, not blank-eyed killers, and they weren't entirely convinced about this whole caper to begin with let it be said) let JD go for long walks (to get inspiration, but really to beat on a nearby farmhouse door and call the cops); and if they were then rounded up (not too hard, said the cops) and put on trial - not a jury in the land would have convicted them.
When the prosecution rested and the defence opened, their lawyer would simply have issued a copy of Nine Stories to all 12 jurors and said "Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case."

This is not to say that each of the Nine is such a great golden glowing nugget of controlled power, insight and wisdom (some are) but that the whole is such eloquent proof of the perspicacity, intelligence and all-round humanbeingness of JDS that reading this collection is very bittersweet - how lovely it all is, and how very little of it there is, when duller, pudgier-fingered writers type on, and on, and publish, and publish.
Anyone who has encountered comments by myself on Ye Olde Catcher in Ye Rye will now accuse me of inconsistency, or at least, be expecting me to accuse JDS of the same. How can I hate the novel for its unbearable whine and Johnny-one-note somebody-shut-him-up-please tiresomeness and yet enjoy all the rest of JDS as I do? They're cut from the same cloth, it's not like Picasso's blue period and Picasso the cubist which could have been different guys, or the Velvet Underground's first and third albums which could have been a different band. But I've come across this in different areas of the universe - can't stand Tom Waits until Swordfishtrombones, think he's a genius for three albums, then can't stand him again. Shakespeare's tragedies - oui! Shakespeare's comedies - er, non! So maybe not that unusual.

JDS famously published all his stuff between 1951 and 1963 and then STOPPED. (Which is why the kidnappers pounced, they gave him a good ten year rest and that was ENOUGH to their way of thinking.) And he stopped just as things were getting really interesting. He writes of the murderous conformities of American educated middle-class life and of the outcasts and especially young kids who either subvert this button-down world or bail out swiftly. Just as he stopped publishing things began to change. the 60s began swinging, and the youthquake (as it has been termed) was upon us. Just the very stuff that you might have thought would have fascinated JD. What do the kids do when they try to make their own rules up? I feel the absence of JDS throughout the 60s and 70s, as i feel the absence of another American writer who STOPPED in 1963, Sylvia Plath. I want to know what these two clever clogs would have made of the tumultuous ten years which followed the self-stilling of their voices.

But back to the Nine Stories - and to steal a fellow reviewer's catch-phrase:

Is it a classic?

Answer : Yes. Goddamn!

PS : I realise I also speculated upon the advisability of kidnapping Thomas Bernhard elsewhere but that was to save the world from any further novels like Extinction, whereas the JD Salinger kidnap is for the opposite reason. But I would like to publicly state that I do not condone the imprisonment of any writers for any reasons, so please don't try this at home.

...more

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Nov 14, 2014 Kenny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, short-stories-novellas, spenky-says-so, salinger, desert-island-books, favorites

“Each of his phrases was rather like a little ancient island, inundated by a miniature sea of whiskey.”

Oh Mr. Salinger, why couldn’t you have published more of these amazing stories in your life time???

Esme

Nine Stories -- a collection of brilliant short stories from J.D. Salinger. It is in this collection where the Glass family, the main constituents of Franny and Zooey, is first introduced. In the next eight stories, we meet and get to know characters with an assortment of menta ...more

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Nov 19, 2019 emma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, auto-buy-authors, 4-stars, beautifully-written, recommend, non-ya, reviewed

If I were more put together, I’d have nine tiny one-sentence reviews for this and talk about each story, but I’m not, and so as is it’s a miracle that I have any notes on it at all and also am writing this less than three months after reading it.

I always know if I REALLY like a book that is of VERY high quality if it makes me miss being in literature classes. This one, for example, made me desperately wish I were in one so I could debate “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes” for at LEAST one million ...more

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Nov 09, 2018 İntellecta rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-literature, classics, short-stories

Nine Stories by J.D Salinger "There are nine deep, enigmatic narratives. It is always about the motives of childlike innocence, the adult world and the invaders of war in the lives of individuals and the isolation of a traumatized man. I was surprised that some stories bored me, although literary quality can be no doubt. Salinger's dialogues are fabulous, the course of the stories consistent. It's the portrait of an absolutely static Society.

3,5/5 ...more

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Mar 06, 2007 Rolls rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Fans of rainy days, Belle and Sebastian and Wes Anderson

Salinger's "Nine Stories" should be renamed "How to Write Short Stories." While many hold up "Catcher in the Rye" as the zenith of his achievements for me it will always be this wistful and brave little book. I re-read it two or three times or year. I love it that much.

To be honest out of the nine stories collected here I would say that only a third are Salinger's best. "Perfect Day for Banafish," "For Esme - With Love and Squalor," and "The Laughing Man" are to me the peaks of short fiction. E Salinger's "Nine Stories" should be renamed "How to Write Short Stories." While many hold up "Catcher in the Rye" as the zenith of his achievements for me it will always be this wistful and brave little book. I re-read it two or three times or year. I love it that much.

To be honest out of the nine stories collected here I would say that only a third are Salinger's best. "Perfect Day for Banafish," "For Esme - With Love and Squalor," and "The Laughing Man" are to me the peaks of short fiction. Everything that Salinger does best he does in these three tales. Nobody wrote children better than him. They leap off the page at you right into your lap. Esme, her brother, Seymour's little friend and the narrator of "Laughing Man" are so vivid and real you feel like running them all down the street for ice cream and cake. They are that true to life.

Same goes for Seymour in "Banana Fish" and the narrator of "For Esme." Nobody got into the heads of brilliant but troubled young people better than Salinger. What we hear about Seymour as opposed to what we see creates a palpable (and beautiful)tension. The narrator of "For Esme"'s war inflicted emotional problems are drawn with such artistry as to flood over you as you read.

"Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut," "Daumier-Smith's Blue Period," and "War with the Eskimos" to me fall into the "damn entertaining but not great" category. These stories are beautifully observed, funny, poignant and always a pleasure to read but lack that magic the first three have to spare. Of course that being said even being good but not great Salinger makes them better than most.

Finally "Teddy," "Down in the Dinghy" and "Pretty Mouth Green My Eyes" are good stories but I feel they suffer from being collected in the same book as the others. Each alone is enthralling but not a one of them is a patch on "Esme," or "Bananafish." Where the other stories feel like a full meal these come off more like snacks. Tasty but not quite filling.

If you like Salinger and want to read something by him that won't make you want to shoot a president or a sixties rock star this my friend is the book for you.

...more

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Dec 30, 2018 Robin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, american, literary-fiction, short-stories

Adverbs. It's all because of adverbs that I read this collection. I asked a wonderful teacher of mine about adverbs (whether to use them, and all that), and the main gist of his answer was: "Read Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger. He's the master of the adverb."

Good lord, he is. The almost 200 page collection is positively (see what I did there?) LITTERED with them. One beautifully (ha!) placed adverb after the next. In one paragraph I counted five. Five gorgeous adverbs in a single, solitary paragr ...more

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May 15, 2015 Gypsy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: داستان-كوتاه, کاش-اینطوری-بنویسم

نمدونم ترجمه یه نارسایی‌هایی داشت واقعاً یا نه، ولی ویرایشش یه‌‌کم اعصابمو خرد می‌کرد. کتابی که اینقد تجدید چاپ شده اونم. سلینجر اونم. داستان‌کوتاهاش اونم. سلینجر برا من یه جورایی مث دوا شده. هرازگاهی باید یه چیزی ازش بخونم که دوباره ریکاوری بشم. چندتا از داستان‌های این مجموعه رو قبلاً هم خونده بودم(مثل یک روز خوش برای موز ماهی و دهانم فلان و چشمانم چنان :همر: خدایی چه مناسبتی داشت این اسم من نفهمیدم!) و کلاً دوست داشتم. بازم اینو خواهم خوند. ولی نه اینطور پشت سر هم. هر داستانو دیگه می‌کشه می‌رم ...more

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Jun 02, 2018 Mevsim Yenice rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018-exact

Bir süredir kitap seçimlerimden yana oldukça şanslı olduğumu hissediyorum. Ama yine de itiraf etmek gerekirse, uzun bir süredir beni bu kadar etkileyen, çiviyle yerime çakan öyküler okumamıştım.

Yıllardır rafta okunmayı bekleyen kitaplardan biriydi Salinger’ın Dokuz Öyküsü. İyi ki beklemiş. Benim gibi öykü delisi biri için, bazı öykülerin, bazı atmosferlerin doğru zamanı var gibi geliyor hep. Mesela 10 yıl önce okumuş olsam araya gidebilecek bir kitaptı benim için bu, o nedenle tam da şu günlerd ...more

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Apr 26, 2007 Chloe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics, shorties, i_am_in_love, new-york

I was sitting at my cube farm today, moving numbers from one spreadsheet to another, cursing the internet tracking that keeps me from daytime Goodreading and daydreaming of pixies and unicorns when I received an email from my wife that utterly rocked my world. ":( Salinger's dead," read the short missive, and with that my world grew a little more gray. Normally news of celebrity death does little but placate my immense Schadenfreude, but Salinger's death is a serious blow to me and I feel compel I was sitting at my cube farm today, moving numbers from one spreadsheet to another, cursing the internet tracking that keeps me from daytime Goodreading and daydreaming of pixies and unicorns when I received an email from my wife that utterly rocked my world. ":( Salinger's dead," read the short missive, and with that my world grew a little more gray. Normally news of celebrity death does little but placate my immense Schadenfreude, but Salinger's death is a serious blow to me and I feel compelled to emote all over my computer screen (don't worry, I have tissues).

Who remembers the moment when they first fell passionately in love with reading? I'm not talking about when you realized that reading was enjoyable, or a good distraction from your family, or a great way to spend a sunny day in the park. I'm talking about when you realized that this was it: life could throw anything at you and, as long as you had reading, you could cope and move on. That rather than simply entertaining, your world could be expanded and fleshed out by what you glean through a page- that this great human fuck-up can best be understood by placing yourself within the head of strangers and seeing the world through their eyes for a time.

I can chart the exact instant this thought struck me- when I first finished reading Salinger's Nine Stories, particularly the utterly heart-breaking "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." To this day this book is still my favorite of his limited oeuvre and a surefire contender for Top 5 favorites of all time. While he is deservedly renowned for Holden Caulfield's teen angst, it is the subtle pathos of Nine Stories that marks him as an author without equal.

The alienated Seymour Glass, who I always pictured as a stand-in for Salinger himself, and his tragic inability to connect with anyone but young children. The prescient Teddy, whose thinly-veiled Buddhism came years before the Beats began reading Suzuki. Esme, Charles and the damaged Sergeant X- all three of whom I feel an unceasing tenderness for. The idolized Chief and the heartbreak of Mary Hudson. All of these stories I can return to again and again, myself changed by the passing of time, and find something new and rewarding to take from them. Whether it is his absolutely perfect dialogue (I know of no other author who so accurately captures the rhythm and cadence of speech), his impulse (need?) to include a death in nearly all of his stories as if to remind us that even imaginary friends can get hit by buses, his endless attempts to put into words the passive disconnection from the rest of humankind that we all, at one point or other, feel overwhelmed by. There is more literary merit in this slim volume than the whole New York Times bestseller list.

I've often harbored the dream of hanging out in Salinger's tiny New Hampshire village and somehow attracting the eye of the reclusive author- carrying groceries across the street or some such menial chore. We would get to talking and he would offer to read some of my meager works and, wonder of wonders, offer a few words of advice. You know, Daydreaming 101. Sadly this will never be. If there is a bright side to this tragic passing, it is that hopefully he’s been writing feverishly for the past 60 years and his estate will begin posthumously publishing. This is the only real kind of immortality available, and hopefully Salinger's words will be read for centuries to come. ...more

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Nov 06, 2012 F rated it did not like it

Shelves: short-stories, 2013

Didnt enjoy any of the short stories and didnt enjoy getting to know the characters in any.
Seemed to have a theme of wealthy people in solitude in someway or another.

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Nov 29, 2007 Mariel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Rocky Dennis in Heaven

Recommended to Mariel by: the girl from back then

It has been a long time since I read Nine Stories. For once I don't care about getting older. This wasn't about that. So I started rereading Nine Stories in my car on my work lunch breaks. Getting through the day necessities stuff. I really needed an old friend. I was at a loss in a bad depths of despair kinda way that I cannot put in a meaningful way that will mean shit to anyone else. I remembered Nine Stories was good to me. I'm in no mood for anything more than that. Friends.

This probably wo ...more

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Nov 23, 2009 Jeanette (Again) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: all-fiction, classics, short-stories, to-be-read-again, extraordinary-prose

This is one of "those" books. The ones where I turn the final page and sigh and wonder how I can convince other people that it's worth reading. Consider this: There are 30,520 ratings for this book here on Good Reads. The average of all those ratings is 4.18. Nothing I could say would be more convincing than that. Read it and marvel.

My two favorite stories are For Esme--With Love and Squalor, and Down at the Dinghy. I think I liked these best because I love the way Salinger writes about childre ...more

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May 01, 2020 Emily B rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I haven't read any Salinger in many years and this was on my shelf for over a year before I actually read it. I'm so glad I finally picked it up.

Each story was a good length, entertaining and clever. Overall these were my kinds of short stories
I also liked how they related to Salingers other work including Franny and Zooey ...more

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Jul 21, 2017 Majeed Estiri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ایالات-متحده-امریکا

فکر میکنم اگر قرار باشد 5 مجموعه داستان را به عنوان بهترین مجموعه داستان های قرن بیستم انتخاب کنیم یکیش حتما این کتاب است.
هر نویسندهء جوانی که زیرپوستی نوشتن را از کارور آموخت باید این مجموعه را بخواند تا سرکشی را از سلینجر یاد بگیرد.

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Nov 15, 2016 ατζινάβωτο φέγι. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Αν θελήσεις ποτέ να γράψεις διηγήματα, να ξέρεις οτι δε θα το κάνεις ποτέ τοσο καλά οσο ο Σάλιντζερ.

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Feb 06, 2015 Sara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories-novellas

Reading this short story collection helps me to understand why Salinger was hounded to the ends of the earth in an effort to make him write again. His characters are so poignant and so real; his children so precocious and on the brink of something wholly indefinable.

I bought the book with a desire to revisit For Esme - With Love And Squalor and found it as captivating and moving as I had remembered, but the unexpected treasures of The Laughing Man and Teddy left me breathless. Salinger knows co ...more

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May 26, 2019 Mohammad rated it really liked it · review of another edition

سلینجر عزیز! تا قبل از دیدن فیلم «یاغی در دشت» نمی‌دانستم که شما هم مثل خودم یک دیوانۀ درجه یک بوده‌اید. از طرفی عاشق واکنش شما به عکاس در آن عکس معروف سال 1988 هستم و هراس و خشم چشم‌هایتان در آن عکس را می‌شناسم. حالا بهتر عمق داستان‌هایتان را درک می‌کنم و می‌دانم که چرا آدم‌های این نُه داستان شبیه رمان‌های چند جلدی‌ای هستند که جلد اول یا آخرشان گم شده. همینطور، درک می‌کنم که چرا تا آخر عمر دورتان دیوار کشیدید. من بالاخره با شما آشتی کردم
تقدیم به جروم با عشق و نکبت

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Apr 23, 2016 Helle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american, short-stories, books-i-own

A slightly mixed bag of stories with some gems among them, notably A Perfect Day for Bananafish and, especially, Teddy. All the stories, even when I didn’t love them, had small moments of either brilliance or craziness. And Salinger was a master of the quirky, zany dialogue full of 50s slang, non sequiturs and sarcastic repartees. There were laugh-out-loud moments, there were bizarre moments where I had no idea what he was on about, there was hyperbole galore, and there was much of the 1940s swa ...more

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Apr 09, 2018 Carmine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: raccolte-di-racconti

Amaro sorriso sul viale del tramonto

"Ho con loro una affinità molto forte. Sono i miei genitori, voglio dire, e fra noi c'è un rapporto di dipendenza reciproca, di armonia reciproca e via dicendo.
Voglio che si divertano mentre sono vivi perché a loro piace divertirsi...Ma loro non vogliono bene a me e a Hooper (è mia sorella) nello stesso modo. Voglio dire che non sono capaci di volerci bene così come siamo. Non sono capaci di volerci bene se non possono sempre cambiarci un poco. Amano le ragi ...more

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Sep 20, 2014 Ginny_1807 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Ginny_1807 by: Marco Tamborrino

Shelves: racconti, favorites, america

Quando ho iniziato questo libro, attratta dalle numerose recensioni entusiastiche, le mie aspettative erano piuttosto elevate, ma mai mi sarei aspettata una simile incantevole suggestiva prodigiosa opera d'arte.
I nove racconti sono, nessuno escluso, tra i più belli e stilisticamente perfetti che abbia mai letto, e ciò anche per merito della eccellente traduzione di Carlo Fruttero, che ne sottolinea la ricchezza linguistica esaltandone la pregevole fattura.
Si intuisce, a monte di questa prosa e ...more

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Oct 21, 2018 Steven Godin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: america-canada, short-stories

I was surprised by just how good some of these stories turned out to be, after not getting my hopes up for anything that special. And as a fan of the short-stories of John Cheever, Raymond Carver, and Richard Yates, Salinger sits in this company pretty well, in creating brief snapshots of life that capture glittering sharp moments, generally focusing on adults encountering overly aware, truth-telling children. The heart of each story is set to the beat of its characters accounts of the way in w ...more

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Jan 23, 2017 Tristan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Not being too fond of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye – and having, in fact, a vivid recollection of me chucking it after about a 100 pages into a far-flung, dusty corner out of sheer tedium in high school (reading assignments are hemlock for stubborn minds) - I wasn’t particularly looking forward to his short story collection. Would it just be an assortment of variations on Holden Caulfield? I feared the worst.

Boy was I happy to be proven wrong. Talk about rising to low expectations, huh? How I ...more

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Aug 12, 2018 piperitapitta rated it really liked it · review of another edition

L’intenzione è quella di rileggerli, ma non prima di aver studiato.
Perché?
Perché ne percepisco la potenza, il fatto che per alcuni la perfezione sia già evidente da subito, mentre per altri ho bisogno di saperne di più e di contestualizzarli per poterli apprezzare appieno.
Sono quattro stelle intermittenti, dunque, perché già so che a una seconda lettura saranno cinque fisse.

La perfezione dei dialoghi, quella sì, è evidente da subito.

Il miei preferiti, ora, d’impulso, Un giorno speciale per i pes ...more

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Feb 26, 2009 Ben rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: good-fiction, read-in-2009, short-stories

Most of these stories make a statement (or two, or more) about how our past, and our interactions with each other, affect our lives. I had this feel that in some way, the stories represented our disconnections from one another, from reality, and from full knowledge; the slippery grasp we have of our perceptions, and our tendency to judge too quickly.

Salinger often gets this across through arresting dialogue among individuals, typically with at least one of the individuals in some way being "different" from your "normal" standards. Entering the inner world of a Salinger character is an experience everyone should have. His children are the best I’ve experienced; as are his hard-edged, outcast characters -- you know the type: they chain smoke, say “goddamn” a lot, and have a sharp, smartass tongue that bespeaks toughness. Yet it gets revealed that they’ve been hurt in some way in the past, and that they have a soft spot inside. Salinger shows this in some beautiful ways and eventually, by the end of the story, you see a special side to these people. Characters that at first seemed ridiculous and entertaining end up making you see something in them. Yes they’re faltered and off, but they’re also special, and you see that their reality may in fact be superior to yours.. at least in some ways.

Isn’t that true of children, in general? That they see the world in specifically different ways from us adults? And aren't some of these paradigms innocent, beautiful, and pure? Or maybe it's exactly because they don't have a paradigm, that this is the case. While we can't escape from all of our preconceived notions, they are free from them. Even some of Salinger’s non-children characters have this element to their personality.

A lot of the endings to these stories are phenomenal. They always contain a surprise, sometimes with room for broad interpretation; typically making you think and reflect. Yet there’s still a feeling of mystery; of not knowing the full story. Through these endings your interpretation of what you had read, changes; the way you saw the story shifts, often resulting in quick, new perceptions and “aha!” moments. And, if your experience is like mine, you then continue to reflect and question your perceptions of the story further.

I couldn’t quite give this five stars. Some of the stories, such as Just Before the War with the Eskimos and Down at the Dinghy didn’t flow enough for me, and ended up lacking in either coherence or emotional pull. (By the way, my star ratings per story are in the picture above, just to the left of each story listed. You can change Teddy from a 4.5 to a 5, too. It started as a 4; I thought about it more, and gave it a 4.5; then today, I thought about it even more and have decided that it’s a 5. That’s what some of these stories can do to you: They really get you thinking.)

The other Salinger I’ve read is The Catcher and the Rye, which I’ve read twice and enjoy, but come up short of loving. After reading this I can further see how Salinger has a following that loves him. His characters are unusual and intriguing, and his way of viewing the world is special and ingenious. This is a book you should get a hold of.

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About J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger

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Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he publishe Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he published the critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in The New Yorker magazine, which became home to much of his subsequent work. In 1951 Salinger released his novel The Catcher in the Rye, an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.

The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention and scrutiny: Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently. He followed Catcher with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953), a collection of a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961), and a collection of two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965.

Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton, and the release in the late 1990s of memoirs written by two people close to him: Joyce Maynard, an ex-lover; and Margaret Salinger, his daughter. In 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish "Hapworth 16, 1924" in book form, but amid the ensuing publicity, the release was indefinitely delayed. He made headlines around the globe in June 2009, after filing a lawsuit against another writer for copyright infringement resulting from that writer's use of one of Salinger's characters from The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger died of natural causes on January 27, 2010, at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.
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“The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.” — 651 likes

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