Nine Stories.

von Jerome D. Salinger ISBN: 0316769509 Kommentar abgeben

The war hangs over these wry stories of loss and occasionally unsuppressed rage. Salinger's children are fragile, odd, hypersmart, whereas his grownups (even the materially content) seem beaten down by circumstances--some neurasthenic, others (often female) deeply unsympathetic. The greatest piece in this disturbing book may be "The Laughing Man," which starts out as a man's recollection of the pleasures of storytelling and ends with the intersection between adult need and childish innocence. The narrator remembers how, at nine, he and his fellow Comanches would be picked up each afternoon by the Chief--a Staten Island law student paid to keep them busy. At the end of each day, the Chief winds them down with the saga of a hideously deformed, gentle, world-class criminal. With his stalwart companions, which include "a glib timber wolf" and "a lovable dwarf," the Laughing Man regularly crosses the Paris-China border in order to avoid capture by "the internationally famous detective" Marcel Dufarge and his daughter, "an exquisite girl, though something of a transvestite." The masked hero's luck comes to an end on the same day that things go awry between the Chief and his girlfriend, hardly a coincidence. "A few minutes later, when I stepped out of the Chief's bus, the first thing I chanced to see was a piece of red tissue paper flapping in the wind against the base of a lamppost. It looked like someone's poppy-petal mask. I arrived home with my teeth chattering uncontrollably and was told to go straight to bed."

Very disappointing and disturbing!
For an english project, I was supposed to read a book outside of class and review it. I picked "Nine Stories," by Salinger. I think this book is one of the most oddly written books I have ever read. After reading, "The Catcher in the Rye," Salinger really let me down. These stories didn't seem to have any real point to them. For example, in the story "Banana Fish," the story seemed to be going along pretty well until it got to the end. One second Seymore was having a wonderful time at the beach with a little girl, and the next second he was dead after shooting himself in the head! I felt like I must have missed something, like a few pages were missing before the conclusion. The rest of the stories seemed to be that way also (a pretty decent story, with an ending that seemed to fall off of a cliff). In the story "Green Eyes," a man seemed to be feeling uneasy about his wife cheating on him. It was sort of amusing listening to the paranoid way he acted, although the end was pretty boring. All of the stories seemed to give you a feeling of uneasiness and depression, as to see the way Salinger portrays the life of the average human being.

Extraordinary Short Fiction
This book is essential if (a) you've ever read Salinger, and (b) if you love short fiction. These tales brought him to the top of my list of favorite short story writers. He is able to paint exquisite pictures of people with their words and mannerismns, often needing little else to move story's narrative. What I particularly enjoy is his occaisional touch of humorous irony that is sometimes reminiscant of John Collier (known more as a poet than short story writer, many of his stories turned up on ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and some even on TWILIGHT ZONE). Salinger, for the most part, provides much stronger endings than are popular with today's slice-of-life short fiction. They are often surprising and always thought-provoking. I may be old fashioned, but I believe this is how short stories should be written--and it's how I try to write mine.

A wonderful story
When they ask for a review, I never know what to write. 'Nine Stories' is the second Salinger book I've ever read, and, as always, I'm captivated by his writing style and ability to create characters I've seen when looking in the mirror, or glancing around a crowded area. The greatest tradgedy of Salinger is not found in his stories of depression, mental illness, or quiet desperation. The great tradgedy is that he only wrote four books. I like 'Nine Stories' due to it's crazy, 3-dimensional characters, and the insanity of the plots like 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' and 'The Laughing Man'. 'DePalmer Smith's Blue Period' is the best character study I've seen in any book in the English language. The only complaint I have is that Salinger settles into a repetitive procedure of bringing all his characters to life in the same way. I might have liked to read one story in this book that starred a character completely unlike the others. Someone said in an earlier review that 'there is a Holden inside each of these people.' This is why I did not give the book a perfect 10. While it is not boring, I think Salinger could have done more given his tremendous writing powers. Overall, however, this is a not-to-be-missed book.
Siehe auch:

• Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
• Franny and Zooey.
• The Catcher in the Rye
• Tender Is the Night