سلینجر چه داستان‌های خوبی نوشته. ازون‌ها که بعد تموم‌شدنشون لبخند ریزی رو لبتون می‌شینه. خیلی داستان‌های نرمی بودن. ازین جهت می‌گم که نقش بچه‌ها توی داستان‌ خیلی پررنگ بود و خوب توصیف‌ شده بودند. دقت سلینجر هم توی توصیف جزئیات مثال‌زدنی بود.
کتاب هم شامل نُه داستانِ
یه روز عالی برای موزماهی، عمو ویگیلی در کانتیکات، در آستانه جنگ با اسکیموها، مرد خندان، در قایق بادبانی، تقدیم به ازمی با عشق و نکبت، دهانم زیبا چشمانم سبز، دوره‌ی آبی دودومیه اسمیت و تدی می‌شه که همشون رو غیر دوره آبی دوست داشتم.
در ضمن شنیدم که آقای گلشیری هم این کتاب سلینجر رو ترجمه کرده ولی ترجمه‌اش خوب نیست. حتی اسم کتاب و عنوان داستان دوره‌ی آبی دودومیه اسمیت رو به دلخواه خودش تغییر داده و گذاشته دلتنگی‌های نقاش خیابان چهل‌ و هشتم!
راستی حتما تصویرگری‌های sempè روی جلد مجله نیویورکر یا کاریکاتور‌های دیگه‌اش رو نگاهی بندازین. بانمک و ظریف و دوست‌داشتنی‌اند. ناخودآگاه با خوندن داستان های سلینجر توی ذهنم نقش می‌بستند.

If you know someone who hasn't read many short stories the chances are pretty good that he or she has read at least one of these "Nine Stories" by J.D. Salinger. Salinger becomes more and more interesting to me the older I get. At some point almost everyone has read "Catcher in the Rye" about Holden Caulfield's dream to save all children from growing up in a world of phonies. It's interesting to note how many of these stories have a child as an important, if not the most important, character in the story. Among my favorites, "For Esme-With Love and Squalor" features a precocious girl of thirteen whom the protagonist meets only once in his life - while serving in the military during World War II just before he has a nervous breakdown. And it is her rationality and generosity, despite having lost both parents herself, that touches him and sets him, perhaps, on the road to recovery. "The Laughing Man" is an enjoyable story showing the sensitivity and empathy of youth trying to understand and prepare for the heartbreaks of adulthood. And "Teddy" is a story my teacher of High School Sophomore English had his class read because he couldn't grasp the meaning of it and threw it open for discussion. And indeed, it shows a brilliant young almost Christlike boy baffling his elders with his wisdom that seems to straddle Christianity and Hinduism. Still ambiguous it nevertheless portrays the child as the one with the answers before adults spoil things by making them grow up.

I bought this collection in college after an overnight work shift, having not even realized it existed until I saw it on the shelf at the Borders Books and Music (RIP, amazing book chain) near my apartment. I was thrilled and texted a bunch of people all naively saying "did you know Salinger wrote a short story book!?" They all did, of course, but the weird part was that when I woke up to all the reply texts after having fallen asleep reading the book, they were all saying "woah, he actually just died today."
So I've always felt like Salinger was so outraged by my Salinger ignorance that he up and died. Sorry all.

But this is a fantastic collection. To Esme – With Love and Squalor and The Laughing Man were the big standouts to me. Much of his best writing is in here and the collection is a perfect catalyst to his themes across a collection of beautiful gems that flow thematically.

Il mio personale parere è che questa raccolta acquisti un reale valore solo se rapportata alla biografia dell'autore.

Un giorno ideale per i pescibanana 3★
Lo zio Wiggily nel Connecticut 4★
Alla vigilia della guerra contro gli Esquimesi 2★
L'uomo ghignante 2★
Giù al dinghy 3★
Per Esmé: con amore e squallore 4★ (il titolo mi piace più del racconto)
Bella bocca e occhi miei verdi 4★
Il periodo blu di De Daumier-Smith 2★
Teddy 2★ (in realtà qui c'è un dialogo interessante, ma il racconto risulta molto noioso e ridondante, ho fatto uno sforzo non indifferente per trascinarmi verso la fine).

3.5
I finally read a short story collection that I genuinely liked!

Ok so, Salinger is probably my favourite author (tied with Virginia Woolf) so I may be biased about this, but I can't help but to praise him for his god-damn writing; I'm not a short story person, I like to get to know my characters and to feel involved in their lives, this ables me to care for them deeply, so when I cried with one of these short stories I was fairly surprised that a writer was able to pull that off!

But, just like every collection in the world, not all the items (stories) are equally enjoyable or well written. I extremely LOVED 4 of the 9 stories, and those were the ones that felt more Salinger-like to me. The other 5 were "meh" , nothing terrible but according my personal standard for Salinger they weren't eye-catching per se.

This collection centers around war and communication. The topics that I'm terribly interested in and I feel like J.D does a good job in portraying people interacting with these notions.

If you, like me, are not a short story fan give this a go. I promise that you get attached to the characters and find at least one story that touches you.

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

It’s so silly. All you do is get the heck out of your body when you die. My gosh, everybody’s done it thousands and thousands of times.
- The character Teddy McArdle

The quality of the writing in this collection of stories is impeccable. Published nearly seventy years ago, these nine stories have aged little with the passage of time. All the stories are about adolescence or life as a young adult post WWII. Many of the stories seem semi auto-biographical as well.

Here are the five that I loved and consider to be five stars.

1. A Perfect Day for Bananafish - Salinger’s most famous short story and it packs a wallop. Muriel has recently married Seymour, a WWII vet. Seymour is unstable — probably as a result of his PTSD. Muriel’s parents are concerned about her welfare as they believe their son-in-law should be readmitted to the psych ward. While at the beach Seymour interacts with a young girl and tells her they can find banana-fish if they look close enough under the water. The girl initially plays along as they search under the water but runs away when Seymour continues to touch her. In the final dramatic scene Seymour heads back to the hotel room where his Muriel is waiting for him.

2. Just Before the War with the Eskimos - Selena and Ginnie are East coast classmates and tennis partners. Selena keeps stiffing Ginnie on the cab fare after their lessons and Ginnie decides to call Selena’s bluff. But when she goes to Selena’s house to collect Ginnie is enthralled by Eric, Selena’s very eccentric but handsome older brother. Eric keeps saying odd things like the next war will be fought against the Eskimos. Unique and poignant story.

3. Down at the Dinghy - Boo Boo Tannenbaum is the wealthy lady of the house and her four year old son Lionel is a handful — petulant and very fond of running away. His father is not around much and Lionel decides to go sailing in his dad’s dinghy. Boo Boo shows a gentle touch as she tries to coax Lionel out of the boat. Very sweet and poignant story.

4. Teddy - Teddy McArdle is on a passenger ship with his dysfunctional family. A story about different world philosophies including materialism as discussed with a very worldly ten year old. There is a lot going on in this story. The ending is open to interpretation and it is clear that something horrible happens.

5. For Esmé - with Love and Squalor - The other famous short story in the collection. An American GI is stationed in England right before D-Day and heads to a wedding and a tearoom afterwards. He strikes up a conversation with a young girl Esmé and her little brother — they were also at the wedding. They are both very precocious and quiz the soldier on everything and tell him how boorish most Americans are. He is amused and partly intrigued by the encounter. He is later part of the D-Day invasion force and while he recuperates in the psych ward from PTSD receives a letter from Esmé. An extraordinarily well written story. Salinger’s stories remind me of some of Tennessee Williams’ best works. He is able to convey so much with dialogue. The drama is so much about what is not said.

5 stars. One of the best collection of short stories that I’ve read. Catcher in the Rye was no fluke. I am a little late to the party here but Salinger was a genius.

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 essenziale, vivida e incisiva, un lavoro di lima meticoloso, per non dire maniacale; così che ogni costruzione sintattica e ogni scelta lessicale divengano perfettamente funzionali alle esigenze espressive e alla poetica programmatica dell'autore.

Chiunque si cimenti nel campo letterario dovrebbero fare proprio questo procedimento compositivo, per evitare inconcludenti lungaggini descrittive, sommarie esposizioni di eventi senza capo né coda, o elementari pretenziosi svolazzi lirici, che denunciano la più assoluta mancanza di talento.

​Salinger invece di talento ne ha a profusione: descrive nei minimi dettagli l'aspetto e i gesti dei suoi personaggi, ne riproduce le conversazioni tramite dialoghi espressivi, realistici e per nulla generici, ma soprattutto riesce a rendere il lettore non un mero spettatore esterno ed estraneo ai fatti e agli stati d'animo, ma quasi un protagonista tra i protagonisti, emotivamente coinvolto e partecipe in prima persona.

A fronte di una contestualizzazione tanto accurata, sorprende il finale che lo scrittore riserva alle singole storie: qualcosa di sospeso, di aperto a interpretazioni diverse, di appena delineato e non detto, doloroso, inquietante, acre, commovente, spiazzante.
Tutto ciò mi ha richiamato alla mente, per associazione di idee, gli esiti poetici del contrasto tra finito e non finito nell'opera di Michelangelo scultore.

Per Michelangelo la forma, la figura scultorea, è già racchiusa, come imprigionata, nella materia informe, ossia nel blocco di marmo; per portarla alla luce occorre un processo di sottrazione, che consiste nel "levare il soverchio", la pietra in eccesso, fino, talora, alla levigatura più esasperata che cattura e rifrange la luce. Pura fisicità.

Schiavo detto Atlante - Firenze, Galleria dell'Accademia

In alcune sculture, specie dell'età più matura, l'artista sceglie però di lasciare alcune parti, più o meno estese, appena sbozzate, ruvide e come graffiate dallo scalpello, utilizzando il non finito come strumento tecnico espressivo volto a sottolineare i concetti che ispirano il suo genio compositivo: la tensione eroica verso il bello, l'assoluto, l'infinito; il conflitto tra corpo e spirito, tra la vita e la morte; e, più in generale, ad esprimere l'inesprimibile: ciò che nessun linguaggio appare adeguato a chiarire o concretizzare.

Pietà Rondanini, 1552-64, Milano, Castello Sforzesco

Lo stesso sembra fare Salinger, che con la parola definita e levigata libera la pura fisicità dei suoi personaggi dalla prigionia del silenzio, ma attraverso il suo particolare non finito/non detto tralascia di spiegare l'inspiegabile, ossia lo spirito, l'interiorità, i sentimenti, le paure, i rimpianti, le pulsioni più intime e segrete dell'animo umano.
E, come deve essere, lascia al lettore la decodificazione del messaggio, utilizzando gli strumenti della sua personale sensibilità ed esperienza.
Ciascun racconto compreso nella raccolta è un piccolo scenario che si apre su un mondo, una storia e molte vite, compresa quella di chi legge.
Straordinaria esperienza.

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 complete sorry, desperation and irony when he finds it. As we peep into the world of his characters, who smoke their endless cigarettes, carry on their conversations of double meaning, and attempt to connect with others, we cannot help nodding in recognition of the knowledge that this is a microcosm of the human condition.

Hadn't read this one in years and had completely forgotten at least two stories, plus the fact that every tale is in large part about estrangement and fraudulence. Bananafish and the title story are still extraordinary -- and still impossible to fathom in terms of just how they work their magic.

''The worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly. However, this is not a tragic situation, in my opinion. The happiest day of my life was many years ago when I was seventeen. I was on my way for lunch to meet my mother, who was going out on the street for the first time after a long illness, and I was feeling ecstatically happy when suddenly, as I was coming in to the Avenue Victor Hugo, which is a street in Paris, I bumped into a chap without any nose. I ask you to please consider that factor, in fact I beg you. It is quite pregnant with meaning.'

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.

شخصیت پردازی و فضا سازی واقعا محشر بود...با اینکه داستان کوتاه بود راحت میشد شخصیت ها و کاراکترها رو مجسم کرد.که بیشترشون هم انسان های خاص و درونگرا با عقاید عجیب و گاها عمیق بودن.
از داستان تدی،دلتنگی های نقاش خیابان48 و مرد خندان و تقدیم به ازمه با عشق و نفرت بیشتر خوشم اومد.

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.