Nine Stories (Salinger J.D., English, 1953)

A Perfect Day for Bananafish- 9/10- This genre-defying short story mostly consists of a haunting, sorrowful conversation that its war-returned protagonist Seymour Glass may or may not have had with a little girl, Sybil; a conversation of such sustained, evolved pain. Salinger unrelentingly, even sadistically, contrasts the surficial and the profound, and through technical near-perfectness and subliminal allegory, the story is also fraught with his decisively unique leitmotifs: fallen Icaruses and battle-time scars; a story as hurtful perhaps, as only the happiness of children can be.

Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut- 10/10- Nothing apparently happens in this story until it all culminates into that last sentence, an abrupt, animalistic, tempest-voyage of a plea that when one really thinks about it, has been slowly simmering throughout the rest of the text, manifesting itself in little clues but the puzzle-maker is clever for we mistake them for something else. A counterpoint of a comedy of manners, this is a dark work about memories, choices and quite a lot else.

Just Before the War with the Eskimos- 7.5/10- If any piece in this collection is stylistically closest to 'A Catcher in the rye', it is this piece. Dialog-driven, this is a triumph of characterization over narrative, with the minimalist 'sets' almost serving to balance the verbal excesses. A small gem with rough edges, it talks about the inherent goodness inside us.

The Laughing Man- 9/10- At once a cerebral, meta-narrative shell and also, a vulnerable, melancholic core; 'Laughing Man' remains one of the most successful amalgamations of form and concept. Mary Hudson attracts some of Salinger's best lines and yet even in his most downright romantic tale, she remains elusive, ambiguous, sketchy and sexy. In fact ultimately, she remains quite like Salinger's other protagonists: lonely and undeciphered.

Down at the Dinghy's- 7/10- A mother-son tale spun on a languid, unforgettable afternoon, this is moody, atmospheric and what it lacks in heightened realism, it more than makes up with its subtle turn of phrase, touching fleetingly upon marriage, racism and the class-divide. It also sits firmly within the Glass-family canon.

TO BE CONTINUED..