The Mysteries of J.D. Salinger

(the story I mentioned in this ol' post later leaked to the Net; ditto Three Early Stories)

Also, re unpublished Salinger manuscripts at Princeton ( NPR had also somebody else's account of reading this story, I but can't find it; other guy said he thought "Bowling Balls" was great while he was reading it, but cooled off later)http://nassauweekly.com/articles/1217/
In the 70s, a bootleg collection of unpublished Salinger stories was reviewed in the Voice, with comments on even more unpub, not included in the boot. Reviewer really liked some of these tales (despite many typos, and who knows what other slippage), but said most tended to confirm his suspicion re Salinger's inability/resistance to face getting older (as a motivation for not exposing his stories to further criticism and/or increasingly cult-like fandom)

― dow, Wednesday, July 13, 2011(He also mentioned good stories not incl.)

I finally re-read Nine Stories for the first time since high school in the 60s, and liked it as much as and in the same way I did then, basically agreeing with Joan Crawford Loves Chachi's take. May never read any others (got off the bus after Franny and Zooey).

More from before re-reading the collection:
I read Salinger mostly in high school... I don't remember much of Catcher, do remember many bits (especially zingers and other kinds of hooks) from Nine Stories. "I mean, it was nothing you couldn't read while clipping your toenails, but...", zinc oxide on the nose v sunburn, ""Sex Can Be Great---Or Hell" He calls me Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1947", all those other setups and steps and step-ins, all of them unmistakably necessary, as it turns out in "Bananafish"--also, "I guess he's got a sense of humor, he laughs at comic strips"; "He says it's so beautifully written. He can't admit he likes it because it's about two guys who starved to death in an igloo"(note to self: google L. Manning Vines) Who could forget: vomit in the military wastebasket; the remains of a dry chicken sandwich not disposed of, not quite yet; a dead voice, "rudely, almost obscenely quickened for the occasion" (which of course works, as in the King James Bible's "the quick or the dead". whether you bother with "quick" once meaning "alive" or not) "his--his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s"--and the hits just keep coming! sorry.

― dow, Sunday, July 10, 2011 6:23 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...I think "Zooey" is Salinger trying to achieve some perspective (incl linking the characters from Nine Stories, acknowledging and extending their relatedness--everything, including "Franny" is "pre-Glass"., as Updike says, before this explicit family tree is drawn). Zooey's lecturing, and his flailing around, is Salinger trying to adjust his voice,warning and challenging his followers and himself. (Also, none of Nine Stories was actually narrated by his child characters, right? Unless you count the excellent Daumier-Smith, who was looking back, like Salinger's other narrator/witnesses, to times of blue and gold) The lectures seemed to take over and become self-mesmerized in Raise High/Seymour, though I might try to re-read those, at least.

― dow, Sunday, July 10, 2011

(Never finished Raise High/Seymour)

assuming the descriptions of some of the unpublished works from a few years back were accurate, they sounded p different from the books we know -- there was supposed to be a war novel, i think.