Last night I finally finished J. D. Salinger's Nine Stories. On the whole, it certainly improved my opinion of Salinger's writing. Though the volume was bookended by the weakest stories, the seven stories between showed far greater depth of insight and skill in storytelling than I have pulled from The Catcher in the Rye. Below I'll briefly comment on the good and bad (from my own, humble point of view) in each of the stories.

A Perfect Day for Bananafish
Good: Great dialogue over the phone that tells you enough back story to sense a problem, but not enough to seem expositional. Keeps you guessing. Lovely little beach scene with the child (aside: Salinger writes children better than anyone I've read).
Bad: The ending. Really? C'mon. You couldn't have thought of something a little more creative than that? Call me a cynic, but that doesn't pull my heartstrings or make me think the story is deep and moving. It seems like a cop-out. (Notice the grace with which I talk about the ending so as not to give it away to those of you who would like to read it. You're welcome.)

Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut
Good: Again, great dialogue that draws you in even as it keeps you, as the outsider in the conversation, still sort of out. Makes a very simple scene (two women visiting and chatting over drinks in the living room) very interesting. Makes you want to know the backgrounds of the characters more, but keeps you as a fly on the wall and doesn't explain anything to you. You have to figure it out on your own. Also, I really like the way one of the women comes to a realization of what she has become and how life has changed without her permission.
Bad: I can't remember anything at the moment.

Just Before the War with the Eskimos
Good: We get another dose of Salinger writing young people, this time girls in their early teens. You see the standard catty-ness and competition between teen girls, but also underlying resentment about family and money. More great dialogue. (aside: Maybe this is where Catcher failed me; the dialogue in that book was great, but a lot of the inner monologue seemed lacking to me.) I loved the ending of this one.
Bad: Again, I can't remember any critical thoughts while reading this one.

The Laughing Man
Good: A really original story about a story. The narrator is a teen boy who is part of a kind of after-school program for boys run by one guy (The Chief) in his 20s. The Chief is a storyteller. Each time he's with the boys and they're in the bus ready to go home from their activities, he tells a little more of a macabre story set in China about a grotesque character called The Laughing Man. The story is bizarre and captures the imaginations of the boys. But things cannot always remain as they are. Like in Catcher you get a glimpse of what might be Salinger's own despair - that the perfection you see in your situation in childhood cannot stay, cannot hold back the passage of time.
Bad: I could have used one more paragraph at the end. It stops very abruptly. But, come to think of it, that may be purposeful as the story that the Chief is telling stops abruptly. So maybe it's good.

Down at the Dinghy
Good: Salinger shows his skill writing children again, this time a precocious (actually, I would say naughty, disobedient, and saucy) little boy of four who refuses to get out of a boat or listen to his very patient (I would say longsuffering) mother. I liked the way Salinger wrote the interplay between the mother and son, showing that while it seemed like the boy had the upper hand, the mother, in the end, knew what he needed and was more compassionate for him and less stern than I would have been in a similar situation.
Bad: The mother's name - Boo Boo - was a bit of a distraction. And the last sentence seems uncharacteristically sweet and trite for Salinger.

For Esmé - with Love and Squalor
Good: I liked the first part of the story where the main character, an American soldier in Devon, England, is talking with a little British girl in a restaurant. I loved the way Salinger described the way the little boy moved. Fantastic writing. It put me right there. And the conversation between the soldier and the girl was wonderful.
Bad: The story ends with a story that the soldier writes for the little girl. It didn't live up to my expectations, so what started out as a great short story ended not with a bang, but a whimper.

Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes
Good: Again, the conversation over the phone was done well. Salinger conveyed the anger and worry of one character juxtaposed with the calm, almost boredom, of the other. We get information about the two men and the person they are discussing in realistic little bursts and we are not told any more than we absolutely need to know (and maybe a little less). If you haven't noticed, I like that sort of cagey writing.
Bad: I didn't really get to caring about the characters at all. I suppose it was difficult to relate to them.

De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period
Good: This was my favorite of the stories. A young artist cons his way into a teaching position at an art school that turns out to be not quite what he expected. And right when he finds a silver lining, it is wrenched from his hand. This was the only story that made me laugh out loud. It was (I think) the longest story in the book. And it was the only one that had an honest-to-goodness conclusion. A very satisfying read and likely the only one I will go back and read again in the future.
Bad: Nothing. It was all great.

Teddy
Good: Interesting setting on a passenger ship going from England back to America. Surprising subject matter (strange American kid has realized that he had former lives and has been getting interviewed by philosophy professors in Europe; can he see the future? can he not?).
Bad: The mechanism for ending the story is, like "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," not to my liking. But in this case it is at least a bit more creative. I don't know. The whole Hindu reincarnation discussion . . . I just have no interest in it. This was a weird story. I wish I had just ended with "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period."


All in all, any short story lover would benefit from adding this to their collection, but I challenge those of you who don't read short stories to give them a chance. Seems like once we leave school few of us give short stories a chance. In addition, any writer looking to capture the essence of a character by describing just a few traits or actions would learn a lot from these stories.

I didn't really think it would ever matter to me, but I do think it's too bad that Salinger was not more prolific. I could have read nine more. Reading this book did put me in the mood for more short stories, and I have a large number in my collection at home, so look for more posts about short stories in the future. I find it is too bad that the novel is the standard way we consume fiction. Short stories do so much more to highlight an author's skill. Actually, a great many novels would likely be better as short stories.