I want to keep a bananafish in a giant brandy snifter. I want some big, silent bastard to just walk over once in a while to knock me out cold - then go back and finish reading his paper. I want to wear broken wristwatches all the way up to my elbows while eating cinnamon toast, then listen to epic stories told on the reconverted commercial bus going home.
In Salinger’s Nine Stories, the details make it easier to prevent one’s self from falling empathetically between the cracks of the pages. The characters aren’t the type anyone would want to stare in the eye for too long, anyway, because it’ll take just a look to sweep you downriver, along with them.
Of his published books, only The Catcher in the Rye didn’t have members of the Glass Family figuring dominantly. This sweetly bleak collection is built around its members, none of whom exactly function the way most people their age would. It’s the young ones who give the impression of having a firm handle on things. They have a clear idea of what they want - whether in their convictions or their tea. The grownups, fragile and well past cynicism, haven’t grown in a single direction but splintered instead inwards, more and more tangled up in their own hopelessness. It’s only between the two camps that there seems to be any real communication going on. The grownups invariably hear only what they want to hear from each other. Everyone ends up withdrawing further and further into themselves, afraid that any interaction might shake their flimsy grasp on what value they’ve found for themselves in life.
Not to say that the book isn’t humorous, it’s just a greenish-gray sort of funny. In one of the last stories, I found this gem, "The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly." The best I could manage though was a dry laugh, and a shake of the head. It takes a bit of effort not to go down that road with them.
I want to blow smoke rings out of a lake-front window. I want to fall in love with a painting sent by mail. I want to share a chicken sandwich with a stranger. I want to write in a ten-cent notebook from the deck of an ocean liner while playing with the hole in my shirt.
You’ll probably find yourself wishing you could put a warm hand through the page, stroke their hair and say, "Shhh… It’s alright, really." Why is everyone so delicate, anyway? Blame it on good ol’ experience. In between these pages what doesn’t kill you only makes you smaller, nicking off a tiny sliver of your humanity each time.
