Hi, I’m finishing reading Nine Stories by Salinger and was wondering about his characters: I find all his children characters are quite adult-like while the adult characters are quite childlike. But all of them have a quality (and I say “quality” as in a characteristic, not as a judgement of quality) which I find (and this is definitely a judgement but not of quality) in equal part sweet and infuriating. Anyone cares enough to share some thoughts on my first ever Reddit post? (this is a non-judgemental quality request of attention)
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Considering that the main character of Catcher in the Rye is a whiny, entitled angst-lord who inspired real-life murderers, my opinion of J.D. Salinger’s characters is very low.
I remember the first time I read Franny and Zooey, which is one of my favourite books, and my dad told me “if you don’t fall in love with Zooey, that’s fine-- he’s kind of difficult. If you don’t fall in love with Franny, you don’t have a soul.”
Salinger does nothing for me. His characters are morbid and dimensionless as far as I experience them.
What have you read so far?
I don’t remember much about his characterization, but I was completely blown away by how much I loved that book. Going into it my only frame of reference for his work was The Catcher in the Rye and a smattering of his other short stories in the odd anthology here and there, so I wasn’t expecting to love it anywhere near as much as I did. I came away with a great deal of respect for Salinger as an author. It’s top-notch fiction, and for people like me who tried reading Salinger a few times before and didn’t come away impressed, it’s a total and complete game-changer.
I went on a major Salinger binge in my teens. At that time I found profundity in his books.
So now I’m old, and I re-read some of his books several years back. His work has not aged well for me.
There can be a rather insufferable twee-ness or too-pure-for-this-world quality in some characters that makes me wonder if Salinger was a major influence on Wes Anderson.
Royal Tennenbaums is certainly in the shadow of the Glass family.
Three parentheticals in 91 words? Looks like you just finished Seymour: An Introduction, not Nine Stories. At least put them in a bouquet for me.
To your point, I think it’s a correct observation, but it doesn’t bother me because I think it’s purposeful and fits the work. It’s hard to comment about an author’s entire body of work, especially when it’s not fresh, but to my memory, a lot of Salinger’s work circles around the idea of simple wisdom as found in children and the routine processes of living. The mental and emotional metamorphosis that takes place as people transition from childhood to adulthood is drastic and strange, but we often fail to appreciate that because it’s also universal. Salinger seems to want to call attention to that and to challenge the default assumption that it’s necessary and good. (I suspect that assumption was stronger and more in need of challenging when he was working and that the presence of CITR in our literary canon has had something to do with weakening it.) Salinger seems to want to say that something is being lost in that transition out of childhood that might be worth trying to hold on to. He takes children seriously because he thinks there is something we could learn from them. He highlights the childlike attributes of adults either as a model or to illustrate the connection to their past selves.