{"id":3230,"date":"2010-02-06T08:27:59","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T12:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=3230"},"modified":"2016-06-07T15:18:39","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T19:18:39","slug":"the-clock-at-the-biltmore-j-d-salinger-a-perfect-day-for-bananafish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2010\/02\/06\/the-clock-at-the-biltmore-j-d-salinger-a-perfect-day-for-bananafish\/","title":{"rendered":"J.D. Salinger: “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A Perfect Day for Bananafish\"<\/strong><\/span>\r\nby J.D. Salinger<\/span>\r\nOriginally published in the January 31, 1948 issue of The New Yorker<\/em>.<\/span><\/pre>\n
<\/a>This past week KevinfromCanada did a blog tribute <\/a>on J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories<\/em>, and he spent some time focusing on that collection’s first story, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.”\u00a0While Salinger’s death reminded me that I need to revisit Nine Stories<\/em> (it had been a decade since I read them all in one day —\u00a0along with The Catcher in the Rye<\/em>), it was Kevin’s post that really prompted me into action.<\/p>\n
“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” was Salinger’s second story in The New Yorker<\/em>, and it set the bedrock for a relationship that would help, in part, define the\u00a0two.\u00a0Also, “A Perfect\u00a0Day for\u00a0Bananafish”\u00a0is\u00a0the first of Salinger’s stories to feature the Glass family. Besides the ones found in Nine Stories<\/em>, I’ve never read Salinger’s Glass stories, almost all of which (all but one) were first published in The New Yorker<\/em>, so I’m hoping this project gets me to read them all finally. After rereading this story, I can’t wait.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the first member of the famous Glass family we meet is an in-law. Muriel Glass, “a girl who for a ringing phone dropped nothing,” is\u00a0married into the Glass family by way of the oldest son\u00a0Seymour. When the story opens\u00a0Muriel and Seymour have been married for around six years (1942 – 1948), and they are\u00a0in Florida celebrating a second honeymoon. Since they married, however, Seymour has been deeply scarred from fighting in World War II.\u00a0People, particularly Muriel’s parents, have noticed.\u00a0While the phone rings we watch\u00a0Muriel fix her nails, slowly. When she finally picks up, she\u00a0hears her worried mother. Seymour is\u00a0the topic of this telephone conversation, and we’ll meet him in a few minutes, but this\u00a0conversation says a lot about Muriel and her mother — a lot that helps understand the ending to the story. It’s been said ad infinitum<\/em> over the past week, but Salinger is a master at dialogue. You feel like you’re in the room watching with an analytical eye.<\/p>\n
\n
“Muriel?\u00a0 Is that you?”<\/span><\/p>\n
The girl turned the receiver slightly away from her ear. “Yes, Mother. How are you?” she said.<\/span><\/p>\n
“I’ve been worried to death about you. Why haven’t you phoned? Are you all right?”<\/span><\/p>\n
“I tried to get you last night and the night before. The phone here’s been — “<\/span><\/p>\n
“Are you all right, Muriel?”<\/span><\/p>\n
The girl increased the angle between the receiver and her ear. “I’m fine. I’m hot. This is the hottest day they’ve had in Florida in — “<\/span><\/p>\n
“Why haven’t you called me? I’ve been worried to — “<\/span><\/p>\n
“Mother, darling, don’t yell at me. I can hear you beautifully,” said the girl. “I called you twice last night. Once just after — “<\/span><\/p>\n
“I told<\/em> your father you’d probably call last night. But, no, he had to — Are you all right, Muriel? Tell me the truth.”<\/span><\/p>\n
“I’m fine. Stop asking me that, please.”<\/span><\/p>\n
“When did you get there?”<\/span><\/p>\n
“I don’t know. Wednesday morning, early.”<\/span><\/p>\n
“Who drove?”<\/span><\/p>\n
“He did,” said the girl. “And don’t get excited. He drove very nicely. I was amazed.”<\/span><\/p>\n
“He<\/em> drove? Muriel, you gave me your word of — “<\/span><\/p>\n
“Mother,” the girl interrupted, “I just told you. He drove very <\/em>nicely. Under fifty the whole way, as a matter of fact.”<\/span><\/p>\n
“Did he try any of that funny business with the trees?”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I love how Salinger conveys his information.\u00a0We don’t even know Seymour’s name yet, but we have an accute sense of\u00a0him that continues to build over the next few pages as the conversation continues to talk about him without ever approaching specifics. Much comes by alluding to something else — for example, Muriel asks her mother where that German book of poetry that Seymour sent her from the war is. It seems a minor point in the conversation — Muriel wants to know where it is because Seymour asked about it on the way to Florida, wondering if she had read any of it. The mother exlaims,\u00a0“It was in German!” The poet is never mentioned here by name, and the dialogue moves on, but by simply alluding to Rilke Salinger has added\u00a0a whole new dimension to this\u00a0very short story.<\/p>\n
After the phone conversation, we move out to the beach where Seymour sits in\u00a0a terry-cloth robe, conversing with the five-year-old (or so) Sybil Carpenter. He is very kind to Sybil, plays with her, tries to get her to be more kind to the three-and-a-half-year-old Sharon Lipschutz who sits by Seymour when he is playing the piano in the evenings (Sybil wants Seymour to push Sharon off the bench). There’s some vitality to Sybil, something pure, that Seymour loves, and he adores it — he kisses her foot. As kind as he is, though, we can’t help but fear him when he takes Sybil out to play in the sea, even though (or perhaps because) he is exciting the little girl\u00a0with\u00a0a nonsense story\u00a0about\u00a0bananafish eating so many bananas they get stuck in holes under the water.<\/p>\n
There is much to this short story, and it completely stands on its own, meaning it does not require any knowledge of the Glass family at all. But, of course, there is much more about the Glasses — perhaps volumes and volumes more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trevor looks at J.D. Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.” Read the full post<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[169,94],"tags":[1002],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-3230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-j-d-salinger","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-1948-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Jan-31-1948-Cover.jpg?fit=484%2C660&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-Q6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3230"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18446,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230\/revisions\/18446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3230"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}