14: Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
Oops, this one is actually a few books ago, just before Death by Theory. From an eletter to my friend Tracy, September 7th 2006:
other news: j.d. salinger's "nine stories".
my mom had been recommending it for years, and my aunt in stockholm recently recommended it, too. (actually, she meta-recommended it, saying that she kept recommending it to her daughter, who had yet to read it. this revelation was accompanied by the report that she, the mother-aunt, had read "hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy" on her, the daughter-cousin's, recommendation, and had found it only "mildly amusing and somewhat silly" (which is of course a fairly accurate characterisation of the work, if we replace "mildly" with "uproariously" and "somewhat" by "exceedingly and delightfully"). i believe i tried to get my mom to read the guide, but i don't think i succeeded. she, on the other hand, did succeed (this requires a major context jump back to that whole "recommending" business in the first sentence of the paragraph, i'm afraid), and i just finished "nine stories".
writers of short stories are big on death and other misery. being the protagonist of such a work nearly guarantees a miserable ending. that said: it's very good.
i hasten to add that salinger's prose is not as pompous nor as labyrinthine as mine above.
other news: j.d. salinger's "nine stories".
my mom had been recommending it for years, and my aunt in stockholm recently recommended it, too. (actually, she meta-recommended it, saying that she kept recommending it to her daughter, who had yet to read it. this revelation was accompanied by the report that she, the mother-aunt, had read "hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy" on her, the daughter-cousin's, recommendation, and had found it only "mildly amusing and somewhat silly" (which is of course a fairly accurate characterisation of the work, if we replace "mildly" with "uproariously" and "somewhat" by "exceedingly and delightfully"). i believe i tried to get my mom to read the guide, but i don't think i succeeded. she, on the other hand, did succeed (this requires a major context jump back to that whole "recommending" business in the first sentence of the paragraph, i'm afraid), and i just finished "nine stories".
writers of short stories are big on death and other misery. being the protagonist of such a work nearly guarantees a miserable ending. that said: it's very good.
i hasten to add that salinger's prose is not as pompous nor as labyrinthine as mine above.
posted by alex. at 9/30/2006 06:13:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home