Nine Stories

Nine Stories

by J. D. Salinger

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780316450744
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication date: 11/06/2018
Edition description: Centennial Edition
Pages: 320
Sales rank: 676,210
Product dimensions: 4.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

His cloistered lifestyle and limited output have not prevented readers and writers from lionizing J. D. Salinger. With one-of-a-kind stories and the classic book The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger captured with wit and poignancy a growing malaise in post-war America. The 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, his best-known book, was an immediate success and remains popular and controversial. Salinger followed Catcher with Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.

Hometown:

Cornish, New Hampshire

Date of Birth:

January 1, 1919

Date of Death:

January 27, 2010

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

Cornish, New Hampshire

Education:

Graduated from Valley Forge Military Academy, 1936; attended New York University, Ursinus College, Columbia University

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Nine Stories 4.3 out of 5 based on 0 ratings. 90 reviews.
Guest More than 1 year ago
This book is amazing. Especially how jd salinger incorporates all the buddhist themes in it. Thats not the only thing that makes this book great though, its the familiarity of it all. When I read any of J.d Salinger's stories I feel like Im having de ja vu or something. The name nine stories also relates to the saying that cats have nine lives. If anyone is familiar with the Glass family, Seymore brings up the fact that he would like to be a dead cat. (Relates to reincarnation too). He's a genius and i recommend this book to anyone who's willing to take a closer look.
Guest More than 1 year ago
i really like nine stories, but i dont think i understood the deeper meanings. I loved A Perfect Day For Bananafish and Teddy. Everyone should read it, because its good stuff.
Humxm More than 1 year ago
This may be the best collection of short stories ever written--and I have read many collections. While not everyone will understand all the stories on a first reading, each story will become more and more clear upon additional readings. In fact, that is one mark of good writing: Is it an onion?--i.e., can it be read again (and again) revealing layers of meaning and insight. Salinger's Nine Stories are full of layers and real people. Both the stories and the people will become unforgettable. A masterpiece.
Guest More than 1 year ago
Some stories of this powerful collection were over my head, but I also really enjoyed many of the meaningful stories. Teddy to me is a beautiful finish to the collection. Buy this if you love Salinger.
Guest More than 1 year ago
The collection is directed by the Zen Koan 'What is the sound of one hand clapping' and for those fond of Oriental philosophy, this work uncovers the answer in each story. For those who come to this work by way of 'Cather In the Rye' you will not be disappointed. It has something for everybody. Unlike 'Franny and Zooey', which isolates readers with its ideology, the stories in this collection are magical and poignant. My favorite in the collection is 'Teddy' but 'A Perfect Day for Bannanafish' is another great one. I came to this work to find more out about the Glass Family and their relatives, but what I got was so much more. I dare anyone to read 'For Esme -- With Love and Squalor,' and not walk away with a better understanding of the movie 'Lost in Translation.' Salinger's work here is astounding, whther you want to dig deep into philosophy or just get invloved with great narratives. A must read.
Guest More than 1 year ago
Nine Stories kept me turning pages all night through. It is an enjoyable collection to read. Salinger emerged as witty, penetrating, humurous and very knowing. He is a fresh breath of to short story writing.Short stories by Chekhov, The Usurper and Other Stories, Runaway,Union Moujik stand on my shelves as fine and hilarious short story collections to read
GaryPatella on LibraryThing 22 days ago
All of the stories are highly enjoyable. And this is the only Salinger work I know of where you get to see a living Seymour Glass. If you wish to read Salinger, you should probably start with this.
Magadri on LibraryThing 22 days ago
This is a great collection of Salinger stories. I especially liked The Laughing Man, Teddy, and A Perfect Day for Bananafish. Though not much generally happens in the stories, it is the essence and feelings that they evoke that really did it for me.
isabelx on LibraryThing 22 days ago
Nine stories from the late 1940s and early 1950s. I found the later stories in the book more interesting than the first few, and my favourite by far was "For Esmé - With Love and Squalor", just because it was so unexpected.
lysander07 on LibraryThing 24 days ago
J.D. Salinger ist sicherlich nicht nur für mich ein ganz besonderer Erzähler. Wie viele andere auch, habe ich seinen großen Roman "Der Fänger im Roggen" bereits in der Schule gelesen. Nicht, weil wir diesen im Englischunterricht lesen mussten, sondern weil mich die Erzählungen meiner Bekannten aus dem Englisch-LK (man stelle sich vor, ich konnte Englisch als Fremdsprache abwählen und habe Latein als Abiturfach gewählt...) irgendwie neugierig darauf gemacht hatten. Natürlich habe ich mich damals mit meinen beschränkten Englischkenntnissen (sic!) nicht an die Originalausgabee gewagt, sondern hatte mit der Böll-Übersetzung Vorlieb nehmen müssen (ohne zu wissen, dass die Übersetzung von Heinrich Böll war). Trotz aller Schwächen der deutschen Übersetzung hat mich der Roman damals fasziniert, glaubte ich doch in diesem Roman erkannt zu haben, was es ausmacht, eine gute Geschichte zu schreiben (zumindest damals und in meinen Augen...). Irgendwie passiert ja auch nicht wirklich etwas in diesem Roman, der ja eigentlich auch nur eine auf Romanlänge aufgeblasene Kurzgeschichte ist. Holden Caufield, der "zerbrechlich" wirkende und stets altklug daherredende Held dieser Geschichte aus den 50er Jahren ist aus dem Internat herausgeflogen und vorzeitig - es ist bald Weihnachten - auf dem Weg nach Hause nach New York - ohne natürlich gesteigerten Wert darauf zu legen, in die offenen Arme seiner Eltern zu laufen. Aber das ganze ist ja eigentlich nur ein Rahmen für viele kleine Erzählungen....alles Erzählungen, die von "verpassten" Gelegenheiten und Chancen erzählen. Immer wieder gerät Caufield in eine vielversprechende, entscheidende Situation und das "was-wäre-wenn" geht auf der einen Seite dem Romanhelden und auf der anderen Seite natürlich auch dem Leser durch den Kopf....ohne dass der Romanheld die ihm gebotene Gelegenheit, der Geschichte einen anderen Ausgang zu geben, jemals ergreifen würde. So ist der Leser irgendwie enttäuscht, aber auf der anderen Seite fühlt man sich gekitzelt oder vielmehr angestachelt, um zu sehen, welche Möglichkeiten die nächste Situation birgt, in der Salinger seinen Helden geraten lässt, und ob er diesmal nicht vielleicht doch etwas daraus macht....Etwas anders ist es in diesem Band mit 9 frühen Kurzgeschichten Salingers (allesamt erschienen vor dem 'Fänger im Roggen'), in der er auch viel Biographisches verarbeitet. Wie üblich passiert in den Geschichten auch nicht wirklich etwas. Aber es ist diese Atmosphäre... Stets schafft es Salinger, eine Art Melancholie über Allem schweben zu lassen. Es kommt gar nicht darauf an, was seine Figuren tatsächlich tun und wie sie agieren. Vielmehr sind es die Dialoge bzw. die inneren Monologe, die seine Figuren führen und die sie so besonders machen. Die Nebensächlichkeiten, die in diesen kurzen Episoden zur Hauptsache werden, die fragile Verletzlichkeit der Figuren, das Sich-verlieren in Oberflächlichkeiten, die doch so vieles bedeuten....Ähnliches kennt man aus den Kurzgeschichten von Raymond Carver, der sich Salinger sicherlich auch als Vorbild genommen hatte (besonders zu empfehlen ist die Kurzgeschichtensammlung 'What We Talk about When We Talk about Love').Die meisten Geschichten von Salinger haben etwas mit dem Erwachsenwerden zu tun. Die Spannung, die sich aus dieser Potentialdifferenz ergibt, wenn die handelnde Figur auf der Schwelle zwischen beiden Welten steht, das Erkennen, dass die Lüge einen Stellenwert in der Welt der Erwachsenen besitzt, vor der man nur als Kind gefeit zu sein scheint....So ist erste Geschichte "A perfect day for banana-fish" des vorliegenden Buches eine besonders düstere und bizarre Geschichte. Eine der ersten Geschichte, die Salinger 1948 im "New Yorker" veröffentlicht hat und die ihn über Nacht bekannt machte. Der Protagonist der Geschichte ist ein scheinbar etwas verwirrter Kriegsveteran, freundet sich im Urlaub mit einem kleinen Mädchen an und erzählt ihr am Strand eine Geschichte von Bananenfischen. Dann geht er zurück auf sein Hotelzimme
RMSmithJr on LibraryThing 24 days ago
Not excessively memorable. Standard collection of repackaged and republished magazine short stories. Warm up for imminent reading of Catcher in the Rye.
bookworm12 on LibraryThing 24 days ago
After reading The Catcher in the Rye I realized that angst and frustration were universal feelings. Franny and Zooey made me fall in love with the Glass family and decide to cover my walls with large sheets of handmade paper, covered in quotes. But it was Nine Stories that's always held my favorite bit of Salinger's writing. Where his other novels are sometimes a bit too dramatic for my taste, Nine Stories offers single servings, just enough that it feels like brilliance as opposed to whining. In these smaller doses Salinger's writing is poignant and powerful. He doesn't give the reader everything, he makes you work for it and I appreciate that. Many of the stories deal with someone connected to the Glass family in some way. I get something different from them each time I read one. My two favorites are "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," which broke my heart and "Down at the Dinghy," sweet in its innocence. "Teddy" is also memorable, because it's a bit disturbing. Nine Stories has always seemed a bit underrated, which probably makes me love it more. It contains some of Salinger's greatest characters, if only a snapshot of them, and helps me get a Salinger fix if I need one.
duck2ducks on LibraryThing 24 days ago
What a bizarrely uneven book.

First time I've read Salinger. The first story was shocking and disturbing - the kind of disturbing that seriously makes you wonder about reading more. A good start.

But after that, for the most part, the stories ... aren't very good. The writing is generally unremarkable, and most of them don't have anything original to say, or have anything noteworthy actually happen. The recurring theme that returns again and again is simply "War screws you up" - which is valid, and was bound to be in the public consciousness at the time of publication ... but isn't very original, either in the idea or in any of the presentations of the idea.

Which is why it was so astonishing to find that the two final stories in the collection - De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period and (to an only slightly lesser extent) Teddy - are absolute gems. They're funny, they're fascinating, the writing is really interesting, and they both really invite careful study. Had the rest of the stories been anywhere near to this level, I'd have rated the collection much higher.

A perplexing mix.
upthera44 on LibraryThing 24 days ago
This is a collection of short stories and vignettes which act as snapshots of the lives of the characters within them. Some are rather short and feel a bit incomplete or idle, but I think this was intended by Salinger so as to not bog down the reader with overt themes or ideology and simply to show moments in peoples' lives. I'm thinking particularly of 'Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut', 'Just Before the War with the Eskimos', 'Down at the Dingy' and 'Pretty Mouth and Green Eyes' when I say that some of the stories feel a little light on purpose. Still, they are well-written and worth reading. The remaining stories are all rather touching, each in its own peculiar way, and rival 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'Franny and Zooey' as Salinger's very best works.'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' depicts a young man recently discharged from WWII on vacation with his wife, who spends the entirety of the story on the phone with her mother discussing her husband's mental state and reassuring her that he isn't completely dangerous. The husband, the main character, is rather indifferent and distant and only brightens up when he is talking with a toddler-aged girl with whom he swims in the ocean and tells the tragic tale of the bananafish.'For Esme with Love and Squalor' wins the award both for best title and best story in the collection (rivaled closely by 'Teddy'). It is about a young American soldier who is in training in England not long before the Invasion of Normandy. He keeps to himself and seems to be a rather reflective guy, walking around this small English town. He meets a very young girl, maybe 13 or 14, who is having tea with her family in a cafe. She sits down with him and they share a very personal and odd conversation in which she asks him to write to her from the front and also to write her a story-- preferably "about squalor". The dialogue and strange connection between these two people, who are from rather separate worlds, shows the way people can unexpectedly find each other and have a surprising, almost spiritual connection.'Teddy', the final story in the book, is about an extremely precocious 6 year old boy who is a dedicated Buddhist and is convinced that he has been reincarnated. He is being studied by scientists and psychologists who marvel at his intelligence and spiritual insights and who, unable to help themselves upon learning that he believes he can predict the future, demand to know their future and when they might die. The boy is on a cruise ship with his parents, an eccentric and somewhat cynical couple. He wanders off on his own and has a long conversation with a man on the deck of the ship in which he casually predicts his own death just before it occurs and finishes the story. This story is really about the conflict between logic and spirituality, the clash between the rational and irrational world. It's one of the most interesting discussions of spirituality and eastern religion that I've encountered.
pingdjip on LibraryThing 24 days ago
*spoilers*De nine stories hebben meestal een twist aan het einde waardoor het verhaal echt "af" is. Soms is dat een positieve wending. De vreemde jongeman uit Blue Period hervindt aan het einde koers, dwz komt zijn bijna waanbeeldachtige bevlieging te boven na een soort van onverwachte spirituele ervaring, misschien een epiphany. Een meisje heeft het helemaal gehad met het asociale gedrag van een vriendin, maar door de ruzie die volgt ontmoet ze het broertje van die vriendin; suggestie: hier gaat misschien iets moois ontstaan. Dat laatste klinkt misschien plat, maar in het verhaal zelf is het dat helemaal niet. Soms heeft het einde een kleine ambivalentie-explosie van dingen die heel negatief maar toch ook weer positief uitpakken. Zoals in Down at the Dinghy, waarin een moeder eindelijk uit haar zoontje weet los te weken wat hem dwars zit (positief), maar dat is dan wel een heel nare belediging die hij over zijn vader heeft horen maken (negatief), maar zelf snapt hij niet helemaal de anti-semitische lading ervan (misschien dan toch weer een beetje positief). En soms is het einde ronduit naar, neem de zelfmoord uit Bananafish, of de bijna ontwrichtende uitwerking op een team honkballende jongetjes van het liefdesverdriet vd coach. Hoe dan ook, de verhalen hebben steeds een emotionele lading, die echter heel terughoudend, heel gedoseerd wordt overgebracht. Misschien mijn favoriete verhaal is For Esmée. Een soldaat heeft, door woII, volstrekt vermolmde zenuwen, van zijn vroegere karakter is niets meer over. Maar aan het einde krijgt hij een brief die het plotseling weer een heel klein beetje mogelijk doet lijken dat hij zich weer beter zal gaan voelen. Maar deze weergave vh verhaal doet er geen recht aan. Het zijn de details, het is de woordkeuze, de volgorde waarin 't verteld wordt, de verschillende suggesties en perspectieven: daardoor wordt het een hele belevingswereld ipv alleen wat gebeurtenisjes, die, samengevat, bijna sentimenteel lijken. Het meest raadselachtige verhaal vond ik Pretty Mouth. Een man wordt midden in de nacht opgebeld door een wanhopige vriend, en heeft een eindeloos geduld en ook best wat wijsheid bij het kalmeren en moed inpraten. Echter, wat later, tijdens een tweede telefoontje, gaat het inderdaad beter met de vriend, maar dan is de man na afloop plotseling erg chagrijnig. Point: hij vond de wanhoop van die vriend eigenlijk wel lekker? Hij speelt ontzettend graag de rol van kalme trooster? Ik weet het niet.
NateJordon on LibraryThing 24 days ago
These nine Salinger stories evoke many of the same sentiments in Catcher in the Rye - adults are screwed up and being a kid sucks. Though worthy themes to explore, I simply found this collection a bit dry. Though well-written impressionistic vignettes, nothing really happens in these stories. I liked them, but was disappointed overall.
cdeuker on LibraryThing 24 days ago
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this collection. I've avoided rereading CATCHER IN THE RYE for fear that the magic would not be there. I don't remember liking this collection all that much, wasn't expecting much, and got a lot. Laughing Man struck me as the strongest story. Lots going on--the power of language, imagination, love to thrill but also to crush the heart.
twright3 on LibraryThing 24 days ago
Before this I assumed Salinger's genius was limited to Holden Caulfield. That's just not at all the case. The first story alone is worth the price of admission.
rosehurdercarney on LibraryThing 24 days ago
Extremely well written. I enjoyed this collection far more than Catcher in the Rye.
rickstill122 on LibraryThing 24 days ago
So many levels upon which to enjoy Salinger; the language, the humor, the art, the characters, I especially hold dear the characters he creates and releases over the course of a few sentences, whom the reader then must live with until death. For instance, when the character in "the laughing man" describes "three girls in my life who struck me as having unclassifiably great beauty at first sight. One was a thin girl in a black bathing suit who was having a lot of trouble putting up an orange umbrella at Jones Beach, circa 1936. The second was a girl aboard a Carribean cruise ship in 1939, who threw her cigarette lighter at a porpoise..." Reading Salinger is a religious experience.
whitewavedarling on LibraryThing 5 months ago
Oddly elegant, these stories demand appreciatins. At the same time though, some of the quirks of writing and various characters work better in some places than others. This is one collection where it's the style and not the subjectmatter that lets you know all of the stories came from the same hand, but in that same way, they may get a trifle repetitive if you read them all side by side, regardless of order.
xicanti on LibraryThing 5 months ago
Like most North Americans, I read The Catcher in the Rye in high school. I loved it, but I never really felt the need to read any of Salinger's other work. I found Catcher compelling, but not addictive. Now, having read Nine Stories, I wish I'd sought out all his other books years ago. This was excellent. Salinger has a real talent for dialogue; his characters speak very naturally, and it's the interpersonal conflicts that come to light through their conversations that really make this book shine. These stories aren't big, world-shaking exposes; instead, they're quiet, reflective examinations of how certain people react in particular circumstances. Many of these circumstances relate to World War II and its effects on soldiers and their loved ones, but I wouldn't say that war is a theme here so much as a shared experience. Salinger doesn't come right out and say anything about what these people have gone through. He never comments in an overt way. He gives us these characters' words, (and, in the first person stories, their thoughts), and lets us make of them what we will. It's up to the reader to figure out what happens to each character and what each story means. I found it enthralling and, in many cases, deeply moving. Highly recommended.
figre on LibraryThing 5 months ago
I¿ve read more than one book at a time many times (as I¿m sure many of us have), but I¿ve never been in a situation where I felt one book may have effected the reading of another. But I wonder if that is not what has happened to me here.As I began this collection, my first thought was, ¿Uh¿What?¿ Not an unusual reaction for some short story collections, the kind of stories you read through, wonder what you read, why they wrote it, and, ultimately, why you wasted your time. But that wasn¿t the ¿uh-what¿ moment I was having as I began this collection. For example, the first story (¿A Perfect Day for Bananafish¿) is perfectly engrossing. The shift between perspectives works well and there is a sense of foreboding that plays perfectly. But then, in the end, [Warning! Spoiler alert (Do you hate that phrase as much as I do? This is not really a spoiler because, the event is perfectly foreshadowed)] when the soldier commits suicide, in spite of the excellent foreshadowing I¿ve mentioned, I still just looked at the ending and thought ¿So???¿ However, my sense that I was about to enter into well-written stories that held no purpose slowly dissolved as I read through the collection.So, what was I reading concurrently that may have caused my gears to shift too slowly? A collection of humor pieces titled ¿Mirth of a Nation¿. (My review of that collection is available if you are so inclined.) I chose the Salinger on purpose, feeling that I needed a break in the humor pieces and guessing that Salinger would be just the antidote. Well, antidote it may have been, but I wonder if it was not to the detriment of the antidote itself. So, I now figure I¿ll have to go back in and reread some of the opening stories because, as I continued to read through, the stories got better and better. (Or, maybe more to the point, I became better at reading them.) Most have that same kind of seminal event that brings them to conclusion, (or even that sometimes too artsy ¿He looked at the blue sweater¿ type ending) but they fit better. And each story left me thinking about the story, how the pieces worked to a final understanding of the events, and what the writer was trying to say. To the point that the last story, ¿Teddy¿, which also ends with a suicide (whoops, forgot the spoiler alert) worked seamlessly. Haunting, intriguing, memorable stories. The fact that a quick glance at the title and a couple of paragraphs can bring back to me the entire story says volumes about the quality and lasting power of each.
yonas on LibraryThing 5 months ago
The stories in this book were nothing short of really good, but I must say that a lot of them left me wanting more - as if they had no ending at all.
stipe168 on LibraryThing 5 months ago
not enough can be said.. all 9 are superb and beautiful. salinger writes the child's voice better than anyone i've ever read. and he's hilarious! which always helps. you'll laugh and you'll cry, what more can you want?