Works, most notably novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951), of American writer Jerome David Salinger often concern troubled, sensitive adolescents.
People well know this author for his reclusive nature. He published his last original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980. Reared in city of New York, Salinger began short stories in secondary school and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948, he published the critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in The New Yorker, his subsequent home magazine. He released an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield especially influenced adolescent readers. Widely read and controversial, sells a quarter-million copies a year.
The success led to public attention and scrutiny: reclusive, he published new work less frequently. He followed with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953), of a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961), and a collection of two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965.
Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton. In the late 1990s, Joyce Maynard, a close ex-lover, and Margaret Salinger, his daughter, wrote and released his memoirs. In 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish "Hapworth 16, 1924" in book form, but the ensuing publicity indefinitely delayed the release.
Another writer used one of his characters, resulting in copyright infringement; he filed a lawsuit against this writer and afterward made headlines around the globe in June 2009. Salinger died of natural causes at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.
A Girl I Knew is a short story by J.D. Salinger first published in February 1948 in Good Housekeeping.
The story begins as the narrator fails out of college. His father offers to send him to Europe to learn languages he could use to help his business.
While in Vienna, the narrator meets a girl, Leah. She is Jewish and attempts to give him lessons in German as he introduces her to pieces of Americana.
He frequently stumbles over his new language while ingratiating himself with her and her family. They both spend time in his apartment, which is above hers. Some time passes before the narrator transfers to Paris, and then goes back to college in America. ...
"Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. How well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn’t necessarily affect the transformation. She was there, and she was the whole city, and that’s that."
This story is so Salinger that no one would have to tell you who wrote it if it came without a title or byline. The first half of the story is very coming-of-age, young-man-meets world; as our narrator is sent to Vienna in 1936 to study German in hopes of joining his father's firm. It is poignant and humorous, making me chuckle. The second half will tear your heart out.
Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. How well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn’t necessarily affect the transformation. She was there, and she was the whole city, and that’s that.
I don’t know any more. I used to know, but I lost the knowledge a long time ago. A man can’t go along indefinitely carrying around in his pocket a key that doesn’t fit anything.
No wonder people would not leave Salinger alone. Even his short-stories are small masterpieces.
I hunted this short story down after I saw this quote mentioned in an article on the best quotes in literature:
"She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."
I loved the story and fell even more in love with Salinger's writing. It was full of great quotes.
"Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. How well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn’t necessarily affect the transformation. She was there, and she was the whole city, and that’s that."
Even though Salinger was formed by the war, he never exactly writes about war. But this really short story has atleast traces of war in the background. I'm not sure how Salinger brings up characters so real in very few words, it's a shame that he decided to shred his works. Stupid weird old man.
Savr?en po?etak nove godine i najljep?i ro?endanski poklon jer ne znam kako mi je ova pri?a dosad promakla! Svi ve? znate da je Selind?er za mene Bog bogova, najvoljeniji pisac svih vremena, ro?en ba? na dana?nji dan kad i ja. Mislim da je veza vi?e nego o?igledna. ?alu na stranu, obo?avam njegovo pisanje i pisala sam ve? vi?e puta o njegovom umije?u i tome da je neprevazi?eni genije posebno kad je u pitanju forma (kratke) pri?e. Za koji dan ?u detaljnije i o ovoj. Svakako preporu?ujem, jer je, kao i sve njegovo, besprekorna i idealna za simboli?an po?etak novog ljeta i proslavu ro?endana ovog virtuoza.
You pluck a few quotes from here and there, and get dazzled by their beauty.
Leah's knock on my door was always poetry - high, beautifully wavering, absolutely perpendicular poetry. Her knock started out speaking of her own innocence and beauty, and accidentally ended speaking of the innocence and beauty of all very young girls. I was always half-eaten away by the respect and happiness when I opened the door for Leah.
And its better known counter-part, which always made me think better of J. D. Salinger's ability to craft beautiful sentences.
The apartment below mine had the only balcony of the house. I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in the pool of autumn twilight. She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.
But put it all together, and the sum of all the parts does not match up against an individual part. Not to say that I didn't like the story in its entirety, but considering how much I love the aforementioned quotes, my hopes were riding much too high, and the story couldn't quite raise itself to that height.
Again, I feel myself divided over Salinger and his writings. There are bits and pieces of genius surrounded by a landscape of lesser appeal. I should probably read a bit more by him just to be sure.
the fact that I'm so disinterested in every single archetype of character that salinger (an unrepentant misogynist to his bones, to the very core outlook of his life) writes and yet I read and reread all his works is a real testament to how much I love his writing. I care for characters I usually would not even care about as real people. is "She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together" the Male Gaze? Yes. Is it a line of literature that has stayed with my now for over ten years? also yes.
The apartment below mine had the only balcony of the house. I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in the pool of autumn twilight. She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together..
Such a beautiful and realistic story ?? .I think this story will stuck with me .
Easy short read with excellent quotes.. "Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. " , "She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."
"I don't know any more. I used to know, but I lost the knowledge a long time ago. A man can't go along indefinitely carrying around in his pocket a key that doesn't fit anything."
Salinger, in another life we could have gotten along. We would have disagreed at length about the way you write of a woman's beauty and how unrealistic it seems to one ("Her beauty held the universe together"). We would have stayed up talking about who the real woman behind Jean was. About whether "lost knowledge" is ever really lost, rather discarded for it has proved useless in a world with no takers. Whether unrequited feelings were reason enough to go on, whether love made you a better writer. Whether adapting to loneliness was better than facing the disappointment that no one, regardless of how close they are to you, can truly understand you, where you come from and where you eventually want to go, or if you thought it was more cowardly to do so. We'd write letters to each other from wherever we were, and they would elude the lies of comfort our loved ones resort to and never once call the other delusional for being a closeted romantic (our worlds have committed to lunacy, what's a little romanticism amidst the chaos?) and imagining possibilities even when our circumstance strongly suggest otherwise. I'm quite certain of it Salinger, despite what this story suggests, you'd write back, if I wrote to you.
As soon as i reached the second page, i remembered that i had read this short story in a persian-translated collection. Here's some quotes i really liked:
I think that if Goethe’s Werther and all his sorrows had been placed on the promenade deck of the S.S. Rex beside me and all "my sorrows, he would have looked by comparison like a rather low comedian.
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Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. How well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn’t necessarily affect the transformation. She was there, and she was the whole city, and that’s that.
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Maybe I consistently hesitated to risk letting the thing we had together deteriorate into a romance. I don’t know any more. I used to know, but I lost the knowledge a long time ago. A man can’t go along indefinitely carrying around in his pocket a key that doesn’t fit anythig.
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I don’t really remember our first evening in my sitting room. All our evenings were pretty much the same. I can’t honestly separate one from another; not any more, anyway.
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When I looked at Leah again, her beauty seemed too great for the size of the room. The only way to make room for it was to speak of it. “Sie sind sehr sch?n. Weissen Sie dass?”? I almost shouted at her.
I tracked this short story down because of the quotes, read it because of the length, and it stays in the back of my mind because of the ending. I'm going to have to read more of this author... It has the flavor of real life.