[Bananafish] Nine Stories

[Christopher Kubica]

How do you know any of this?

-- 
CDMK


> From: Kenneth <kenny2 at verizon.net>
> Reply-To: bananafish list <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
> Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:19:50 -0500
> To: <bananafish at lists.bway.net>
> Subject: Re: [Bananafish] Nine Stories
> 
> Since there appears to be some fresh blood here with a biographical interest
> in J.D. Salinger (and because I'm bored), I thought I'd offer a few
> interesting tid-bits about some of the Nine Stories.
> Why the hell not?
> 
> Bananafish: Salinger originally submitted the first draft of this story to
> The New Yorker in 1946. The magazine couldn't make heads or tails out of it.
> The Laughing Man: In 1957, Salinger tried to sell this story to Hollywood.
> It came dangerously close to being made into a movie.
> Dinghy: Salinger originally titled this story "The Killer in the Dinghy."
> Charming.
> For Esme: The original version of this story was six pages longer than what
> we have now.
> Pretty Mouth: I personally believe this story to have been written in 1948.
> The New Yorker released it three days before the publication of Catcher in a
> cynical attempt to capitalize on the book.
> Blue Period: Salinger worried that readers would find this story
> "offensive." His editor called it "bizarre." While Salinger claimed that he
> didn't care if it was rejected by The New Yorker, he complained incessantly
> when it actually was.
> Teddy: This is a re-worked story that Salinger originally wrote before the
> release of Catcher and had "floating around" (ouch!) in his closet. The
> story we have now was not finished until the end of November, 1952. By then,
> he had already made plans with Little, Brown to include the story in Nine
> Stories and had set a date with The New Yorker to publish it exactly five
> years after Bananafish. In other words, neither Little, Brown or The New
> Yorker had seen the story when they accepted it.
> 
> I also have a personal speculation about "Teddy." Perhaps oddly, I'm
> fascinated by Salinger's relationship with his dog, Benny. He adopted the
> shnauzer while living in Germany in 1945 and adored him beyond measure. But
> I can find no true reference to the dog after the end of 1952. This makes me
> wonder whether Teddy's story of Sven's dog (and his diary entry that he
> would not want a dog himself and risk suffering the pain of seperation) does
> not indicate that Benny died about this time and reflects Salinger's own
> grief.
> I said it was odd.
> 
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