book of books - Franny and Zooey

I'm not sure if there is much left now by J.D.Salinger that the library has or if there is any more to read. Most of his short story collections have now been covered and at the end you are left appreciating the power of his imagination. The creation of the fictional Glass family is so believable that you keep falling into the mistake of believing that Buddy is J.D himself and his brother must have committed suicide. Over the course of the collections Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and For Esme with Love and Squalor there are all the pieces of the jigsaw to put together not only what happened with Seymour but how his suicide impacted on the key members in the rest of the family.

Like the other two short story collections these stories run into each other both in terms of chronology and the issues being covered. The clever thing is that if you read them with reference to the other it would still work as a readable and provoking piece of fiction.

Plot Summary
Franny
Franny Glass turns up to meet her boyfriend Lane and rather than just sit their and look pretty and go along to the ball game and make him look good and agree with what he says she picks holes. She starts by undermining his college paper and then starts to reveal her loathing for those who teach at her college and starts talking about phonies. One of the most important revelations is that she has given up acting, something she is very good at, because she feels everyone else involved is a phoney. Lane struggles to cope with her mood and Franny goes to the restroom for air and starts crying and clinging onto a book. The book turns out to be about a Russian peasant who believes that with the aid of knowledge about the 'Jesus Prayer' can harmonise with God. She tells Lane all about this but he doesn't really understand and then as she announces that she is going to the restroom again she collapses and the weekend is effectively over.

Zooey
Things start with Zooey in the bath reading a letter that is four years old from his brother Buddy advising him not to become an actor without first having completed his PhD. Then Bessie Glass (the mother) walks in and starts annoying him and trying to get his opinion on what is wrong with Franny who is prostrate on the couch and has been off her food and causing concern since being sent home from her weekend with Lane. Zooey takes an age to get ready, is obviously a man of great confidence and appears to be off for a lunch date with a director when he turns into the room where Franny is lying on the sofa. Zooey knows all about the Jesus Prayer and attempts to use a combination of psycho analysis and bullying to get her to snap out of it but fails. He leaves the room and again you assume he is leaving the apartment but he heads to Buddy and Seymour's room and using the private phone in their old bedroom phones pretending to be Buddy and asks to speak to Franny. he doesn't fool her for long and you sense he is about the blow it again when he wears his heart on his sleeve admits he feels the way that she does but adds that everyone might be a fool but you carry on because there might be someone with quality among the audience and she is born to act. The message seems to get through and she climbs into her mothers bed and both Franny and Zooey have come to a point where they realise that although their brother's Buddy and Seymour might have indoctrinated them they did so wisely.

Is it well written?
The stories work particularly well back to back and leave you with a sense of calm after the damage of years of superior thinking are corrected and pointed in the right direction in the younger of the Glass family children. But on their own the stories work with Franny showing the strain of trying to lap up the rubbish that everyone else pedals and falls for. Zooey is also facing that same struggle and reacts with bitterness to those he sees as idiotic. The result is that in their own way both are unhappy and blame their brothers for hard wiring them to think like that. But equally their brothers taught them to be the best you can be regardless of the intellectual depth of those around you and it is that lesson that saves both Franny and Zooey in the end. The fact that the larger issue can carry over until the final paragraph is because of the intelligence in the writing and a confidence with the material. You really believe these people exist at points.

Should it be read?
As I have said after reading some of the other short story collections it is important to see a writer in the round and the mistake of just going for Catcher in the Rye is that although a great book it shows only one side to Salinger. Here is characterisation, within a family, that is stretched over several books of which this is just one. There is an eye for detail and an understanding about the journey the reader is on that makes it a lot easier to read these books with you feeling that you are putting the jigsaw pieces of the Glass family together in a very satisfying way - like collecting a complete set of something. It also reminds you that great writing can take many forms and has the power to provoke and challenge even over 29 pages - the length of the Franny story.

Summary
Hold your head up high no matter how bitter and twisted you feel inside because if you have the talent you have to let it shine.

Version read - Penguin paperback

Lunchtime read: Franny and Zooey

The book ends with both of the characters covered in this two story collection having a moment when the truth is spelt out in order to save them from falling apart struggling to be normal. Zooey plays an interesting role as psychoanalyst, damaged brother and bitter actor but pushes himself into places he would have otherwise avoided to try to help his sister Franny snap out of her despair.

Highlights from pages 106 – 131
After having failed to pull Franny out of her breakdown with his bitter logical arguments about the Jesus prayer and what sort of person Jesus was Zooey walks out of the lounge. You suspect he is leaving for the lunch appointment he has mentioned several times but instead he heads for Seymour and Buddy’s room and from them after an hour of getting into the role phones up pretending to be Buddy. Franny comes on the line and attacks Zooey for being bitter and lecturing and then she realises that it is Zooey and finally her brother gets through to her.

The turning point is when he tells her that without her knowledge Zooey and Buddy travelled up to see her act in a college play. He tells her she was brilliant but there is no point being superior to some segments of the audience because looking for a good audience is a search that will destroy her. She should enjoy the talent she has and accept that the world is not full of similarly minded people.

A review will follow this weekend…

Lunchtime read: Franny and Zooey

These two stories in this book complement each other well because both characters are flawed as a result of their upbringing and experiences in the public eye on a radio show. Although Franny is seeking some sort of solace in religion her brother is not that far behind her in trying to seek some comfort from somewhere and has even considered going down the prayer route himself.

Highlights from pages 82 – 106
Zooey starts to provoke Franny into talking about her current state of mind and admits after she starts to explain that she thinks most people in her college are phonies that he thinks the same about people in films and television. But then he moves on to question her ‘hair shirt’ approach saying that although there is nothing wrong with having something against the system but she is making it too personal. He adds that her actions are also unfair because they are disturbing their parents.

Whether or not this lecture has any impact will become clear in the last twenty or so pages…

Lunchtime read: Franny and Zooey

The relationship between mother and son is strained as she looks to him to provide help and answers for Franny’s current condition. While she focuses on her daughter it is subtly clear that Zooey himself also needs some attention but that is not going to be forthcoming. Realising that the focus only seems to fall on the child that is in obvious trouble explains why both Zooey and Buddy are left to carry on their troubled lives because they have not broken down visibly.

Highlights between pages 70 – 82 (not much today)
After being badgered by his mother to speak to Franny about what is wrong with her Zooey tells her about the books she has been reading and about the incessant praying that the Russian peasant has managed to get to. The mother seems slightly relieved that Zooey seems to know what is going on and asks him to talk to Franny, something that despite initially seemingly to be uninterested, he does agree to do.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Franny and Zooey

Salinger interweaves his stories so it is no surprise that this moves onto dealing with the consequences of Franny’s mental problems outlined in the first story. Having returned home still gabbling about prayers and not eating the family have to deal with her and that is the cause of tension.

Highlights from pages 48 – 70
Zooey and his mother are in the bathroom talking and then arguing about how to treat Franny who is still not eating and reading her religious books. Zooey points out that not only are the books from Seymour’s room but there are deep problems in the family that have never really been addressed that focus on the way Buddy and Seymour, the two oldest boys influenced their younger siblings. Zooey expresses rage at the way they indoctrinated them and then points out that no one is able to deal with Seymour’s suicide. Mrs Glass listens but provokes by talking of her desire to get a psychoanalyst involved with Franny.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Franny and Zooey

I have only just started this really today and it is a chance to get reacquainted with Buddy Glass and his attempts to use writing as a way of coping with the suicide of his brother. Each of the Salinger stories that are meant to have been penned by Buddy provide a little bit more information about what happened to Seymour and this starts by describing how Buddy felt to have to go and pick up the body and fly back home with it.

Highlights from the first few pages of Zooey
The character the story is named after is the youngest of the Glass family, an actor who is reading a letter from his brother Buddy in the bath. The letter is old and faded and is four years old but in it Buddy tells his brother that he has been asked to write by his mother to encourage him to take up his PhD and have it as a fallback if the acting does not work out. But Buddy uses the letter as a confessional for past actions and gaps in communication and it is more illuminating about Zooey’s family than it is about him at this stage.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Franny and Zooey

Having read quite a few Salinger short stories someone posted a comment encouraging me to get hold of Franny and Zooey. The book finally turned up in the library so with press day out of the way and a little bit of calm in the office I have managed to do a spot of lunchtime reading getting through the Franny story that starts the book.

Highlights from Franny
Franny is spending the weekend with her boyfriend Lane and he is waiting expectantly at the station after receiving a letter from her saying how excited she is about the trip. He has a weekend planned around a meal, a game and then some cocktails and they head off for a meal in a restaurant. Lane starts by lecturing her on his latest theories and after a while Franny cuts in and contradicts him and then carries on in a confrontational mood. She is irritated by him and goes to the toilet and bursts into tears and clutches a book close to her chest.

Back at the table the odd conversation continues and Lane points out Franny is seating and she empties her bag trying to get Kleenex and the book pops out. Lane asks what it is about and she tells him it is about a Russian holy man that teaches people the special way to pray by saying “Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”. The idea is that you say it in time with your heart beat but Lane is sceptical and critical and then after telling Franny that he loves her in a quite off-hand way she heads for the toilet, faints and is carried to the managers office. Lane is suddenly all chivalrous and goes off to call a cab leaving Franny recanting what must be the holy man’s prayer.

This is one of those stories where you start alongside Lane but as soon as Franny arrives you side with her. But as the story develops it becomes clear just how unhappy the woman is and how unsuitable Lane is. who seems to be unobservant, unable to listen and not willing to take criticism of a point of view. In just a few pages Salinger starts to allow a tight emotional coil to unspring leaving you wondering what might happen next.

book of books - For Esme with Love and Squalor and other stories

One of the biggest problems with reading a collection of short stories over a few days then losing the book and taking an enforced break is that it is difficult at the end of a disturbed reading period to try to gather your thoughts about it all.

One of the first things that can be said about this collection of stories is that unlike the last book I read Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters… these stories are not linked in the same way and as a result it is slightly easier dipping and then dipping out. It also has the result of showing off different styles of writing and the appreciation of J.D Salinger increases as a result.

With short stories it is sometimes useful to picture where the text first appeared with some of these stories being printed in literary magazines for consumption in a way that is different from this book. With a pressure to grab the reader and keep them engaged there are some stories here that really stand out as examples of how to keep the reader involved and it is worth mentioning a couple.

For Esme with Love and Squalor
An American solider getting ready for D-Day pops into a church to watch choir practice and notices a girl who then follows him with her brother and governess into the café where he is having tea. He strikes up a conversation with her and it turns out that her father and mother are dead and she is mature for her years partly as a result of that but her brother Charles does seem damaged by it.

The narrator tells her he is an author so Esme asks him to write something for her that is not silly but about squalor and so he mentions he will but then the story switches location and the solider has had a nervous breakdown after D-Day. As he sits down to write a letter he notices a package that has been sent and it is from Esme who has sent him her watch, something he admired in the café, and he suddenly feels like sleeping and remembers her asking him to come back with all his mental facilities.

Teddy
A young boy who has captivated professors round the world with his arguments that he is reincarnated and that the true road to understanding God is through meditation and spiritual concentration. He is challenged by an academic who is on the same boat travelling back from Europe to the US and asks him why he responded to some of the questions professors asked him about predicting death – in response Teddy outlines a possible scenario where his sister pushes him into an empty pool and kills him.

The professor is obviously disturbed not just by Teddy’s views but by his self-confidence and the meeting between them ends with him pausing for thought before running after the 10 year old genius. As he gets down to E deck and nears the pool he hears a shriek of a young girl rebounding off four tiled walls and you realise that the scenario that Teddy sketched out for his own death has happened exactly as he foretold.

Is it well written?
Some of the stories are almost too subtle, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes as an example, and others seem slightly dated in their wartime setting like Just Before the War with the Eskimos. But in places this feels like a flower opening up to the sunlight with the title story and the final Teddy both having a twist in the first instance moving and in the second disturbing that shows real depth. The ability of a child to pull back a man from the edge of the abyss is described with such light touches that a great deal could be learnt from how he writes that scene.

Should it be read?
As has been previously commented with Salinger, the more you read beyond Catcher in the Rye the more you discover a writer that is capable of delivering much more than just a teenage angst ridden novel. Just like Catcher there is an independence of view that carries through the writing and reappears in some of the characters but there is also a variance of style, observational intelligence and recognition that the reader is strapped in and ready for a few hairpin bends to make this worth reading.

Version read – Penguin paperback

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor...

This story is both quirky and supernatural and the sting in the tail is left until the every last sentence. Those looking for examples of what short stories can do should look at the second half of this as a great illustration of how pace can be gently introduced, at a pace that is almost imperceptible, and a twist can come from a reference buried in the text several pages before the event happens.

Teddy
* A young boy who has captivated professors round the world with his arguments that he is reincarnated and that the true road to understanding God is through meditation and spiritual concentration

* He is challenged by an academic who is on the same boat travelling back from Europe to the US and asks him why he responded to some of the questions professors asked him about predicting death – in response Teddy outlines a possible scenario where his sister pushes him into an empty pool and kills him

* The professor is obviously disturbed not just by Teddy’s views but by his self confidence and the meeting between them ends with him pausing for thought before running after the 10 year old genius

* As he gets down to E deck and nears the pool he hears a shriek of a young girl rebounding off four tiled walls and you realise that the scenario that Teddy sketched out for his own death has happened exactly as he foretold

* Great twist and well written in the second half in particular – a bit of a slow starter but gets there in the end

A review will follow shortly but this has been difficult reading because it was truncated while there was a dispute with my own child genius about exactly where he had hidden the book…

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor...

The second part of the story brings it to a close with love and loneliness being two of the main emotions. The feeling that it is all a hoax that could end at any moment is rienforced with the closure of the art school for not having a proper license.

De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period

* Having become obsessed with the pictures from one of his students - a nun - the narrator oversteps the mark asking if he can come to visit her and sends a four-page letter talking about art and life

* While he waits for a reply he throws himself into the task of helping improve the work of other students but then is handed a letter by the school director from the convent telling them that the nun will no longer take part in the school

* In a fit of dissapointment the writer sends out letters to his other pupils telling them they will never amount to anything and then considers sending another letter to the convent

* In the end it is the impact of seeing a shop girl setting up a window display that brings hims back down to earth and he writes telling the students there was an administrative mistake, which becomes irrelevant after the school closes due to the lack of a proper license

Final story starts tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor...

The last couple of stories in this collection by Salinger are too long to be read at one lunch break sitting so will be split into two halves. The first half of this story has an upbeat pace, which is strange bearing in mind the grief of the main character, and there is a humour there but also a feeling that this will end in tears.

De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period
A 19 year old that has been living in Paris returns to New York with his step father following his mother’s death and decides to apply for a teaching post acting as a teacher for a remote teaching course specialising in art

Making up a load of lies about his French history, being related to De Daumier and a best friend of Picasso, he manages to get the job and heads off for his adventure working for a Japanese couple

He spends his first night in their son’s room and then wastes his first morning translating letters from English into French and then after lunch gets to see his first three pupils work that ranges from the inept to the disturbing

Second half tomorrow…

Lunchtime read part I: For Esme with Love and Squalor...

There really didn’t seem to be a great deal in the papers this weekend about literary matters so today once the kids had gone to bed the focus shifted to doing some reading and both the Salinger and the Grass have been nibbled away at and attacked.

First the Salinger with a rather odd story because you think you have guessed the ending only to discover you were wrong and as a result are left not really knowing what to make of it all.

Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes
The title refers to a line from a poem that a husband used to read to his wife before they drifted apart. The line is quoted by the husband to a friend who answers the phone in the company of a girl who you assume is the missing wife. The drunk and angry husband is talking about divorce and admits to his friend who is obviously a colleague that he has also lost a case with a high profile client.

The friend keeps advising the husband to calm down and go to bed to wait for his wife and all the time you expect the woman he is with will head off home. But after hanging up and a delay the friend phones back to apologise because his wife has come home. That leads to the friend being sharp with the woman he is with and displaying a mixture of temper and disappointment

Maybe he thought the wife would come to him but all the time the reader thought she was already there with him

Some Gunter Grass in a moment…

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor

It took a week but after turning the house upside down and begging with my two year old son to point me in the right direction I finally found the Salinger short story collection shoved down the back of a radiator. I have an awful feeling the toddler might be more innocent than first suspected so the matter of the missing book has been left without the finger of blame being pointed anymore than it already has been.

Of all the stories in this collection so far this title tale is one of the best because it has a completeness that is unusual for what has often felt like an on-going dialogue. Part of the reason is that although you recognise that the narrator is again no doubt linked to the Glass family there is a limited focus just on Esme and the story of a meeting that possibly saved a man from the brink of mental collapse.

For Esme with Love and Squalor
* An American solider getting ready for D-Day pops into a church to watch choir practice and notices a girl who then follows him with her brother and governess into the café where he is having tea

* He strikes up a conversation with her and it turns out that her father and mother are dead and she is mature for her years partly as a result of that but her brother Charles does seem damaged by it

* The narrator tells her he is an author so Esme asks him to write something for her that is not silly but about squalor and so he mentions he will but then the story switches location and the solider has had a nervous breakdown after D-Day

* As he sits down to write a letter he notices a package that has been sent and it is from Esme who has sent him her watch, something he admired in the café, and he suddenly feels like sleeping and remembers her asking him to come back with all his mental facilities

Her love, despite her own misfortune, saves him from becoming a victim of his own misery – clever and very moving

More of Salinger and Gunter Grass in the next few days until both books are completed…

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor and other stories

Today has not been a good one for reading but it was possible to slip in a short bit of Salinger and another story featuring a member of the Glass family. This time the focus falls on Boo Boo who seems to be struggling to relate to a Seymour of her own, her four-year-old son who keeps threatening to run away.

Highlights from Down at the Dinghy

* The story starts with two domestic helps chatting about a problem that becomes clear after Boo Boo comes home and openly starts discussing the latest antics of her son Lionel who likes pickles and running away, once as far as Central Park

* Boo Boo discovers her son sitting in a dinghy waiting to sail away and so she tries to connect with him on his own level by pretending to be an admiral and then discovers that what is eating Lionel is that he has overheard the home helps being critical of his father

* Boo Boo comforts her son and tells him they are going to go back to the house and then go and pick his father up from the station and Lionel runs back to the house

On the face of it here is a story about a boy who others are describing as disturbed but who in fact is just not being spoken to in the right way and once his feelings are unlocked he is just looking for love and reassurance.

More tomorrow…

book of books - Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters Seymour: an Introduction

This book is made up of two stories by J.D. Salinger that interlink in terms of being based around the same character but are written in almost completely different styles. The first story is easier to digest but the second displays a type of confessional writing that although hard to get on with at first does have a power of its own.

Salinger is famous for a few things, among them being a recluse, including creating one of the greatest fictional families in literature, The Glass family. These stories both focus on the eldest brother in the Glass clan, Seymour, and are both written from the point of view of his brother Buddy. As well as providing an indication of life during and post World War Two.

It makes sense to split the review into the two halves of the book:

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
Buddy, the narrator, gets a letter from his sister telling him that no one else can attend but he must go to his brother’s wedding and represent the family. One he arrives at the wedding it becomes clear there is a problem and his brother has not turned up and so he jumps in a car with other guests including the matron of honour and gets to drive for several minutes hearing all sorts of bad things about his brother. One of the themes of the maid of honour’s attack is that the groom Seymour was mentally unbalanced. Even after they realise that Buddy is Seymour’s brother the criticisms continue as they take up his offer of hospitality in his apartment as the heat becomes oppressive after the car becomes stuck in a jam. Finally things are resolved with the news that Seymour and the bride have eloped and all is forgiven. But Buddy is left alone in the apartment wondering, having read his brother’s diary, just what on earth motivated the absent brother.

Seymour: an Introduction
This is a book that describes an author that has the weight of family expectation that they can produce a fitting tribute to their dead sibling. The narrator is finding it very hard to write about a brother that he idolised and the rest of the family looked up and the effort of trying to come up with a suitable tribute is crushing and you start to see the pain of the exercise:

"I said I'd finish this, but I'm not going to make it after all. Not because I'm not a proper iron man but because to finish it right I'd have to touch on - my God, touch on - the details of his suicide, and I don't expect to be ready to do that, at the rate I'm going, for several more years."

The book ends with just a few anecdotes being shared and all about Seymour as a boy or young man. The writer has set the boundaries of the non painful zones and it is only when you realise this in a way is not a story about Seymour at all but the reaction of a brother and family to a suicide that this story starts to make sense. Once that penny drops it becomes a powerful story but the slight criticism would be the length of babble you have to get through to start getting to the nub of the story.

Is the book well written?
It takes a while to get bedded down with the idea that both stories are about a character that apart from a few diary entries and a memo never really speaks for himself. The description of Seymour is poor, and deliberately so in an Introduction, making the reader completely rely on the narrator Buddy to be their guide. He is a strong and engaging voice in Raise the Roof but becomes almost unable to write at all in the second story. For those readers expecting more answers – why Seymour killed himself - this book does not provide that and you have to turn to the story A Perfect Day for Bananafish to get that. Appreciate what is going on here and it is a well written book, fail to do that, which is more than possible with an Introduction and it might fail to engage readers.

Should it be read?
To see the power of imagination in action – bear in mind both Seymour and Buddy are completely fictional – this is worth reading. To discover that there is more to Salinger than Catcher in the Rye this is worth reading. To see someone really trying a different style then this is worth reading. But you have to be prepared to work at it and think laterally to appreciate just what is trying to be achieved here. Sadly my suspicion is that most people will expect Holden Caulfield to appear, or someone similar, from the pages and will be disappointed when he doesn’t.

Version read – Penguin paperback

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor and other stories

There is certainly something to be said for reading a large amount of an author’s work because it provides an opportunity to really discern the style, as well as providing a chance to pick out the best work. Salinger produces some great short stories when he mixes the classic elements of a great plot with strong characterisation.

Highlights from The Laughing Man

* A former boy scout is reminiscing about his days playing baseball, camping and having some after school fun led by a leader named the chief who entertains them in the bus before going home with tales of The Laughing Man

* The bus stories centre on a hideously deformed man who fights injustice and has some animal friends and wears a poppy mask to keep his features hidden - and the boys are addicted to the stories

* The routine is suddenly changed by the arrival of the chief’s girlfriend who starts playing baseball with the boys and starts attending their meetings pretty regularly until one evening when she suddenly turns up late and then cries and runs away

* That night the chief, obviously upset about the relationship tells the last episode of the Laughing Man with the hero choosing death after vanquishing his enemies and the impact on the boys is tears and silence as if they realise that they are mourning the end of a more innocent stage of childhood

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor and other stories

Before I get into commenting on the story today I wanted to mention that like most other people reading these stories without too much knowledge about the author you do assume that the members of the Glass family are based on Salinger's own family. But they are not and the discovery that this is one of the classic fictional family creations is something that adds to the respect for the author's imagination.

Just Before the War with the Eskimos

* Two friends, Selina and Ginnie, are coming back from playing tennis and have an argument over money with Ginnie pointing out that she always has to pay the fare and so demands some money from her friend

* Selina storms into her apartment and tells Ginnie that sshe will have to wait while she gets the money from her mother

* As Ginnie waits she is interrupted first by Selina's brother and then by one of his friends who both bowl her over with their observations on life and enthusiasm for being cycnical

* Selina returns with the money but Ginnie tells her to keep it because in a away you feel that she has enjoyed herself and learnt more than a couple of dollars worth of entertainment and knowledge

More tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: For Esme - with Love and Squalor and other stories

As you read more Salinger and start to appreciate the role that the family plays in his stoties and even when you don't think that it is going to be about one the Seymour and Buddy clan it turns out to fill another part of the jigsaw about the family history - this time about Walt who died in the war.

Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut

* Two old college friends meet up on a cold snowy day and share some memories and plenty of alcholol and start to talk about the old times and some of the people they went to college with

* But the married woman who lives in the house starts to turn bitter in her recollections, particularly after her daughter comes home with her imaginary friend, and reveals that she adored a soilder who was killed in the war

* She tells her friend that she has never been able to tell her husband about the relationship, which she valued for the humour (the title comes from something Walt said) and he would be even more jealous of a ghost

* The friend asks for details of his death and is told a camping stove blew up and killed him and then the drink and futility of the loss overcome her and she is angry with her daughter and then in tears asks her friend if she was good - obviously wondering why something so bad happened to her

More from the collection tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor and other stories

The theme is Seymour again but this time the suicide is dealt with head-on with the holiday in Florida, which was mentioned in Seymour: an Introduction being the location for the final hours of a disturbed but obviously talented man.

There is no sense of impending doom in this story at all so the ending takes you by surprise and it is hard not to come to the conclusion – shared by the mother-in-law – that Seymour is unhinged.

A Perfect Day For Bananafish

* Muriel, Seymour’s wife, is in the hotel and makes a long distance call to New York and tells her mother that Seymour is acting reasonably normally but the mother is alarmed and argues that he should never have been let of hospital by the army

* Muriel defends her husband but there have obviously been issues around the grandmother and suggestions Seymour has made around her funeral arrangements and something to so with trees

* Meanwhile Seymour is on the beach and then plays with a little girl as they go into the water searching for bananafish but at the end when he kisses her foot as she plays the imaginary game you sense there is a bridge he cannot cross

* He then walks back into the hotel embarrasses a woman he accuses of looking at his feet in the lift walks into his room and gets his gun and then lies on the twin bed next to Muriel and blows his brains out

Where this collection of stories can go from there is hard to guess but there will be more tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Seymour: an Introduction

After an odd an uneasy start the penny finally drops and you start to understand that this is a book that the author is finding very hard to write about a brother that he idolised and the rest of the family looked up to. The weight of trying to come up with a suitable tribute is crushing and you start to see the pain of the exercise:

"I said I'd finish this, but I'm not going to make it after all. Not because I'm not a proper iron man but because to finish it right I'd have to touch on - my God, touch on - the details of his suicide, and I don't expect to be ready to do that, at the rate I'm going, for several more years."

Highlights from the final third of Seymour: an Introduction

* Buddy describes how his brother was his greatest critic but also a friendly voice of encouragement and he prints a memo his brother sent after he had written his first major piece of writing

* Then he stumbles around the area of revealing what his brother looked like and he admits he cannot do that easily and gets frustrated and calls on the reader to be satisfied with the information he has been able to provide

* He tries as best he can to describe the eyes, nose and dress sense but where he manages to get a bit more colour is round his brother’s love of sports but throughout he never manages to describe Seymour as an older man preferring the safety of their youth

A review will follow shortly…