Review: For Esmé — With Love And Squalor by J. D. Salinger (1953, 215pp)

This review contains a few excerpts from the book but doesn't spoil any surprises.

In the interests of full disclosure, I have a confession to make. The Catcher In The Rye was a very important book for me. I read it one summer as a still tender nineteen-year-old, working in a quiet pub, saving for my move to university in the autumn. I'm sure many of its readers will know what I'm talking about when I say the novel's narrator Holden Caulfield seemed to perfectly embody my own naive cynicism while simultaneously showing up everything that was wrong with it.

For Esmé — With Love And Squalor is the UK title for a collection of Salinger's short pieces, which in the US is simply called Nine Stories. All nine will be of interest to anyone who was impressed or moved by Salinger's most popular novel, but they might also provide an interesting taster for readers who've yet to be swayed by The Catcher In The Rye's often earnest admirers.

In the title piece an American soldier recalls a chance encounter in a tea-shop in the South-West of England with a precocious young girl called Esmé. (Anyone who read my review of The Chequer Board is probably wondering if I've got a thing for stories about the "over-sexed, over-paid and over here", particularly in the South-West — I have.) Esmé soon discovers that her new acquaintance is a writer:

'I'd be extremely flattered if you'd write a story exclusively for me some time. I'm an avid reader.'
I told her I certainly would, if I could. I said that I wasn't terribly prolific.
'It doesn't have to be terribly prolific! Just so that it isn't childish and silly.' She reflected. 'I prefer stories about squalor.'

This might smell like meta-fiction to some and maybe it is but it's not the tricksy sort. Perhaps this is because Esmé comes across as such a charming and thoughtful character — exactly the kind of person you'd like to listen to in a tea-shop; someone who's clumsy with big words but at least makes an effort to use them. But I suspect the story really works because it feels autobiographical in its attention to detail; because it feels like a true dedication to its central character. Fulfilling his promise, the narrator goes on to give a short glimpse of his suitably squalid experience in the war.

'For Esmé — With Love And Squalor' is actually a good example of the best things about the collection as a whole. Salinger is very good at portraying precocious children and apparently traumatised young adults. He's also very good at getting voices on the page. 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' brings together all these elements when Seymour (another troubled young man) tells Sybil (yet another young girl) about an otherwise 'very ordinary-looking fish' that gets very fat by eating 'as many as seventy-eight bananas'. They are wading out to sea, the little girl on a rubber float:

'Not too far out,' Sybil said. 'What happens to them?'
'What happens to who?'
'The bananafish.'
'Oh, you mean after they eat so many bananas they can't get out of the banana hole?'
'Yes', said Sybil.
'Well, I hate to tell you, Sybil. They die.'
'Why?' asked Sybil.
'Well, they get banana fever. It's a terrible disease.'
'Here comes a wave,' Sybil said nervously.
'We'll ignore it. We'll snub it,' said the young man.

The young men Salinger describes seem to enjoy the company of children because it gives them the opportunity to play-act without being 'phony', to use one of Holden Caulfield's favourite words. 'We'll snub it' sounds subtly bitter and that 'Well, I hate to tell you' is simple sarcasm making mockery of adult politeness but, rather than come across as knowing, Sybil decides to play along. They both know it's a game:

The water soaked Sybil's blonde hair, but her scream was full of pleasure.
With her hand, when the float was level again, she wiped away a flat, wet band of hair from her eyes, and reported 'I just saw one.'
'Saw what, my love?'
'A banana fish.'
'My God, no!' said the young man. 'Did he have any bananas in his mouth?'
'Yes,' said Sybil. 'Six.'

Where the children aren't speaking, there's some great observation of what they're doing. The eponymous character in 'Teddy' ascends the staircase of a cruise-ship.

He took two steps at a time, but slowly, holding on to the banister, putting his whole body into it, as if the act of climbing a flight of stairs was for him, as it is for many children, a moderately pleasurable end in itself.

I'm not sure this is a pastime we'd see today's increasingly obese minors enjoying, but I myself can recall many a juvenile minute spent relishing a good old climb up a staircase. I remember seeing it in other children too, but I had never thought about it until I read that sentence. That, to me, is excellent observation.

Not every story works: 'Just Before The War With The Eskimos' again showcases all the best things about Salinger's writing but fails to amount to anything more than that. Not every character comes fully to life either: perhaps it's a deficiency in my imagination but one character Mr. McArdle in 'Teddy' falls unusually flat — I just couldn't hear his 'deep and resonant' voice with all those 'goddam's everywhere. But one story and a few instances like that aside, this is a solid collection.

The story I enjoyed most is 'De Daumier Smith's Blue Period', which (and I haven't often said this about a short story) actually made me laugh out loud. Its narrator is an artist who goes by the made-up name De Daumier Smith and pretends to have known Picasso in order to become an instructor at an art school in Montreal, Canada. I'm reluctant to excerpt it here because I think it should be enjoyed in its entirety but, if you were to pick just one story from the collection to read, I would recommend this one.

Really though, I want to say "read the lot". If you're a writer, you'll hopefully find the stories interesting as good examples of all the things I've mentioned. But, even if you're just a casual reader, I'd suggest this is not just an enjoyable, accessible book but an important one — in times when teenagers are (rightly or wrongly) demonised in the popular press, I've yet to come across an author who has better captured the bewildering transition from childhood to adulthood. Perhaps this is because Salinger was writing at a time when the 'teen-ager' was a relatively new beast. Adolescence today seems over-represented and yet still somehow misunderstood. While teenagers don't feature in all these stories, there's enough adult-child tension and alienation throughout to help you remember being one.