Rabu, Oktober 22, 2025

Short Story Wednesday "Down at the Dinghy" J.D. Salinger (from NINE STORIES)


 https://www.scribd.com/doc/258614035/Down-at-the-Dinghy

The story begins with two servants alluding to one's worry that the child in the house will tell his mother than he used an ethnic slur regarding his father.

The child (4) has a habit of running away and his mother finds him down on the dock. She plays with him and cleverly gets him to admit what he heard said by the servant although he misunderstood the actual slur. But he did not misunderstand the meanness of it. His mother makes light of it, hoping I think that he will not continue to run away from things that frighten him. So much in so few words. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

TracyK 

2 ulasan:

George berkata...

J. D. Salinger specialized in awkward situations in his stories.

Jeff Meyerson berkata...

I read all of Salinger's stories several years ago.

Currently reading a British Library collection edited by Martin Edwards, a man who must never sleep. This is LESSONS IN CRIME: Academic Mysteries.

I also have a Library of America volume I'm leafing through, AMERICAN FANTASTIC TALES: TERROR AND THE UNCANNY FROM POE TO THE PULPS, edited by Peter Straub. This goes to 1940 and there is a second volume that picks up where this leaves off. If I had the money and space I would collect a lot of these Library of America volumes.

Also reading in Thomas McGuane's CLOUDBURSTS: COLLECTED AND NEW STORIES. He was divorced twice and married three times in a year, plus he had an affair with Elizabeth Ashley, but he has been married to Jimmy Buffett's sister Laurie since 1977.

I have the other Patrick Ryan collection (SEND ME) waiting at the library.

I have a feeling not all of these will get read.