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.
8 comments:
J. D. Salinger specialized in awkward situations in his stories.
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.
I forget sometimes that Salinger didn't just write The Catcher in the Rye, Patti. To be honest, I've not read much in the way of his short stories. I should.
I read a story collection by Sam Pink, ICE CREAM MAN AND OTHER STORIES. Pink's writing style is to usually have a max of three sentences per paragraph. A bit jarring at first. A lot of tales of low-wage jobs and skating along in life.
Gerard, when my daughter was i high school, she had an English teacher who insisted that all paragraphs they write have only THREE sentences. (The same English teacher had never heard of P. G. Wodehouse; I told my daughter to ignore anything that treacher had to say.)
FRANNY AND ZOEY also great.
Cannot imagine having this teacher for a year.
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