A Salinger Treasure! (For Esme With Love and Splendour and Other Stories - J.D. Salinger)

Member Name: LDWilkinson

Product:	For Esme With Love and Splendour and Other Stories - J.D. Salinger
Date:	13/01/02 (900 review reads)
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Advantages: A digest of literary genius, A pocket friend!

Disadvantages: Too few stories!

Aren't short stories, erm, convenient!? I meet a lot of people whom, like myself, have an attention span the length of a piece of string that happens to have been cut very short. Most of these people, like myself, have been reading the same novel for seven and a half years and phsically decay at the sight of War and Peace. However, as well as writing a novel called 'A Catcher in the Rye' that took me (cor blimey!) two days to read, J.D. Salinger wrote this little stunner - For Esme - With Love and Squaler and Other Stories. It's a book of short stories that are perfect for the kicking and screaming short attention span club! The stories, naturally, are the true Salinger literary gems that we've all come to know and love. And even if you haven't come to know and love JD, you'll soon get a feel for his style with such stories as 'For Esme...' which is a sublime tale of the love between an older man and a little girl, but not in the red-faced Lolita manner. Actually, it's not anything like what I've crudely described it as. It is just perfect, as perfect as a Perfect Day for a Bananafish, which also stands out in the collection. Salinger's stories are based around his family and childhood and appear regretful, almost melancholy. His background is scarred by his brother's suicide, which is documented in this collection. But I'd urge you to read these stories without any knowledge of Salinger's background. They're like prose poems, moments whic stand alone and astonish! I'd recommend the collection to those who adore the New York 1940s/50s feel and who thrive on short blasts of literary wonderment as well as young and old people whose short attention span has led them away from the high rise world of vast novels and epics.

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