Teddy Salinger summary. The Lack of Being: The Mystery of Jerome Salinger and American Literature. About what Salinger's interest in Indian philosophy embodied

Jerome David Salinger (b. 1919) is the author of the story “The Catcher in the Rye” (1951), which became a cult not only for the 50s, but also for subsequent decades. By the way, the book was banned in several European countries and in some US states for being depressive and using abusive language, but is now included in the recommended reading lists in many American schools.

The son of an Irish mother and a Jew, Salinger studied in a variety of institutions, including New York schools, a military academy, and three colleges, none of which he graduated from. He begins his writing career by publishing short stories in New York magazines. During the Second World War, the writer takes part in the military operations of American troops in Europe from the very beginning of the Normandy landings, and participates in the liberation of several concentration camps.

Salinger made his debut in print in 1940, and by 1965 he had published thirty short stories (some of which he selected for the book “Nine Stories” (Nine Stories, 1953)) and several stories: in addition to “The Catcher in the Rye” (in the Russian tradition, the book is persistently considered to the novel genre), a series of works about the Glass family (Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, 1955; Seymour: An Introduction, 1959); Franny and Zooey Zooey, 1961).

Salinger is not only “the greatest living writer” (E. Wilson), but also, perhaps, the most mysterious of living writers: after the resounding success of the novel, he begins to lead the life of a recluse, refuses to give interviews, and after 1965 he completely stops publishing, writing only for myself. Moreover, he imposes a ban on the republication of early works and suppresses several attempts to publish his letters. In recent years, he has practically no interaction with the outside world, living in a mansion behind a high fence in the town of Cornish, New Hampshire, and engaging in a variety of spiritual practices (Buddhism, Hinduism, yoga, macrobiotics, dianetics, etc.).

According to varying degrees of reliability, Salinger did not stop writing. Thus, journalist D. Maynard claims that by 1972 he had completed two novels. The writer's daughter Margaret, in her memoirs published in 2000, also confirms that the Cornish house was littered with manuscripts and that the writer developed a complex system of labels: red - "publish after my death without editing", blue - "publish after my death, after editing " and so on.

In 2009, Swedish-American writer John David California published no less than a sequel to Salinger's most famous novel, calling it "60 Years Later: Getting Through the Rye." The greatly “matured” hero of the novel, 76-year-old Holden Caulfield, escapes from a nursing home and wanders around New York. Salinger did not appreciate the beauty and creativity of the idea and filed a lawsuit against the author of the newly-written novel.

Salinger gained popularity among Russian readers thanks to the most talented translations of Rita Wright-Kovalyova. The story “The Catcher in the Rye” (as the translator translated its title) was truly a cult book for many generations of Soviet readers.

Salinger Jerome

Jerome Salinger

You, brother, will make me have a magical day. “Come on, get out of your bag this minute,” responded Mr. McArdle. - I'm not joking.

He lay on the cot farthest from the porthole, near the aisle. Either groaning or sighing, he kicked the sheet furiously, as if the touch of even the lightest material on his sun-burnt skin was unbearable to him. He was lying on his back, wearing only pajama pants, with a lit cigarette in his right hand. He rested his head against the joint between the mattress and the backrest, as if finding special pleasure in this deliberately uncomfortable position. The pillow and ashtray lay on the floor in the passage between his bed and Mrs. McArdle's. Without rising, he extended his sore right hand and, without looking, shook off the ashes in the direction of the night table.

And it’s October,” he said angrily. - What's going on here in August?

He turned his head to Teddy again, and his gaze did not bode well.

Well, that's it, he said. - How long will I struggle? Get down now, do you hear]

Teddy perched himself on a brand-new cowhide bag to make it easier to look out of the open porthole of his parents' cabin. He was wearing incredibly dirty white low-top sneakers on his bare feet, striped, too-long shorts that also sagged in the back, a washed-out T-shirt with a hole the size of a dime on his right shoulder, and an unexpectedly elegant black crocodile leather belt. He is so overgrown - especially at the back - as only a boy can grow, whose head is not big enough for his age and rests on a thin neck.

Teddy, can you hear me?

Teddy didn’t lean out of the porthole very much, not like boys his age, ready to fall out of nowhere - no, he stood with both feet on the bag, though not very steadily, and his head was all outside. However, oddly enough, he heard his father's voice perfectly. Mr. McArdle starred in at least three radio programs in New York, and in the middle of the day one could hear his voice, the voice of a third-rate prime minister, deep and full-bodied, as if admiring himself from the side, ready at any moment to drown out all other voices, be it men's or even children's. When his voice rested from professional workload, it fell with pleasure to the velvety lows and vibrated, quiet, but well-produced, with purely theatrical sonority. However, now was the time to turn up the volume at full volume.

Teddy! Can you fucking hear me?

Without changing his guard posture on the bag, Teddy half turned around and looked questioningly at his father with light brown, surprisingly clear eyes. They were not huge at all and were slightly askew, especially the left one. Not that it seemed like a flaw or was too noticeable. You can only mention this in passing, and only because, looking at them, you would seriously and for a long time think: would it really be better if he had, say, without a braid, or were planted deeper? , or darker, or spaced wider. Be that as it may, there was genuine beauty in his face, but not so obvious that it was noticeable.

“Immediately, you hear, immediately get off your bag,” said Mr. McArdle. - How long do I have to repeat this?

“And don’t even think about getting down, my dear,” said Mrs. McArdle, whose nose was slightly stuffy in the morning. Her eyelids opened slightly. - They didn’t lift a finger.

She lay on her right side, with her back to her husband, and her head, resting on the pillow, was turned towards the porthole and Teddy standing in front of it. She wrapped the top sheet around the body, in all likelihood naked, wrapping it all up, with her arms, right up to her chin.

“Very original,” said Mr. McArdle in an even and calm tone, looking at the back of his wife’s head. - By the way, it cost me twenty-two pounds. I ask him as a person to get off, and you tell him to jump, jump. What's this? Joke?

If it burst under a ten-year-old boy and he was still thirteen pounds underweight,

“You want to throw this bag out of my cabin,” said Mrs. McArdle, without opening her eyes.

If it were up to me,” said Mr. McArdle, “I would break your head.”

What was the matter?

Mr. McArdle rose abruptly on one elbow and crushed his cigarette butt on the glass surface of his night table.

Not today or tomorrow... - he began gloomily.

Not today or tomorrow you will have a fatal, yes, fatal heart attack, Mrs. McArdle said languidly. She wrapped herself even tighter in the sheet with her arms. “They will bury you modestly, but with taste, and everyone will ask who this charming woman in the red dress is, that one in the front row, who is flirting with the organist, and she is all like that...

Oh, how witty. “But it’s not funny,” said Mr. McArdle, again leaning back exhaustedly.

While this short exchange of pleasantries was going on, Teddy turned away and leaned out of the porthole again.

Tonight, at three thirty-two, we met the Queen Mary, she was heading in the opposite direction. If anyone is interested,” he said leisurely. - Which I highly doubt.

So it was written on the slate of the watchman, the very one whom our Puppy despises.

You, brother, will get me a Queen Mary... Get out of your bag this very minute,” said the father. He turned to Teddy. - Well, get down! It would be better to go and get a haircut, or something.

He looked at the back of his wife's head again.

God knows what, he's some kind of overgrown.

“I don’t have money,” Teddy objected. He took a firmer hold of the edge of the porthole and rested his chin on his fingers. - Mom, do you remember the man who is eating at the next table? Not the skinny one, but the other one, at the same table. Where our waiter places the tray.

Mm-mmm,” said Mrs. McArdle. - Teddy. Sun. Let mom sleep for at least five minutes. Be a good girl.

Wait a minute. “That’s interesting,” Teddy said, without lifting his chin and keeping his eyes on the ocean. - He was in the gym when Sven weighed me. He came up to me and spoke. It turns out he heard my last recording. Not April. Mayskaya. Just before he left for Europe, he was at a party in Boston, and some of the guests knew someone - he didn't say who - from the Ley Decker group that tested me - so they got my last record and played it this evening. And that man immediately became interested. He is a friend of Professor Babcock. Apparently he teaches himself. He said he spent the whole summer in Dublin at Trinity College.

How's that? - said Mrs. McArdle. - Did they play it at the party?

She looked half asleep at Teddy's feet.

“As if so,” Teddy answered. - I’m standing on the scales, and he’s telling Sven about me. It was quite awkward.

What's so awkward about that?

Teddy hesitated.

I said rather awkwardly. I clarified my feeling.

“Brother, I’ll tell you now if you don’t get out of your bag,” said Mr. McArdle. He had just lit a new cigarette. - I count to three. One... damn it... Two...

What time is it now? - Mrs. McArdle suddenly asked, uncle at Teddy's feet. “Shouldn’t you and Puppy go swimming at ten-thirty?” “We’ll make it,” Teddy said. - Shlep. Suddenly he leaned out of the porthole, and then turned into the cabin and reported:

Someone just threw a whole bucket of orange peelings out of the window.

From the window... From the window,” Mr. McArdle drawled venomously, shaking off the ashes. - From the porthole, brother, from the porthole.

He looked at his wife.

Call Boston. Contact the Leydekker group as soon as possible.

Just think how witty we are,” said Mrs. McArdle. What are you trying to do? Teddy leaned out again.

They float beautifully. - he said without turning around. - Interesting...

Teddy! This is the last time I’m telling you, and then...

The interesting thing is not that they float,” Teddy continued. - It’s interesting that I even know about their existence. If I had not seen them, I would not have known that they were there, and if I had not known, I could not even say that they existed. Here is a successful, I would even say, a brilliant example of how...

Teddy,” Mrs. McArdle interrupted his reasoning, without even moving under the sheet. - Go look for Puppy. Where is she? After yesterday's overheating, it cannot be fried in the sun again.

It is reliably protected. “I made her wear overalls,” Teddy said. - And they have already begun to drown... Soon they will float only in my mind. It’s interesting - because if you look at it, it was in my mind that they began to float. If, say, I wasn’t standing here, or if someone had just come in here and taken my head off while I...

Where is Pupsik? - asked Mrs. McArdle. - Teddy, look at mom.

Oh, these foreign classics! So explain to me, stupid, why in order to advance along the path of spiritual improvement you must commit suicide? Moreover, in such a sophisticated way as to destroy the life of the entire family, because what happened will make life very difficult for both the hero’s little sister and his parents.

The story is simple in plot, small in volume, but very rich in terms of meanings, subtexts, and possible ideas. There were two things that struck me about it.

Firstly, feedback from the improvement of the soul and love for your loved ones. Only those who are indifferent and capable of casting off the shackles of earthly attachments move forward. The first step to overcoming the consequences of the Bible apple temptation is extreme selfishness. Although justified by harmonious and witty conclusions.

And secondly, is this result not a consequence of the fact that the path of self-improvement is followed by a child prodigy, that is, a child, whose knowledge about the world is largely drawn from books, self-instilled revelations of self-knowledge, and only to a very small extent from living people? connections with people. He had lived too little among people to learn to understand. It's easy to reject what you don't yet have. And the hero - a uniquely smart boy - has no experience of loving his family and friends. He himself admits that he is just attached to them. The hero demonstrates to us knowledge coming from the mind, but tries to extend it to the area of ​​the soul, which, by definition, lives by feeling.

It turned out interesting, but not convincing. By consciously going to the empty pool, the boy did not step forward in the development of higher plans, but very, very much backward. So I think. And this casts doubt on his judgments about the highest meanings of existence. Even the smartest child remains just a child until some point in his life. In order to throw off the attachments that bind you to the rough earthly world, you must first fully experience them. Otherwise, there is no progress, since there is no personal overcoming of what is actually important and dear.

The story was read with interest, but left me disappointed. The idea is profound, but the plot illustrates how far-fetched it is. This does not mean that the idea is right or wrong, it means that the Author failed to properly reveal it in his characters and their actions. On the contrary, he showed something quite the opposite, although he hardly had such an intention.

The main conclusion from what I read is that there is no need, there is no need for child prodigies, let them just be children.

Rating: 7

Trying to describe their perception of the story “Teddy,” many fans of the work and personality of Jerome Salinger demonstrate knowledge of his biography, passions and practices. Everyone notes Zen Buddhist notes in the narrative, which was close to the Author himself. But few people see that the main dialogue takes place about the apple from the Tree of Knowledge between the preaching boy and the unbelieving Thomas on the ark floating on the sea-ocean, where each creature has a pair. And the construction of the “geography” of the story is such that from the water level the young messiah first rises to heaven (the upper deck, where there is a sports ground and a solarium - Olympus, no less), and then descends almost into tartarar (Deck E, where the swimming pool is located , is located deep in the hold of the ship). Do you understand, right? Buddhism, Christianity, ancient Greece - everything is connected by a simple history.

The boy prodigy seemed to me to be the prototype of all the child geniuses of our time, from “Extremely loud and incredibly close” to “Grandmother told me to bow and tell him that she asks for forgiveness.” Although, perhaps, even at that time this idea was not new. As is the idea of ​​the ending.

The ending here is deafening. It puzzles and makes you think. What is this scream? Has the prediction come true? Did something happen to the screamer? Or does the child just like acoustics and doesn’t hold back? The first option is on the surface, but it is only a surface so that you can think and look deeper. So, the idea is not new. Something like: “Children’s shoes for sale. Not worn." The reception seemed cheap compared to the “foreplay”.

And yet the story gets the highest rating, because... Gladiolus! It’s worth reading for yourself to understand what kind of scream the young man hears, and this will not be a bad psychological test.

Rating: 9

Wonderful story. When I read it for the first time, it simply shocked me. Firstly, I never expected this from Saliger (whom, to put it mildly, I don’t like very much). Secondly, it’s still amazing to me how it was possible to write so beautifully and harmoniously about rather complex aspects of religious and philosophical, I would say, even mystical aspects, and even within the framework of standard life.

You start reading a story - well, it’s like a story and a story, nothing special: ordinary adults who believe that children should be forcibly raised in their own image and likeness, but at the same time do not at all bother themselves with thoughts about the significance of this image, with their usual routine showdowns, completely an ordinary boy-son, a completely ordinary, familiar and so understandable world around him.

And suddenly this boy begins to say things that suddenly smell sharply not just of philosophy, but of some kind of deep comprehension of the harmony of the world. Moreover, to speak in the simplest words, using simple everyday images before his eyes. Not clear. And you read, you read further, in an attempt to understand where, what is it all for... and suddenly you realize that you are already completely immersed in the story, in its leisurely unfolding of an amazing plot.

I will not quote or comment anything here. It's like trying to retell Richard Bach's Illusions in your own words - you can, but you don't need to. I can only recommend reading it. And come back to it later if at first it all seemed like nonsense. And then again if it doesn’t work out.

“You just need to open up wider” =)

Rating: 10

Being original and self-sufficient is not easy. Especially at the age of ten. However, Theodore copes. Adults make fun of his abilities. Parents don’t accept it (what’s surprising here). But he's serious. Although nothing boyish is alien to him.

Rating: 10

Before you read this review, I want to note that everything stated below is not at all the fruit of my literary research. In order to fully analyze Salinger's stories, you need to be familiar with Sanskrit poetics, dhvani theory, Zen practice and a bunch of other things. I don’t have such knowledge, and therefore, in order to join the discussion at least as clearly as possible, I had to read a whole damn dissertation. It’s difficult for me to write about everything and nothing, so I propose to dwell in detail on each story. Did you want to discuss? Then catch it. First, some general information.
So, “Nine Stories” is closely related to Sanskrit poetics. In addition to the concepts of direct (nominative) and figurative (metaphorical) meanings, it is also characterized by the category of suggestive (hidden, “hidden” or “manifested”) meaning, according to which in a truly artistic work there are certainly “two layers - an expressed meaning that forms the external plane, and the manifested, constituting its inner essence.” This refers to the ability to construct a poetic statement in such a way that it contains a hint, a subtext, called in ancient Indian poetics the word dhvani, which means “an echo coming through the wall of expressed thoughts.” This phenomenon is also called the “latent effect”. Also, “Nine Stories” can be considered from the point of view of the theory of poetic moods “rasa”. You can see that each short story has its own “thread”, its own “main feeling”, and the stories follow each other in accordance with the traditional classification.
1. “It’s the perfect day for a little girl.” The “main feeling” of this story is love.
2. "Uncle Lamefoot in Connecticut." Here the “main feeling” is laughter, irony.
3. “On the threshold of war with the Eskimos.” The “main feeling” is compassion.
4. "Laughter." The “main feeling” is anger.
5. “At the dinghy.” The “main feeling” is courage.
6. “For Esme, with love and foulness.” The “main feeling” is fear.
7. “Sponges - oh, there are foliage in the eyes.” The “main feeling” is disgust.
8. “De Daumier-Smith’s Gray Period.” The “main feeling” is revelation.
9. "Teddy" The “main feeling” is renunciation of the world.
The search for the hidden effect manifested in “Nine Stories” can begin with the title, despite its apparent unpretentiousness and simplicity. The name contains three “layers” of meaning. First, the literal meaning - there are nine stories included in the book. Secondly, for a person familiar with the basics of ancient Indian poetics, the number “9” should remind one of the nine “poetic moods” (rasa) used in constructing the stories. And finally, the title also contains a hint of the author’s philosophical position, since it evokes an association with the ancient Indian metaphor “city of nine gates”, or “dwelling of nine gates”, denoting the human body along with the spirit “purusha” embodied in it, i.e. pure subjective consciousness, which is considered a particle of divine substance. Now I propose to dwell in more detail on each story:
1. “It’s the very day for a banabulka.”
2. "Uncle Lamefoot in Connecticut." American critics F. Gwynne and J. Blotner see the movement of the story “Uncle Lameleg in Connecticut” in the degradation of the character of its heroine. The development of this character, in their opinion, occurs in a descending manner - from the innocent-emotional tenderness and subtle sense of humor inherent in the heroine before marriage, to the cynicism and insensitivity characteristic of her at the moment when the action takes place. The story can also be seen as an example of alienation, a conflict between reality and fantasy. Contrasting the situations of Eloise and Ramona, the girl sees in her mother’s actions only an ineffective escape from the horrors of real life into the illusory world of fantasy, while the child’s rich imagination serves as a reliable defense mechanism for the girl from the hostility of the surrounding world. The theme of the lonely girl Ramona, who has no friends or peers (since in the suburb where they live, all the neighbors are childless), receives a positive interpretation from Salinger. Walt, the deceased friend of Ramona's mother, is invisibly present in the house; the girl has heard about him more than once. Therefore, she also invents non-existent mythical friends for herself, who then die as a result of “accidents”. But childish spontaneity allows her to just as naturally, deeply and selflessly fall in love with each new fictional friend. Until he dies, she is devoted to him with all her soul, takes care of him, looks after him, etc. Thus, the selfless “giving” love of little Ramona is contrasted with the subconsciously selfish, “taking” love of her mother.
3. “On the threshold of war with the Eskimos.” The manifested (suggestive) meaning in this story is of an auxiliary nature. The feeling experienced by Ginny helps the writer show the origins of the process of children leaving their fathers, a process that was just emerging in the 40s in the United States. Salinger captured this process by depicting a young man from a wealthy family who categorically refuses to follow the path of his parents. The theme of Ginny's compassion for Franklin is introduced into the story gradually, displacing the theme of Ginny's resentment towards his sister Selena. Further, both themes - compassion and resentment - are repeated in reverse order, using the technique of artistic parallel, in the story told by Franklin's friend Eric. Eric's story is incorporated into the short story according to the simplest device of ancient poetics: a new character came and told. This insert episode is about a homeless writer, whom Eric took pity on and gave shelter to, introducing him to the people he needed. And it all ended with the new friend robbing his benefactor and running away. This deliberate repetition of the themes of compassion and resentment only strengthens the sound of its leading theme in the story. The motive of compassion and mercy is created in the story “On the threshold of war with the Eskimos” and with the help of completely modern visual means. It is emphasized by the final chord of the story: Ginny cannot bring herself to throw away half of the chicken sandwich that Franklin treated her to. She recalls that several years ago she experienced a similar feeling in relation to the dead Easter chicken. With its “uselessness,” the chicken reminds the girl of Franklin Graff.
4. "Laughter." The poor student, who kept glancing at his “dollar watch” and often received lunch in the families of his charges instead of payment, loved a rich girl. The fact that his friend Mary Hudson is a girl from a rich house is mentioned several times in the novella: she wears expensive perfume, studies at a private college, has a beaver fur coat, and smokes exquisite cigarettes with cork filters. Mary is also in love with the Comanche Chief, but knows that their love is obviously doomed, since John is a person in a completely different circle from her parents. When their romance ends, John ends his story to the children with the death of Laugher. The main experience on which the story is based is a feeling of horror. The story of the tragic fate of Laughter alternates with events occurring in the life of John Gedsudski. Here Selinger uses a technique similar to what Indologists have long wittily and figuratively called a “system of nested boxes.” The circumstances of the life of the “terrible avenger” depend entirely on the vicissitudes of the love drama of John and Mary. At first, John’s story about the Laughing Man instills admiration mixed with horror into the souls of the boys, but by the end of it only a persistent feeling of horror remains (“... the youngest of the Comanches cried bitterly. No one told him to shut up. As I remember now, my knees were shaking.” ). The parallel is clearly indicated by the composition of the story itself, since the episodes of meetings between John and Mary are emotionally supported by corresponding passages from the insert story about the Man Who Laughed.
5. “At the dinghy.” The story “At the Boat” reflects the state of American society at the end of the 40s, i.e., the time preceding the years of McCarthyism. The disunity of people, their distrust and hostility towards each other, stratification in accordance with property status - all this takes place in the small world of the Tennenbaum family and its environment, and the child, with his escapes from home, sensitively reacts to troubles in the world around him.
The “main feeling” of the story “At the Boat” is courage, and the poetic mood it evokes is heroism. And indeed, the behavior of a boy who has been running away from home since the age of two, protesting against the slightest injustice, which is not always realized by him, cannot be called anything other than courageous. The boy behaves truly heroically: “They found him at night, at a quarter past eleven, and it was... in the middle of February... He was sitting on the stage, where the orchestra plays during the day, and rolling a pebble back and forth along a crack in the floor. He froze half to death, and he looked so pitiful.” His mother also shows courage when she finds out the reason for his escape.
6. “For Esme, with love and foulness” talks about the calming influence of childish spontaneity, naivety, and innocence on an adult. Esme taught Charles to love people and will not allow him to become the same soulless animal as Corporal Clay Zed is depicted in the story. Sergeant X is brought out of his spiritual crisis by a pure childish act. The poetic mood and “main feeling” of the story “For Esme, with love and foulness” is fear. In Germany, shortly after the victory over fascism, Sergeant X arrested, by order of the command, a Nazi, the daughter of the owners of the house in which he lived. Returning here from the hospital, where he was treated for several weeks for a mental disorder, X every now and then opens Goebbels’s book that belonged to the Nazi and re-reads the inscription on the first page: “Merciful God, life is hell.” Further in the story we read: “... in the painful silence of the room, these words acquired the weight of an undeniable accusation, a classic invective. X peered at them for several minutes, trying not to give in to them, and this was very difficult. Then he took a stub of a pencil and, with a fervor that he had not put into anything in all these months, wrote below in English: “Fathers and teachers, I think: “What is hell?” I reason like this: “Suffering because you can no longer love.” He began to write Dostoevsky’s name under these words, but suddenly he saw - and a wave of fear ran through his entire body - that it was almost impossible to make out what he had written.” The world is moving towards destruction - this is the manifest meaning of the story “For Esme, with love and foulness.” Fear is his “main feeling”, instilling in the reader a feeling of anxiety that engulfs the hero.
7. “Sponges - oh, there are foliage in the eyes.” The emotional poetic mood instilled in the reader by the story “Sponges - ah, in the eyes of foliage,” called in Indian poetics “the race of disgust,” follows from its very meaning. As the topic develops, the emotive effect of disgust increases, intensifying as the drama of the situation increases. The situation of the story is banal, but the carefully controlled irony, the eloquent modulations of the idioms of the dialogue, etc., indicate an artistry that is a hundred times higher than artistry. J. Haigopien notes the strong feeling of contempt and disgust that permeates the story. Lawyer Lee, according to the critic, feels contempt for himself and for his mistress Joan. He also feels contempt mixed with pity for his friend, Joan’s husband.
8. “De Daumier-Smith’s Gray Period.” His artistic idea is to show the worldview of the hero of the story when he was nineteen years old. The device of a flashback story takes the thirty-two-year-old hero thirteen years ago. The world seemed alien and hostile to him, the people around him irritated him, and loneliness seemed hopeless. Salvation came to him during his stay in Canada, where he worked as a teacher at the private art school of the Yoshotos, where education was conducted by correspondence, through correspondence. The salvation that came to the hero took the form of a mystical insight, which he experienced at the window of an orthopedic accessories workshop, which he perceived as a symbol of all modern life. In the hero’s mystical insight, which occurred at the window of an orthopedic supply store, J. Miller Jr. saw an analogy with the insight of the lonely poet and philosopher Stephen Dedalus in “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” which forced him to leave the path of a servant of God and face the world. So the hero of the story “The Gray Period of de Daumier-Smith,” says J. Miller, returning to his former life, symbolically returns to humanity. Here, however, it must be taken into account that in James Joyce the main meaning of the philosophy of “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” is a departure from Catholicism, while Daumier-Smith’s insight at the window of an orthopedic accessories workshop is described as a religious revelation, albeit in terms of Zen Buddhist extra-intellectual enlightenment . According to the writer, the “main feeling” in “De Daumier-Smith’s Gray Period” is revelation. It is described, as we have already noted, in the spirit of the Zen teachings about enlightenment (satori). Zen teaches that enlightenment can be accessible to every person; it means “a new outlook on life, on one’s place in it, a new attitude towards reality.” Having reached the state of satori, a person, according to Zen teachers, changes. He begins to have a new attitude towards those life problems that he did not understand before and which seemed insoluble to him.
9. "Teddy" Researchers believe that the ending of the story can be interpreted in two ways: perhaps the prophecy of the child prodigy Teddy is fulfilled, but it is possible that it is not he who dies by falling to the bottom of an empty pool, but his six-year-old sister Buper, who is painfully jealous of her brother’s supernatural intelligence, abilities and fame. "Teddy" marks the beginning of a new phase in Salinger's work, as it demonstrates a clear passion for Zen philosophy. Here, the critic writes, a new type of dialogue is introduced, which later becomes standard for the writer: an extremely simple presentation through the lips of the characters of a number of complex conclusions; the characters remain full-fledged artistic images. Teddy is a mystic who approaches his inevitable death in a state of mental equilibrium, which sharply contrasts with the logical and emotional self-centeredness of all the other characters in the story. Teddy's parents are typical ordinary people, whose lack of spirituality is emphasized even more clearly by their son's intellectualism. Nicholson, with whom Teddy talks on deck, is also unable to step beyond the boundaries of ordinary philistine curiosity in this conversation. The boy is shown to be much more humane and noble, although he perceives reality with equanimity, unearthly calm.
According to ancient Indian poetics, the “main feeling” necessary to create a mood of calm is to show the hero’s renunciation of the world, indifference to worldly worries and worries. This theme is emphasized repeatedly in the story. At first, the boy calmly reacts to the ugly scene that his father arranges for him in the cabin of the liner. The theme of calm dominates Teddy’s conversation with Nicholson on deck and finally appears in the finale, when the boy serenely heads to the pool, having previously prophesied his own death. This calmness, balance, complete renunciation of the world creates an aesthetic mood of tranquility. The fact that the story “Teddy” completes the book “Nine Stories” is not accidental. Together with the first story about the “banana fish”, it kind of frames it. Teddy and Seymour are the main positive heroes for Salinger, and they are contrasted with the negative characters inhabiting the book. Both of them are not free from a feeling of loneliness, for the “ideal American” of Salinger’s stories is just as lonely and helpless as he was in the works of American writers in the 20s and 30s. But Salinger sees salvation from loneliness in joining the treasury of knowledge and spiritual ideals created by humanity over the centuries. Teddy has, according to Salinger, the main quality necessary for a person: he strives to comprehend all the phenomena he encounters in life, due to which he is able to treat all manifestations of evil with wise indifference and stoic calm (which Seymour clearly lacks).

“the concept of traditional Indian poetics “dhvani-rasa”.
– “Indologists, including Soviet ones, have written more than once that the paradigms of traditional Indian poetics can be applied in the creation of modern literary works. Academician A.P. Barannikov even considered ancient Indian poetics to be the only one “built on scientific foundations and developed to amazing subtlety.” According to one of its cardinal doctrines, artistic pleasure from a literary work is achieved not through the images created through the direct meanings of words, but through the associations and ideas that these images evoke.”
“In traditional Indian poetics there was a concept according to which the hidden, manifested meaning of works of art - “dhvani” - is understandable only to those selected connoisseurs in whose souls memories of previous incarnations are preserved. It is only thanks to this that they possess that aesthetic super-sensitivity, super-intuition that allows them to comprehend the innermost meaning of works of art, to receive true pleasure from them, that is, to fully perceive their poetic moods - “rasa”.

– “... a literary work had to contain one of three types of “dhvani” - hidden meaning:
I - imply a simple thought;
II - evoke an idea of ​​any semantic figure;
III - to inspire one or another poetic mood (“race”).
The last, third type of “dhvani”, or “hidden effect” (the term of B. A. Larin), was considered the highest type of poetry.”

“At first, eight poetic moods were distinguished. Thus, the treatise on dramaturgy that established this canon, attributed to the legendary Indian sage Bharata (VI-VII centuries), defined the following types and order of “rasa”:
1 - erotica, love;
2 - laughter, irony;
3 - compassion; ...the terms “shock” and “karuna”, which in the classification designate “race”-3, are translated not only literally, i.e. as “sorrow” and “pathetic”, but also by a number of other words of the same psychological spectrum: sadness, sadness, grief, compassion, empathy, responsiveness, sympathy, mercy.
4 - anger, rage; According to the theory of “dhvani-rasa,” the rules for embodying the inspired effect of anger and rage (“rasa”-4) in a literary work required the use of a number of specific figurative and expressive means:
1) complicated composition;
2) the use in some places of a frightening, pompous style (a classic example of which was the central episode of the Mahabharata, where the battle of the Pandava heroes with their worst enemy Duryodhana is shown: here blood flows like a river, staining the hands of the heroes, terrible blows of the club fall on the enemy, etc. . P.);
3) dominance of red color;
4) the use of various kinds of doubling of consonants and long, complex words.
5 - courage; The suggestiveness of conveying it to readers is connected, according to the rules of the “dhvani-rasa” theory, primarily with the construction of a complex plot telling about military courage, courageous deeds, self-confidence, open-mindedness and, finally, joy.
6 - fear; for the poetic mood of fear (“race”-6), mental states are despondency, depression, anxiety, irritation, madness, fear.
The aesthetic perception of the reader is dominated by the color black prescribed for this mood.
7 - disgust; creating a poetic mood of disgust is impossible if such mental states of the characters as excitement, melancholy, as well as a feeling of fear, anxiety and a premonition of something unpleasant are not introduced into the text of the work.
8 - amazement, revelation. According to the theory of “dhvani-rasa”, the instillation of this mood is done by describing the whole gamut of the hero’s experiences, starting with a feeling of anxiety, unsettledness, and finally arriving - through joy, excitement and amazement, revelation - to satisfaction.
9 - tranquility leading to renunciation of the world. According to the theory of “dhvani-rasa”, the “ninth” poetic mood - calmness leading to renunciation of the world - can be seen in the image of the hero’s (or heroes’) indifference to worldly affairs and things.
10 - related tenderness, intimacy.

– “It is also necessary to point out that the presence in the literary works of the “dhvani-rasa” school of one or another main poetic mood did not at all exclude the possibility of instilling in the reader other poetic moods, i.e., one or more of the remaining eight. “The nine feelings can be either main or secondary,” we read from Academician Shcherbatsky, “depending on the role they play.”

– If we consider the short stories that make up the collection “Nine Stories” from the point of view of the rasa theory of poetic moods, we can see that each of them clearly has its own main feeling, and the stories regarding this line of the main feeling follow in the sequence that is traditional for Sanskrit poetics .
1) “Banana fish are good at catching.” The main feeling is love.
2) “Little paw.” The main feeling is laughter and irony.
3) “Just before the war with the Eskimos.” The main feeling is compassion.
4) “The Man Who Laughed.” The main feeling is anger.
5) “In the boat.” The main feeling is courage.
6) “Dear Esme with love - and all sorts of nasty things.” The main feeling is fear.
7) “Both these lips and eyes are green...”. The main feeling is disgust.
8) “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period.” The main feeling is revelation.
9) "Teddy". The main feeling is renunciation of the world.
– To instill each poetic mood, the school of “dhvani-rasa” prescribed the use of its own color, which the authors were advised to persistently mention during the narration. In the poetic mood of eroticism, love (“race”-1), it is dark, and in works that should suggestively evoke the effect of laughter, irony (“race”-2), it is white, because the color white is usually associated with laughter in Indian symbolism. From the same Anandavardhana, for example, we read: “Meanwhile, a long period of time, called summer, began, and, laughing loudly with a white laugh like a blooming jasmine, it swallowed up two months of flower pores.”
– Theorists of the “dhvani-rasa” school also wrote that in literary works constructed in the canons of “rasa”-2, that is, inspiring a humorous or satirical mood, the behavior of the characters or their clothing, or speech should deviate from the norm. In the analyzed story, the behavior of the talking friends, who at first joke and laugh quite naturally, gradually, under the influence of alcohol, becomes more and more strange. The fun turns into hysterical laughter, and then into drunken sobbing.
– Even the legendary Bharata, the founder of aesthetic teaching, which later took shape in the doctrine of “dhvani-rasa,” while developing the theory of drama, pointed out that the secret of the success of dramatic action lies in the slow buildup of a given poetic mood, which is achieved by the gradual unification of the logical results of what is happening with variations of auxiliary mental states heroes. Only as a result of such a synthesis is the poetic mood able to permeate the action from beginning to end, Bharata argued, and the theorists of “dhvani-rasa” of all subsequent centuries agreed with him.”
http://www.proza.ru/2008/06/10/257

Salinger's mystique continues to amaze even forty years after his actual retirement from literature. The writer himself practically did not comment on his works. And his commitment to Hindu-Buddhist philosophy forces many researchers studying Salinger’s work to proceed from two main positions:
the artistic and philosophical vision of the world in the spirit of Hinduism is closely linked in the writer’s worldview with the highest achievements of world culture;
the key to the artistic and philosophical code of these works is contained in the aesthetic canons of ancient Indian poetics.

This concerns, first of all, the philosophical foundations and suggestiveness of “Nine Stories” and the cycle of stories about Glass, which were created in 1948-1965.

Why did the writer call his collection “Nine Stories”? Since the traditional decisions - calling the book simply “Stories” or putting the name of one of them on the cover - for some reason did not suit Salinger, perhaps he expressed something hidden in the word “nine”? Moreover, after the title of the book there is an epigraph: “We know the sound of two palms clapping, “What does the clap of one palm sound like?” - there is a hidden meaning in which there is no doubt. The caption under the epigraph indicates that this is a Zen koan. Each such riddle contains a question that also contains an answer, but the answer is not direct, but paradoxical, which is why koans are sometimes compared with ancient Greek aporias, seeing in them similar exercises in the transition from formal-logical thinking to poetic-associative thinking. Informing the informed reader that in “Nine Stories” he will find, in addition to the “clap of two palms,” that is, what is expressed, and something hidden, implied (especially since, according to Zen postulates, the truth cannot be expressed in words), a Zen couplet “One hand” is addressed, perhaps, to the “uninitiated” reader. But only on the condition that he does some intellectual work in order to comprehend the meaning of the Eastern riddle, which directs the mind to go beyond the limits of ordinary consciousness. One of the methods for deciphering the title of the collection “Nine Stories” was determined by sequentially reviewing the symbolic meanings of the number “nine” within the religious and philosophical teachings of the East, for a number of categories from the apparatus of the latter are constantly present in Salinger’s texts. Thus, a probable key to the cipher was discovered - the concept of traditional Indian poetics “dhvani-rasa”, associated at one of the stages of its development with the number “nine”.

According to one of its cardinal doctrines, artistic pleasure from a literary work is achieved not through the images created through the direct meanings of words, but through the associations and ideas that these images evoke.

In traditional Indian poetics, there was a concept according to which the hidden meaning of works of art - “dhvani” - was understandable only to those selected connoisseurs in whose souls memories of previous incarnations were preserved. It is only thanks to this that they possess that aesthetic super-sensitivity, super-intuition that allows them to comprehend the innermost meaning of works of art, receive true pleasure from them, and fully perceive their poetic moods - “rasa”. Only to such connoisseurs, according to the theorists of ancient Indian poetics, is a true artist obliged to appeal. And the literary work he created with the expectation of experts, people “with a consonant heart,” had to contain one of three types of “dhvani” - hidden meaning: imply a simple thought; evoke an idea of ​​some semantic figure: to inspire one or another poetic mood (“race”).

The last, third type of "dhvani", or "hidden effect", was considered the highest type of poetry.

At first, eight poetic moods of “rasa” were distinguished. The treatise “Bharatiyanatyashastra” (VI-VII centuries) defined the following types and order of “rasa”, which had specific color symbolism: I - love (brown or bluish-brown - the skin color of the god of mystical and erotic love Krishna), 2 - laughter ( white), 3 - compassion (gray), 4 - anger (red). 5 - courage (wild orange), 6 - fear (black), 7 - disgust (blue), 8 - revelation (yellow). Then, in the 9th century, necessity added another poetic mood: 9 - tranquility leading to renunciation of the world. The theory of “dhvani” (i.e., the theory of poetic suggestion), according to which it was necessary to construct a poetic work of art in such a way that it contains a hidden meaning, a hint (“dhvani”), allowing one to suggest (inspire) one or another of the nine poetic moods, in the 9th century formulated in the treatise “Dhvanya-loka” (“Light of Dhvani”) by Anandavardhana. The canon of nine poetic moods remained unchanged until the era of the Indian Middle Ages, when in the 11th-12th centuries. the number of “races” was considered necessary to increase minimally. This is how the 10th poetic mood appeared - related tenderness.

Thus, the guessable, “manifested” meaning of the title of the Salingers’ collection “Nine Stories” is precisely, perhaps, that it “implies a simple thought” (i.e., it contains the first of three types of “dhwannas” ), namely: the book embodies nine types of poetic moods. And since traditional Indian poetics has assigned each a permanent place in their list, in the above-mentioned collection the sequence of stories is maintained by Salinger depending on what kind of poetic mood is embodied in it.

Salinger set himself the goal of painting a picture of the harmonious unity of a family, based on kindred tenderness and intimacy, in a series of stories about the Glass family. And thus he realized in his work the 10th poetic mood of the “dhvani-rasa” system. Then, perhaps, it is appropriate to remember that more than three centuries before Salinger, this entire spectrum of poetic moods (from “race-1” to “race-10”), absolutely brilliantly, according to the unanimous opinion of Indologist specialists, embodied in his monumental poem "Ramayana" by the classic of medieval Indian literature Tudsi Das (1532-1624). Analysis of “Nine Stories” and stories about Glass allows us to identify a set of artistic means used by the writer to create certain suggestible moods. These means are as follows: firstly, the use of specially developed plot and compositional structures; thirdly, the use of various linguistic means; fourthly, the use of one of the marked speech styles; and here, secondly, is the use of color symbolism, introduced in two ways:

weaving into the fabric of the story and the constant mention of color, which in ancient Indian poetics the ball is intended to express one or another mood: dark (“A great day for a banana herring”), red (“The Man Who Laughed”), dark blue (“And these lips , and the eyes are green");
the creation of such poetic images or paintings that evoke associations with one color or another: with white - frost outside the window (“Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” - in another version of the translation “Blubber Paw”); with gray - tobacco smoke clouding the room (“Just before the war with the Eskimos”); with red - constantly flowing blood (“The Man Who Laughed”); with orange - Indian summer, golden autumn (“In the Skiff”): with black - late evening, terrible gloomy weather, darkness (“Dedicated to Esme”); with yellow - the constant presence of the Japanese-Malay couple Yoshoto, representatives of the yellow race (“De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period”).