The Eastern Sun: Part 2

Since I last blogged, we've gone to Philly, New York City and Princeton.

Now...you may ask, why Princeton? Ya thinking of enrolling there? Not quite. We went to Princeton to read a few unpublished short stories by J.D. Salinger (of Catcher in the Rye fame). I've been a big fan of Salinger for quite some time and Josh also liked Salinger for Nine Stories. Once I mentioned these unpublished shorts to him, his first reaction was "we gotta go". So...to Princeton we went.
Now, the stories we read were some of his more notorious works. Every Nirvana fan knows the lore behind You Know You're Right and other rarities. Likewise, every Salinger fan knows there are stories out there that haven't been published, germs of ideas remain unseen, yet important to the shape of his entire career. Two of these short stories are The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls and The Last and Best of the Peter Pans. Bowling Balls is about a young, struggling writer, Vincent, who spends a day with his sick, younger brother, Kenneth. The both of them are the siblings of Holden Caufield, the notorious protagonist behind Catcher in the Rye. Regarded as one of Salinger's finer works, Bowling Balls deals with Holden's personal problems, hints at the figure Vincent would become, and displays the mature personality of Kenneth...a character whose presence is deeply felt in "Rye". Yes, as someone said, Bowling Balls is seeped in premonition.

The Last and Best of the Peter Pans was quite humorous. Taking place after the events in Bowling Balls, it details a coversation between Vincent and his mom (an actress) in which the two try to out-act the other. The story plays silly for most of is length...until the end, in which it hits you like a slap in the face. Tragic, dark, wry, this was Salinger at his best. It was like getting a glimpse into his notebook. We were presented with the ideas that would come to shape his entire career. And the effect of reading such works was tremendous.
In order to catch a glimpse at these rare stories, you must go through a procedure at the library: fill out some paperwork, get an ID, and be taken into a backroom where the material is brought to you by an attendant. No pictures can be taken, no notes of any sort written. The room where you read is very interesting...like the office of a law firm. The air is silent and thick. The stories? Stark...violent.

Great as this experience was, it was also heart-wrenching...for there were several more Salinger works contained within the box that we didn't know about. Pans and Bowling Balls are the two most noted of these works, but several others (The Magic Foxhole, I'm Crazy) begged to be read.

Maybe next time.