For me, ”A Perfect Day for Bananafish” was a great way to start Salinger’s book Nine Stories. I thoroughly enjoyed Salinger’s dialogue in this particular story. I thought that the dialogue had a nice rhythm and pace throughout the story. Based on this story alone, I think Salinger incorporates more dialogue between characters than any other author we have read this year. Dialogue seems to be a critical aspect of Salinger’s stories. There wasn't much story telling or narration in ”A Perfect Day for Bananafish”. In The things they Carried, relationships are a huge part of the story, but dialogue is not nearly as common or as important to the plot of the stories. In Hemingway’ s book, In our Time, some stories that were situated in nature and isolated from society did not have very much dialogue at all. I haven’t read any other stories written by Salinger yet, so I can’t say for sure but it definitely seems like Salinger emphasizes conversations between characters. 

I find dialogue in short stories, especially Salinger’s dialogue, to be easy to read and follow. For one, I find stories with dialogue are easy to follow and not as complicated to the non-dialogue books. Second, dialogue allows the reader to interpret the way they think the character would speak. This allows the reader some originality and freedom to visualize the voices of the character, according to their own imagination.  The characters reputation and actions will obviously guide the reader to visualize the way the character speaks, but nevertheless, the reader still retains some originality of interpretation. This facet of short stories makes this book seem more engaging for me. 

I think its amazing how Salinger is able to convey so much information and set up so much of the plot of the story, strictly with dialogue. The initial conversation between Muriel and her mother set up the entire story. Without Salinger telling us directly, we learn that Muriel is a materialistic girl, who has a strange relationship with her protective mother. Without even meeting Seymour until later in the story, we already know that he is an unstable personality and that his marriage with Muriel is unsteady. When we meet Seymour later in the story, we already know he is having emotional problems. In the initial dialogue between Muriel and her mother, I found the part where they are interrupting one another to be extremely effective in understanding their relationship and their feelings towards the topic of conversation. Often times authors don't emphasize tone and interruptions of speech in their dialogues but Salinger seems to. Interruptions in everyday speech are actually very common and they say a lot about the characters. The way Muriel’s mother talks about Seymour and the fear in her voice, gives the reader an idea of the extent of Seymour’s issues. 

I cant wait to read more of Salinger’s short  stories. I am curious see if Salinger uses other interesting techniques in his dialogue in other stories. 

How Does O'Brien Portray War in "The Ghost Soldiers"

Yesterday night, I was reading the short story "The Ghost Soldiers" in Tim O'Brien's book "The Things They Carried". In this particular short story, when Tim O'Brien is away from Combat, he seems to miss it deeply. On page 181, O'Brien says "

"there were times when I missed the adventure, even the danger, of the real war out in the boonies. It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid. When you're afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood—you give it together, you take it together."

After finishing the chapter, I started grappling with the question "How Does O'Brien Portray War in the story The Ghost Soldiers?" Does the book make me want to experience war on not? The quote on page 181 makes me feel like Im missing out on a life changing experience. I've never felt the presence of death and danger so close to me. I've never been afraid for my life like O'Brien has. It seems like these experiences are thrilling and self-revealing for soldiers. It makes me want to go through these types of experiences to see a world I've never seen before. I've played team sports all throughout my life and I have felt the brotherly bond that is developed. War is a whole new level. Being together in the face of death and fighting for each other can't even be compared to team sports.

At the same time, O'Brien also portrays war negatively in several revealing instances. On pages 190 and 191, O'Brien talks about how he had come to the war as an innocent, quit, thoughtful, young person who had just graduated college. He says that over the course of the war, he had "turned mean inside". He says that he "now felt a deep coolness inside, something dark, and even". Then he goes on to say that he is capable of evil. He implies that before the war he would never have felt the need to hurt Bobby Jorgensen after what happened on the battlefield. O'Brien makes it clear that these feeling he feels are a direct result of the war. The word evil that O'Brien uses is powerful. The war brought out an evil in him. This self-analysis that O'Brien does makes war seem especially unattractive and cruel. I would never want to experience something that would harden me to a harmful level.

Throughout the book, each story that O'Brien writes seems to portray the effects of the war differently. O'Brien never seems to mention whether or not the war was "worth it" or "not worth it". There are several positive things about the war and several negative ones and O'Brien doesn't chose a side. Going back to my question"Does the book make me want to experience war on not?". I'm not sure.