内容简介

In the J.D. Salinger benchmark "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," Seymour Glass floats his beach mate Sybil on a raft and tells her about these creatures' tragic flaw. Though they seem normal, if one swims into a hole filled with bananas, it will overeat until it's too fat to escape. Meanwhile, Seymour's wife, Muriel, is back at their Florida hotel, assuring her mother not to worry--Seymour hasn't lost control. Mention of a book he sent her from Germany and several references to his psychiatrist lead the reader to believe that World War II has undone him.The war hangs over these wry stories of loss and occasionally unsuppressed rage. Salinger's children are fragile, odd, hypersmart, whereas his grownups (even the materially content) seem beaten down by circumstances--some neurasthenic, others (often female) deeply unsympathetic. The greatest piece in this disturbing book may be "The Laughing Man," which starts out as a man's recollection of the pleasures of storytelling and ends with the intersection between adult need and childish innocence. The narrator remembers how, at nine, he and his fellow Comanches would be picked up each afternoon by the Chief--a Staten Island law student paid to keep them busy. At the end of each day, the Chief winds them down with the saga of a hideously deformed, gentle, world-class criminal. With his stalwart companions, which include "a glib timber wolf" and "a lovable dwarf," the Laughing Man regularly crosses the Paris-China border in order to avoid capture by "the internationally famous detective" Marcel Dufarge and his daughter, "an exquisite girl, though something of a transvestite." The masked hero's luck comes to an end on the same day that things go awry between the Chief and his girlfriend, hardly a coincidence. "A few minutes later, when I stepped out of the Chief's bus, the first thing I chanced to see was a piece of red tissue paper flapping in the wind against the base of a lamppost. It looked like someone's poppy-petal mask. I arrived home with my teeth chattering uncontrollably and was told to go straight to bed."

作品目录

作者简介

J.D.塞林格（Jerome David Salinger，1919年1月1日生）出生于纽约的一个犹太富商家庭，他在15岁时就被父亲送到宾夕法尼亚州的一所军事学校。1936年塞林格从军事学校毕业，1937年又被做火腿进口生意的父亲送到波兰学做火腿。塞林格在纽约的时候就开始向杂志投稿，其中大部分都是为了赚钱，但也不乏一些好文章，其中包括了《逮香蕉鱼的最佳日子》。

二战中断了塞林格的写作。1942年塞林格从军，1944年他前往欧洲战场从事反间谍工作。战争令塞林格恐惧，他之后写了多本以战争为题材的书。

1946年塞林格退伍，回到纽约开始专心创作。他的第一本长篇小说《麦田里的守望者》1951年出版，获得了很大的成功，塞林格一举成名。他之后的作品包括了《弗兰尼与卓埃》（1961年）、《木匠们，把屋梁升高》和《西摩小传》（1963年）和收录了他的短篇故事的《九故...

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精彩摘录

“……今天可是逮香蕉鱼的最佳日子”“我没有见到鱼嘛”“那是很自然的，他们的习性非常特别……他们过着一种非常悲惨的生活。”他说，“你知道他们是干什么的吗？西比尔”小姑娘摇摇头。“嗯，它们游到一个洞里去，哪儿有许多香蕉。它们游进去时还是样子很普通的鱼。可是他们一进了洞，就馋的跟猪一样了，嘿，我就知道有那么一些香蕉鱼，它们游进一个香蕉洞，居然吃了足足有七八十根香蕉。”……”自然，它们吃得太胖了，就再也没法从洞里出来了。连挤都挤不出洞口了。”

——引自第17页

——一堵墙对另一堵墙说什么？——咱俩墙角见！亲爱的上帝，生活是地狱。“各位神父，各位老师，我思考：‘地狱是什么？’我认为地狱就是失去爱的能力之折磨。”有可能我错了，而我也不想在生命的这个时刻执拗于让自己经历没有必要的幻灭。我宁愿置身于无知的黑暗之中。世人皆修女。“他们似乎无法爱我们，除非他们能不断地让我们稍稍有所改变。他们爱我们，也几乎同样地爱着他们之所以会爱我们的理由，更多的时候他们更爱后者。那不太好，那种爱的方式。”

——引自章节：all