2007-11-25 19:50:53
来自: rockyblur
Nine Stories的评论
A Perfect Day for Bananafish is the first piece in J.D.Salinger’s work Nine Stories. Talking about the structure of the story, there’re two aspects to be taken into consideration.
First, it’s the structure within the story itself. If we make this story into a film, then there will be three main scenes. The first shots take place in the hotel room 507 when Muriel is on the phone with her mother. Muriel is self-interested and his mother shows her great concern only for her daughter all the time. Readers get the feeling that their mentioning Seymour as a dangerous insane man. However, the information they provided about Seymour is at the same time rather vague and confusing. Here the author leaves a mystery to be solved and successfully get the readers’ involvement. To follow this scene, readers finally come to Seymour by Sybil’s encounter with him on the beach. This time, still, readers get to know Seymour’s character from his conversation with Sybil and their later-on activity of finding the bananafish. Everything happened in this scene suggests that Seymour is a shy and fun-loving young man, which is totally in contrary to his wife and mother-in-law’s phone talk. So, the mystery remains till the readers find out what’s in store for them is not merely a shock. Back in the hotel room 507, the last shots witness Seymour’s committing suicide. And the story ends just in this way, leaving the readers try hard to figure out a reason on their own.
From my reading experience, the author cleverly plays with readers’ mind and caters them with not only a surprising end but also some deeper insights beyond their imagination. The structure he uses enhanced the effect he wants to achieve by making the narration continue from different character’s perspective and thus holding the readers’ attention. All along, Seymour doesn’t say anything straight out to reveal his inner world. It’s the other characters’ words that offers the reader clues and implies the author’s message. The structure of this multi-perspective also helps to reinforce the uses of symbols through out the story, such as bananafish, sunburn, the color of blue, etc.
Second, it’s the structure within the whole book. All the nine stories concerning the fictional Glass family build up a mosaic which can be interpreted as a display of human nature. It’s an interlock for the characters may have different names but to some extend they are still the same person in different stages of life. By reading the following stories, readers can get a clearer picture for Seymour’s loneliness and the tragic end he prepared for himself. The author successfully pins nine seemingly irrelevant stories together as a whole and inserts echoes here and there. It calls for a reader’s carefulness and sensitivity to find out all the hidden details and put them together to form a satisfying understanding. To me, Nine Stories is better written for its delicate layout. It arouses my interests to pursue the magic through out the whole book.
I do believe structure is not only the way an author tells a story.
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Nine Stories的评论
A Perfect Day for Bananafish is the first piece in J.D.Salinger’s work Nine Stories. Talking about the structure of the story, there’re two aspects to be taken into consideration.
First, it’s the structure within the story itself. If we make this story into a film, then there will be three main scenes. The first shots take place in the hotel room 507 when Muriel is on the phone with her mother. Muriel is self-interested and his mother shows her great concern only for her daughter all the time. Readers get the feeling that their mentioning Seymour as a dangerous insane man. However, the information they provided about Seymour is at the same time rather vague and confusing. Here the author leaves a mystery to be solved and successfully get the readers’ involvement. To follow this scene, readers finally come to Seymour by Sybil’s encounter with him on the beach. This time, still, readers get to know Seymour’s character from his conversation with Sybil and their later-on activity of finding the bananafish. Everything happened in this scene suggests that Seymour is a shy and fun-loving young man, which is totally in contrary to his wife and mother-in-law’s phone talk. So, the mystery remains till the readers find out what’s in store for them is not merely a shock. Back in the hotel room 507, the last shots witness Seymour’s committing suicide. And the story ends just in this way, leaving the readers try hard to figure out a reason on their own.
From my reading experience, the author cleverly plays with readers’ mind and caters them with not only a surprising end but also some deeper insights beyond their imagination. The structure he uses enhanced the effect he wants to achieve by making the narration continue from different character’s perspective and thus holding the readers’ attention. All along, Seymour doesn’t say anything straight out to reveal his inner world. It’s the other characters’ words that offers the reader clues and implies the author’s message. The structure of this multi-perspective also helps to reinforce the uses of symbols through out the story, such as bananafish, sunburn, the color of blue, etc.
Second, it’s the structure within the whole book. All the nine stories concerning the fictional Glass family build up a mosaic which can be interpreted as a display of human nature. It’s an interlock for the characters may have different names but to some extend they are still the same person in different stages of life. By reading the following stories, readers can get a clearer picture for Seymour’s loneliness and the tragic end he prepared for himself. The author successfully pins nine seemingly irrelevant stories together as a whole and inserts echoes here and there. It calls for a reader’s carefulness and sensitivity to find out all the hidden details and put them together to form a satisfying understanding. To me, Nine Stories is better written for its delicate layout. It arouses my interests to pursue the magic through out the whole book.
I do believe structure is not only the way an author tells a story.
> 我来回应
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Nine Stories
作者: J.D. Salinger
副标题: 九故事
isbn: 0316769509
书名: Nine Stories
页数: 198
定价: USD 6.99
出版社: Little, Brown and Company
装帧: Mass Market Paperback
出版年: 1991-05-01