The most artistic thing about last night’s reading of A Perfect Day for Bananafish, was, to
me, the way Salinger captured dialogue. We talked about this in class as well,
but even before, I thought it was amazing how fluid and natural the speech
found in the story was.
Throughout
Muriel’s conversation with her mom, we see several distinctive ways of making
the conversation more realistic and fluid. The first one I noticed was that
Salinger italicizes certain syllables
of words, the ones people actually emphasize, instead of the whole word. This
helped me to better recreate what Salinger’s vision of the conversation was,
reading it more like the characters would have said it. This kind of emphasis
helps readers draw more conclusions, and get a better sense of what kind of
attitude a character may have, as opposed to Hemingway’s style that leaves
everything to speculation by just giving the bare facts of the matter. I really
enjoyed this kind of dialogue, as it helped to put me more in the mindset of
the characters, which I really like in stories.
The
second way Salinger really made conversation come to life was by replicating
how speech is thrown back and forth between two people in actual conversation.
Muriel and her mother rarely let each other complete their thoughts, and they
often change the topic without seeing the other topic to its end. This, when
you think about it, is so much truer
to our actual speech patterns than depicting conversations as one sentence,
then another, then another. One topic, then another, then another. No! We’re
constantly wanting our voice to be heard and jumping forward or backward to
previous or new topics. I love the realistic aspect of Salinger’s writing in
this way, because it puts the reader in the mindset to find everything else
realistic as well.
What
did you guys think of this kind of style? How does it work for you in contrast
to the very bare, factual presentation given by Hemingway?
I also found the dialogue quite interesting. The narrator barely interjects in the conversation between the mother and Muriel, except with "she said," or "she interrupted." The narrator doesn't need to cut in though, because Salinger captures the conversation and flow of the dialogue so well, as you described. I found this a lot easier to read than Hemingway's short, choppy sentences. The dialogue moves forward much faster than Hemingway's up and down, repetitive facts (this isn't to put Hemingway down, though, I still enjoyed his stories).
ReplyDeleteIt's a small detail, but in this conversation, one moment that really rings true is when Muriel's mom (more than once, actually) says simply, "You know your father" or "You know how your father is." She never elaborates--presumably she doesn't need to--and yet this passing remark reflects volumes about the family dynamic. Even as she's so concerned about Muriel's safety, she can't help but pause to throw a little shade at the old man.
ReplyDeleteI definitely enjoyed reading Salinger's dialogue as well. If you had two people reading the lines of Muriel and her mother out loud, I think it would sound no different than a real conversation. I like how you pointed out that Salinger sometimes italicized a single letter rather than the whole word. I didn't notice this at first, but after thinking about it I realized this type of italics is uncommon (at least from what I've read) yet made the dialogue much more dynamic. Salinger's dialogue is truly a work of art, the way he is able to portray a real conversation using italics, dashes, and punctuation.
ReplyDeleteYour comparison to Hemingway's portrayal of dialogue is really interesting. Yes, Hemingway leaves a lot open to interpretation, and we have to gather for ourselves what the characters are really saying, their tones of voice, etc. I like Salinger's dialogue much more than Hemingway's. Salinger is definitely more straightforward about portraying the nuances of each and every word, and yet, it doesn't feel like he's spelling things out for us. I really enjoy all of the details he employs, but he still leaves a lot of other aspects of his stories open to interpretation. Hemingway and Salinger both leave their stories open to interpretation, but in different ways.
ReplyDeleteI also found the way Salinger portrays dialogue as much more true to real life. I will day though that this didn't really make reading the dialogue more enjoyable for me. To be honest I don't think I particularly like reading dialogue no matter how well written it is. I was very easily distracted while reading the diagonal In " A Prefect day for Banana Fish", and I had to go back and reread it to understand what had happened. But over all like the fact that while reading Salinger we can really hear the characters speaking, and they sound very real in the ways they communicate.
ReplyDelete