Sitaram
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Warning! This is a SPOILER, revealing the surprise endingSalinger's story appeared in the New Yorker Magazine on January 31,
1948.
Since this is a spoiler, then perhaps the reader would be well advised to
obtain a copy of A Perfect Day for Bananafish and read it
first, so that you may enjoy and relish the novelty of the story in
innocence.
This sentence of mine, above, is, in a sense, a banana, which makes you
a banana fish, since the motif of banana fish in the story, and the
symbolism has to do in part with enjoyment or with the difficulties or risks
of enjoyment, or perhaps with the ironic, illusory nature of enjoyment.
My word "innocence" in my opening sentence, is also significant. The child
in the story is innocent, and because of her innocence, she experiences
the day differently from her adult companion. She has a different
understanding of "bananafish".
Milan Kundera describes a critic as someone who discovers
other peoples discoveries. Criticism and analysis of artistic creations is a
kind of parasitic activity. So, I am become a parasite to the Banana Fish,
much like those pilot fish who follow a shark about, subsisting upon
crumbs and scabs.
What is it that makes a short story great? Is it because we come back to
it again and again, and talk to it, asking it questions.
But here I am, as usual, becoming bogged down in my attempts to be
profound and insightful.
I promised you a spoiler, so I should tell you about Salinger's story, "A
Perfect Day for Banana Fish."
It's too bad I can't just post the text of the story for you to read, but that
would be a violation of copyright. A google search does reveal that the
complete text of the story is online. If you google.com search on "A
Perfect Day for Bananafish" (quotation marks included) you will most
likely find a copy of the text.
I suppose there is no harm in my retelling the story from memory. I do
not own the story, but I do own my memories and experiences of reading
the story.
A perfect story should have a title that is very powerful, both arousing
your curiosity to pick up the magazine or book and read the story,
initially, but later, steering and guiding the story like the helm of a great
ship.
When we finish reading the story, we realize that no one really saw a banana fish.
There is some ambiguity in the phrase "A Perfect Day for Banana Fish".
Perfect for whom? Perfect for the Banana Fish and it's needs and desires?
Perfect for those who wish to see a Banana Fish? Perfect for catching
Banana Fish? And what makes the day perfect? What makes a story
perfect? What is perfection? Perfection of what, and for whom?
After I read the story once, quickly, I went to bed, and thought of the
story as I slept. Sometimes I would wake up and lie there, thinking about
the story and its possible meanings. Thinking about the story, lying
there, attempting to analyze it, to have some great insight, gave me
comfort and distraction from my own thoughts about suicide.
It is a story about suicide.
I have to pause and tell you what I think the bananas symbolize. The
bananas are the years of one's life. The adult in the story said that
sometimes a fish has been known to eat 78 bananas. Why 78? 78 is such
an unusual number! But no, 78 is a special number. 78 is the average
years of a life span. Even in the Psalms, written centuries ago, it says,
"The years of a man are 3 score years and ten, perhaps four score, and
what is beyond that is toil and travail."
The banana hole is life, or time. The banana fish gets in the hole,
consumes 78 bananas, and becomes too sated to get out and leave the
hole. The banana fish dies in the banana hole. The end of the book of
Job says that Job died, old and "full of days."
The little girl says that she sees a banana fish with six bananas in his
mouth. The little girl is perhaps 6 years old. She can only see a banana
fish in terms of herself, her own limited experience.
Obviously, the ending is a surprise ending, since the man, returns to his
room, where a young woman is sleeping, takes a pistol from a suitcase,
and shoots himself in the temple.
It would not do at all to entitle the story, "A Vacationer's Suicide".
Part of the power of the story is the shock value of the surprise ending; a
suicide which seems a meaningless, absurd gesture.
Are there suicides which make sense? I am sure there are. I often find
myself thinking about suicide.
This is a story of numbers, in a sense. The first sentence tells us that
there are 97 advertising men staying in the hotel, tying up all the long
distance phone lines.
A young woman is waiting for her operator assisted call to go through to
New York. Her surname is Glass. Glass is transparent and breaks easily.
We learn the the young woman's first name is Muriel.
The child on the beach is named Sybil Carpenter. A Sybil is a prophetess,
a seer. The child calls him "See more glass", seeing through to the
underlying meaning of his name, Seymour Glass.
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