Next book on my adult fiction bookshelf for the Daily Book Excerpt:
Nine Stories, by J.D. Salinger – excerpt from the second story ‘Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut’.
My favorite in the collection. I think it would make a terrific short film, too. Don’t change a word. But there’s something revealed in ‘Uncle Wiggily’ – some truth about life exposed- that makes it feel almost radioactive to me. I can’t look directly at it for too long or my retinas will burn off or something. I guess I take ‘Uncle Wiggily’ personally, somehow … it has gotten under my skin.
It’s a fast-paced story made up almost entirely of dialogue, and things happen so quickly, and there are so many italics, that the ending is like a sucker-punch. I almost resented it the first time I read it because I wasn’t prepared for it. But then again, going back to read it again you can see that Salinger was leading us to that tragic ending all along (to me it’s tragic, anyway – like “Eleanor Rigby” tragic) – the ice-bound suburbs, the icy Merritt Parkway – everything encased in ice. That’s the first image of the story. Eloise has “iced” herself to such a degree in order to bear the life she has chosen. She can’t allow any warmth, not even towards her daughter Ramona (who is such a trip – I adore her. Salinger writes children so well!) because if she opens herself up to love, all she will be able to think about will be the love she once lost. (Who is, by the way, Walt Glass – another sibling in the famous Glass family. I don’t even think Salinger mentions his last name – but to Glass fanatics, the second you see “Walt” you know who it is).
Mary Jane and Eloise were friends from college. Neither of them graduated, but they have kept in touch. Eloise lives in Connecticut, with her husband Lew and her daughter Ramona. Mary Jane (if I am remembering correctly) is unmarried (although she was married once for three months) and lives in New York City. She is awkward and kind of overly friendly to Ramona when she meets her. She doesn’t know how to talk to kids. Ramona stalks around with her imaginary friend whose name is “Jimmy Jimmereeno” and he carries a sword. Eloise is exasperated by Ramona, there’s something about mothering that seems to harass her … we’re getting close to the abyss here, the abyss at the heart of Eloise’s life. We can see it in her treatment of her daughter, which is not abusive – just kind of tired and “over it”. Eloise looks around at her own life, full of solid things – like a house, a husband, a black maid, a daughter – and doesn’t recognize herself in it. She doesn’t say so, Salinger is never that obvious – it’s just the feeling we get. Eloise and Mary Jane immediately begin to drink martinis and smoke cigarettes, talking about the old days, and laughing hysterically. Eloise keeps them drinking … until finally Mary Jane passes out face down on the couch. They are wasted. Salinger manages to suggest this without ever coming out and saying it: most of the story, like I mentioned, is dialogue – so they’ll be chatting along, and then – through the dialogue you can tell a drink is spilled – or that one of them has stumbled … It’s a very effective way to show drunkenness, I think. And somehow Salinger also manages to suggest the sadness hovering underneath all of this – that cannot somehow be spoken (although with enough martinis it eventually is).
Brilliant story – one of my favorites of Salinger’s, certainly – but also one of my favorite short stories ever written. Even if it does burn my retina if I look at it too long.
The last line of the story is so killer it makes me want to weep. How often have I said the same thing to myself. Brilliant story.
Here’s an excerpt.
EXCERPT FROM Nine Stories, by J.D. Salinger – excerpt from the second story ‘Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut’.
“I mean you didn’t really know Walt,” said Eloise, at a quarter of five, lying on her back on the floor, a drink balanced upright on her small-breasted chest. “He was the only boy I ever knew that could make me laugh. I mean really laugh.” She looked over at Mary Jane. “You remember that night – our last year – when that crazy Louise Hermanson busted in the room wearing that black brassiere she bought in Chicago?”
Mary Jane giggled. She was lying on her stomach on the couch, her chin on the armrest, facing Eloise. Her drink was on the floor, within reach.
“Well, he could make me laugh that way,” Eloise said. “He could do it when he talked to me. He could do it over the phone. He could even do it in a letter. And the best thing about it was that he didn’t even try to be funny – he just was funny.” She turned her head slightly toward Mary Jane. “Hey, how ’bout throwing me a cigarette?”
“I can’t reach ’em,” Mary Jane said.
“Nuts to you.” Eloise looked up at the ceiling again. “Once,” she said, “I fell down. I used to wait for him at the bus stop, right outside the PX, and he showed up late once, just as the bus was pulling out. We started to run for it, and I fell and twisted my ankle. He said, ‘Poor Uncle Wiggily.’ He meant my ankle. Poor old Uncle Wiggily, he called it … God, he was nice.”
“Doesn’t Lew have a sense of humor?” Mary Jane said.
“What?”
“Doesn’t Lew have a sense of humor?”
“Oh, God! Who knows? Yes. I guess so. He laughs at cartoons and stuff.” Eloise raised her head, lifted her drink from her chest, and drank from it.
“Well,” Mary Jane said. “That isn’t everything. I mean that isn’t everything.”
“What isn’t?”
“Oh … you know. Laughing and stuff.”
“Who says it isn’t?” Eloise said. “Listen, if you’re not gonna be a nun or something, you might as well laugh.”
Mary Jane giggled. “You’re terrible,” she said.
“Ah, God, he was nice,” Eloise said. “He was either funny or sweet. Not that damn little-boy sweet, either. It was a special kind of sweet. You know what he did once?”
“Uh-uh,” Mary Jane said.
“We were on the train going from Trenton to New York – it was just right after he was drafted. It was cold in the car and I had my coat sort of over us. I remember I had Joyce Morrow’s cardigan on underneath – you remember that darling blue cardigan she had?”
Mary Jane nodded, but Eloise didn’t look over to get the nod.
“Well, he sort of had his hand on my stomach. You know. Anyway, all of a sudden he said my stomach was so beautiful he wished some officer would come up and order him to stick his other hand through the window. He said he wanted to do what was fair. Then he took his hand away and told the conductor to throw his shoulders back. He told him if there was one thing he couldn’t stand it was a man who didn’t look proud of his uniform. The conductor just told him to go back to sleep.” Eloise reflected a moment, then said, “It wasn’t always what he said, but how he said it. You know.”
“Have you ever told Lew about him – I mean, at all?”
“Oh,” Eloise said. “I started to, once. But the first thing he asked me was what his rank was.”
“What was his rank?”
“Ha!” said Eloise.
“No, I just meant -”
Eloise laughed suddenly, from her diaphragm. “You know what he said once. He said he felt he was advancing in the Army, but in a different direction from everybody else. He said that when he’d get his first promotion, instead of getting stripes he’d have his sleeves taken away from him. He said when he’d get to be a general, he’d be stark naked. All he’d be wearing would be a little infantry button in his navel.” Eloise looked over at Mary Jane, who wasn’t laughing. “Don’t you think that’s funny?”
“Yes. Only, why don’t you tell Lew about him sometimes, though?”
“Why? Because he’s too damn unintelligent, that’s why,” Eloise said. “Besides. Listen to me, career girl. If you ever get married again, don’t tell your husband anything. Do you hear me?”
“Why?” said Mary Jane.
“Because I say so, that’s why,” said Eloise. “They wanna think you spent your whole life vomiting every time a boy came near you. I’m not kidding, either. Oh, you can tell them stuff. But never honestly. I mean never honestly. If you tell ’em you once knew a handsome boy, you gotta say in the same breath he was too handsome. And if you tell ’em you knew a witty boy, you gotta tell ’em he was kind of a smart aleck, though, or a wise guy. If you don’t, they hit you over the head with the poor boy every time they get a chance.” Eloise paused to drink from her glass and to think. “Oh,” she said, “they’ll listen very maturely and all that. They’ll even look intelligent as hell. But don’t let it fool you. Believe me. You’ll go through hell if you ever give ’em any credit for intelligence. Take my word.”
Mary Jane, looking depressed, raised her chin from the armrest of the couch. For a change, she supported her chin on the forearm. She thought over Eloise’s advice. “You can’t call Lew not intelligent,” she said aloud.
“Who can’t?”
“I mean isn’t he intelligent?” Mary Jane said innocently.
“Oh,” said Eloise, “what’s the use of talking? Let’s drop it. I’ll just depress you. Shut me up.”
It’s interesting that you’d like to see ‘Uncle Wiggily’ as a short film without a word being changed. This may be a surprise: a feature-length film *was* made from it — with too many words changed for my liking :)
‘My Foolish Heart’ (B&W, 1949) is still the only movie that includes Salinger in its writing credits. As Eloise, Susan Hayward was nominated for an Oscar but lost (again).
It was also the first and last Salinger piece to ever be adapted to film. The movie, which was expected to be halfway decent, turned out to be a total flop. Because it received massive criticism, and because he had such a distaste for the adaption, Salinger has refused to allow any filmmakers approach his work, which is why there’s never been any film adaption of the much-desired Catcher in the Rye.
Oops, didn’t see your “the only movie that includes Salinger in its writing credits” line, Dunzy. Right-on.
On one hand, it’s a real shame, but I don’t know–maybe his work is better left in text.
could you please analyse the last line in uncle wiggly in conneticut please it’s really troubling me
I’ve read hundreds of books and stories, but nothing else comes close to “Uncle Wiggley in Connecticut” — the best ever written. I’ve read this story in excess of 50 times over the past 40 years. It never loses its punch. (Second best is ger’s “Esme” — 3rd best is “Bananafish” — all from Salinger’s “9 Stories”). DO NOT SEE “My Foolish Heart” as it is physically painful to watch Salinger’s best story trashed on screen.
Who is Uncle Wiggly? I’m still confused about that…..
uncle wiggily is eloise’s ancle. it represents her innocence. there’s more to it though but its too much to type here lol
Uncle Wiggly is NOT Eloise’s uncle. Uncle Wiggly is just some little pet name that Eloise’s old boyfriend used to call her leg. When she would hit her leg or hurt it in some way he would say, “Poor Uncle Wiggly.” That’s really all it means. I think it symbloizes how much she has changed from when she was younger. She used to make jokes like that and be fun but now she would never do that.
I think Shrimp and Walt could be making a pun, Meredith. Ankle Wiggly. (Yes, yes, I know Uncle Wiggly. I used to play an Uncle Wiggly Board Game, for Pete’s sake: “Take 6 steps next, and watch the Skeezix look vexed.” Uncle Wiggly always carried a crutch to help him hop along casually.)
It was a series of children’s books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Wiggily
Someone just today told me he was writing a story about four soldiers who converge on a battlefield and they all die with only one item– a book of poetry, a wad of money, etc. He forgot what all else. Yikes. Should I be paranoid? My latest short story, “Pretty Mouth and Green My Wallet” is nearly complete, and is an homage to Salinger. Now I wonder if it’s being stolen out from under me. Or if some acid-headed jokester from my past is playuing head games with me. Weird.
BTW, the characters in “Uncle Wiggly” are likely metaphorical, Eloise being the booze and Mary Jane being marijuana. Just my two cents.
Gosh, six years later– I googled myself & was reading my replies above, when I realized that the “four soldiers on a battlefield” story never reached my inbox. I can only guess now that the writer who’d contacted me at my lit mag somehow reminded me of NINE STORIES, probably “For Esme…”; the middlebrow middleclass Salinger impressed readers of THE NEW YORKER enough to keep publishing. Anyway, was my first posting here truncated? I drink Eloise & smoke MJ too much maybe. Funnily a few years ago I did receive a riff on ” Perfect Day for Bananafish” which I did publish at Wood Coin. Salinger is a strong runner in 20th century canon fodder. Even now. I hate “Teddy” most yet against “Down at the Dingy” we could all forgive Salinger for his impudence. The horror and absurdity of “Laughing Man” should be filmed too. (“uncle Wiggly” going to whom, Maggie Gyllenhall and Amy Schumer? Ask Steve Spiel to direct the booze & potheads talking about nothing much other than fiction-type 1940s prattle & simple problems as shallow as Eloise’s insistence that she WAS A NICE GIRL, once… Before life got her down. Before alcohol became her only pleasure. JD was at his zenith, then. Everybody love bed his fluff as much as his pith. Yet his unactualized family of GLASSES never spoke to readers & fans as much as a frustrated unlovable mom who drinks to forget how cruel humanity is, existential perhaps while trickily placing as much blame on E’s peers as on her, allowing sympathy for the stupidest character in the collection. NINE STORIES could conceptually be a Netflix series, yes, as Franzen’s THE CORRECTIONS was intended to be a Showotime miniseries — like all suburban bougiouise white bread stuff this century it’s cost would outdo its profit. Yet, you know, JD’s “14” unpublished later novels may grab a few more Hollywood Stars before another WASPy writer elbows into the literary field. As of now Holden C is sacrosanct– he “hates” the pictures, so.