Nine Stories:A Perfect Day For Bananafish

In my last blog I wrote about the cover art of J.D. Salinger books. I said that the blank covers were good because they held no pre-conceived excpectations for the readers. I also mentioned something about "fan art". I think that what I should have said was "visual interpretation", because once I started thinking about it, I realized that I have created many works based on a mixing of elements from popular culture(In the art world-and court cases-it is called appropriation). In fact, I once created an entire art show around the idea of J.D. Salinger's collection "Nine Stories". Actually, just one of the stories called "A Perfect Day For Bananafish".

A little background information should be said about the collages and the art show in general. The show was held at the Old Louisville Coffee House back in maybe 2005(?). I was asked to do a 2 person show with Brittany Ree, a local painter. Our styles and backgrounds varied from each other but in a way we felt like Warhol and Basquiat joining forces. One street artist/painter, and one silkscreen artist who had worked through the collegiate art institution. We even had a poster that parodied the Warhol/Basquiat boxing poster.


I had started with city scapes, and moved onto a series of saints, that I wanted to save for my BFA show. For some reason, I decided a series of prints illustrating Salinger's Nine Stories would be a good idea. Over the weeks leading up to the show I reread "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", drew tons of thumbnail sketches for ideas, and created collages. Everything in the collages had some sort of referential point in the text.

The cats were supposed to symbolize the "nine lives or nine viewpoints" in "Nine Stories". Not only that, but the fact that giving them human characteristics would lead back to the idea of pre-conceived images of the characters. Without the human faces, they would remain more anonymous, even though anthropomorhism would do that regardless.

The main character in this story is Seymour Glass, a member of the same family as many other Salinger characters. Most of the time Seymour is depicted as being smart, and deeply interested in eastern religions, yet he never seems to fit in with most people. He seems suspicious of the actions of others, and suicidal. In "A Perfect Day For Bananafish", he is worried about people looking at his feet, and his tattoo(which he apparently does not have).

The textual elements of the collages are supposed to give a sense of instability. They go up and down, some fit in line, and some do not. Some letters are not even the same font as the next in line. The collages themselves, also give this sense. Cat headed people, cars and floating letters are designed with the mentality of Seymour Glass in mind.

The final aspect of these collages are the fortune cookie fortunes. Each one seems to sync with the image and the story. This is a representation of the unknown. Seymour is a student of eastern religions, and fortune cookies are an Americanized version of eastern religion. This is used to further drive home the division between Seymour, and the people he is surrounded by. The idea being that the average American's idea of eastern religion was created in California(if I remember right), and delivered after dinner, while Seymour has based his whole existence on it.

In the last image we see all the elements of the collages come together. Seymours religious theories come together with a generic and-in this context-sarcastic fortune, mixed with the idea of him literally being worthless, because he has become a dead cat.

The show happened, but I didn't get these prints finished in time. I ended up using my Saint series, and sold none of them. Maybe now that Salinger has passes, it is time to revive these images.

The Cover Art of J.D. Salinger

I read The Catcher in the Rye for the first time when I was about 21. My copy of this book is white with black type, and colored bands going off the corner. I bought Franny and Zooey in the book store at UofL, and later, bought Raise High The Roofbeams, Carpenters, and Seymour an Introduction, and found an old copy of Nine Stories in a box of old books that used to belong to my aunt. All of them except for nine stories have the distinctive design.

When I thought about the reasons for designing these books, I always pictured this particular edition, being designed with schools in mind. No fancy covers, no great designs, because school children were forced to read this book, and it wa one of the best known books out there, so why waste time with graphic design when a white cover with black text will suffice?

Later, after I ran out of Salinger written books to read, I did some internet research into the life of Salinger, and his work. I had read somewhere that the true reason his book covers had no images on them was that pictures give you preconceived notions about the story before you read it. Salinger essentially thought that most people-although warned against it-judged books by their covers.

I believe he was on to something with that. Imagine if Holden Caulfield was on the cover staring you right in the face. Would he still be the likable anti-hero that he is in the book now? Without seeing who he is or what he looks like, he can be anyone, and to me, part of the appeal of Holden Caulfield is that he can do the things that I cannot. Holden shares in some of the misanthropy, and simultaneous loneliness that everyone feels at some point.

Apparently early copies of the book seem to go down the route of putting a descriptive image to the books cover. In the image below we see Phoebe and Holden at the Carousel, a scene which takes place at the end of the book. Aside from the fact that the reader is now told what these characters look like, it could be assumed that now the reader will be looking for the carousel.

Those are all old editions though. The only J.D. Salinger book that I have ever seen in real life that had some sort of image on it followed the same carousel theme. It depicts a horse in red, yellow and cream colors. This edition seems to have started showing up more and more as the standard cover for Salinger's classic.The fact that the carousel was important enough for the cover, could also make readers focus so much on the meaning of the carousel, that they focus less on other aspects of the book.

I don't know where to fall on the subject of whether the covers to Salinger's books should be left blank, or should be designed better. On the one hand, I love a well designed package. A good design sells, and it gives an extra something special to the beholder, I love to physically own CD's for the same reason.

I suppose in the end though, I must show solidarity with the creator of the work. The artist's say in his creation is a very special thing that should not be tampered with, I mean look at what happened to American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis' novel was turned into a movie, which was fine. What was not so fine, was that the movie spawned a sequel called American Psycho 2. If Salinger wants blank covers, then Salinger gets blank covers. I guess that is what fan art is for.