/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18591697]

I have a question about Salinger’s “Down at the Dinghy”
Pickles, particularly the small kind are usually served in delicatessens alongside sandwiches with meats like Pastrami and Corned Beef. Like a lot of people, I think of deli foods with cured meats as being a sort of jewish-american cuisine.
Probably because I am from New York where a lot delis were Jewish owned (idk of this is still true today, but like pizzerias and Italians it’s a sort of an undying association). Salinger, who was brought up in New York when these ethic cuisine associations were a lot more true might have made a similar association.
So really, what I’d like to know is if the child, Lionel, is said to love pickles as some kind of allusion to his Jewish heritage or if that’s just what Salinger thought children liked to eat?

I can elaborate with excerpts but I know Salinger and Nine Stories are pretty commonly read on /lit/

[Anonymous No.18591753]

>>18591697
You’re a very deep reader. This was not something I picked up on. But maybe, you’re looking too deep?

[Anonymous No.18591794]

I’ve not read the book but I’m from the New York area and I know what you mean. However, I think it’s more likely that he’s simply giving the kid some sort of quirk to make him more real, more human, give him some character than to imply he’s Jewish for no apparent reason.

[Anonymous No.18591840]

>>18591697
>His father, Sol Salinger, traded in kosher cheese, and was from a Jewish family of Lithuanian descent, his own father having been the rabbi for the Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Louisville, Kentucky.

>The name Lionel is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "young lion".

>It is often claimed that pickled cucumbers were first developed for workers building the Great Wall of China, though another hypothesis is that they were first made in the Tigris Valley of Mesopotamia, using cucumbers brought originally from India.

I'd almost think the India link would be stronger given the final story in the collection. But I don't think that.

Is the fictional character maybe Jewish? Maybe, sure. Who doesn't at least like pickles though?

[Anonymous No.18591908]

>>18591697
wtf is this thread

[Anonymous No.18591935]

>>18591908
this must be very strange and confusing to you but this is what's traditionally considered to be thoughtful posting about specific works of literature.

[Anonymous No.18592003]

>>18591935
I love the collection, but this thread is p stupid ngl

[Anonymous No.18592132]

>>18591794
Thanks for the validation I was honestly worried people were just going to argue whether Pastrami was Polish instead of jewish or something like that.
It’s just interesting to me because the theme of the story is centered on the boys jewish identity and his first exposure to anti-semeitism. So like, it seems like a bizarre association to make but on the other hand it could actually be an allusion that isn’t subtle at all.

[Anonymous No.18592136]

>>18591697
Pickles are a basic food preservation common to most every culture in the world. You are seeing spooks.

[Anonymous No.18592165]

The kid is Boo Boo Tannenbaum's son. She is one of the Glass kids (Franny and Zooey/Seymour). They are all Jewish (half Irish?). Incidentally, all of these Nine Stories are revealed (in Seymour) to be the works of Buddy Glass, the second eldest of the bunch. Nice spot though OP, never would've made the association myself

[Anonymous No.18592201]

>I turned myself into a literary device Morty!

[Anonymous No.18592676]

>>18592165
Buddy writing Bananafish is kind of twisted

[Anonymous No.18593010]

>>18592136
That's true but you have to view it through the American context the book was written in and the New Yorker and Jewish-American context both the characters and the author expierence. When you take into consideration that the author was a Jew from New York, and the character mentioned is also that, then this connection make a lot of sense.