Reflections on Esmé (Ruchi)

“For Esmé, With Love and Squalor” is a short story written by J.D. Salinger, and was originally published in 1950. If you ask me what the story is about – well, that’s not an easy task. At best, I can give you a summary, but that’s not really what the story is about. 

It’s a story of two characters: Esmé, and the narrator (whose name remains unnamed). The story spans six years, as the narrator – an American writer – takes the readers into a flash back from the time he was posted to fight in the Second World War. During his time in Britain, he meets a young girl, Esmé, presumably 13 years of age, at a tearoom, and the two have a long conversation, at the end of which they agree to correspond and the narrator also promises to write a story for her. The scene then shifts to Bavaria, a few weeks after the end of the war. The narrator (cunningly disguised) seems to be suffering physically and mentally from the effects of the war, and despite efforts from his friend to help him, doesn’t do much. Towards the end, he finds a letter that he has received from Esmé, and upon reading that letter, instantly feels the urge to sleep, suggesting that it has revived him to an extent.

As a plot, that doesn’t sound very remarkable. If anything – and I was trying really hard not to make this comparison – it sounds a bit like a Bollywood movie plot: boy and girl meet, have a great conversation, and several years later, one note from the girl revives the boy from going into complete depression. The only thing missing is a few cheesy songs about love. But this doesn’t have that love – the romantic kind. The relationship between the narrator and Esmé seems to be quite platonic. Or maybe, that’s just what I assumed given that Esmé was 13 years old during their first meeting. If I hadn’t known that, I might have assumed otherwise. However, another group member said that the age had nothing to do with why he found their relationship platonic. According to him, the interaction between the two was “cold.” I completely disagree – I mean, yes, there were no sparks flying and emotional jargon in the conversation, but they seemed to enjoy each other’s company, and the narrator states that he had “mixed feelings of regret and confusion” when Esmé got up to leave. That doesn’t sound cold to me. They definitely had some connection, given that Esmé is willing to give him her dead father’s wristwatch after that one interaction, and that her letter is able to revive him to an extent. It just wasn’t a romantic connection (I think).

In any case, the point I was trying to make is that the plot doesn’t really stand out to me. Neither does the setting. The characters, though, are more worth talking about. Personally, I’m not a big fan of Esmé’s character – she comes across as someone who’s far too mature for her age, is aware of it, and ensures that she lets others know it as well. For instance, when the narrator mentions how much he enjoyed her company, she nods, saying “I thought you might” (Who says things like that?!) She’s an extremely forward person, taking the initiative to talk to the narrator, and to also request him to write a story about her. Her style of speaking is extremely formal and British, sounding more like written speech than an oral conversation, and it stands out in comparison with the narrator’s speech. The narrator seems to describe her the way he’s seeing her, and even provides her words verbatim; however, despite these details, I didn’t find Esmé as apealing a character as the narrator did. (There are other group members who would certainly disagree with me on this.) Evidently, I brought a lot of transactional criticism into my reading of this text, because my own expectations of people have clearly affected how I view the characters.

On the other hand, it’s the narrator’s sarcasm, or “dry sense of humor”, as Esmé calls it, that I find most appealing. Even though it’s mentioned in the first half of the story, I think it’s the second half that really brings it out. When talking to Clay, the narrator’s responses seem to be soaking with sarcasm and dry wit, but not as though he is trying to be humorous. Clay takes his words as reflecting his lack of sincerity, but it sounds more like a person who is fed up with all the bull shit the world has thrown at him, and couldn’t care less to mince his words. If anything, I think it’s this sarcasm that provides much of the squalor in the story, something he had promised Esmé he would include. His comments show some of the darker, dirtier side of war (assuming there is some cleaner side), and the impact it has on people. The suffering is quite real: whether it is for the soldier (the narrator), the families of soldiers who dies in battle (Esmé and Charles), the citizens involved in the war (the Nazi official who wrote “Dear God, life is hell”), or the unintended casualties (the cat). For someone who wasn’t too well acquainted with squalor, the narrator’s life becomes infested with splitting headaches, fits, and his own vomit. The war gave him more squalor than he could have ever imagined.

If I had to stretch this interpretation further, I would say that the “moving part of the story” was that it took Esmé’s letter to bring him out of his squalid surroundings, even though she was the one who had wanted some squalor. Or maybe that’s the ironical bit. As I’m writing this, I’m wondering: did Esmé really understand squalor, or did she merely have some fantastical notion of it as read about in books? She seemed to find squalor intriguing – but I doubt the narrator would describe his own experience of it as intriguing. The war was jarring. And disturbing. And any other synonymous –ing word you can think of. Even though there’s no suggestion of this in the story, I can almost imagine the narrator sarcastically telling Esmé “Hey, you wanted squalor, you got squalor”, yet without any malice intended. But, like I said, there’s no hint of this in the story, so Esmé probably was just a very mature girl who understood war in all its squalid horror, and enjoyed reading about it.  

And just in case it wasn’t evident, war and its impact was an integral theme that reverberated throughout the story.

Over all, I definitely enjoyed reading the story. I’m still not sure what the story was about, or what was its point (if it had one), but the writing itself was very relatable. The reason I chose the story was largely because it was written by Salinger, whose other work I’ve read very recently. Even though the writing style wasn’t the same as what he used in “Catcher in the Rye”, there’s definitely some similarity. But an interesting thing I realized after reading the story was that I kept imagining Salinger and the narrator to be same. As in, I completely forgot that I was reading fiction. Some of the other group members felt that the story may have elements of non-fiction, since Salinger himself did serve in the war, but for me, it took a long while to even think of the narrator and the author as two separate people. And thinking about it some more, I realize that that’s usually what happens to me when I read books. If the narrator and author share some basic characteristics (like sex, age, etc.), I tend to merge the two and then doubly immerse myself into the world because I feel like I’m reading something that really happened. As a group, we engaged in a bit of genetic criticism, but moved on from it because after a point we realized it was becoming a lot of guess work, and we were often moving into the domain of intentional fallacy.

What made it even more confusing here was that there seems to be a story within a story. Salinger is writing a story, told by a narrator who promised to write a squalid story for Esmé. In the beginning, it's as though the narrator is just recounting his experience with Esmé to annoy her fiance, but halfway through, you realize that this is the story that he promised Esmé he would write. So the word "story" could actually refer to Salinger's story OR the narrator's story. If that doesn't mess with your mind, then I think you need an appointment with Loretta (the psychologist in the story).

Never mind. Let's move on to the actual discussion we had of the...story (I think I need another word for this). 

Our group met twice to discuss the story. Frankly, I didn’t find the first discussion to be very fruitful, because most of us had forgotten much of the story by then, and it’s too big to just skim through in a few minutes. We were mainly throwing out random thoughts that stood out to us individually. The second discussion, however, was much more vibrant. There were multiple interpretations (platonic? Yes? No?), confusions (what did he mean…?), questions (did you all think…?), and demands (I want to know why he did this!). I think the last one was mainly from me. There were moments when another group member’s perspective made me go ‘aha’, and other times when I was left unconvinced. We often spent as much – if not more – time discussing why the author chose a particular word in a sentence as why he chose a particular theme.

If I had to analyse the kind of talk our group engaged in, I would say that on the second meeting, it was definitely accountable. Everyone was picking up specific instances from the story and voicing their inputs on it. We did try to build upon each other ideas a lot, sometimes to the extent that we had to forcibly put an end to a particular line of thought and move on to something else. For instance, one group member and I were particularly fascinated by Salinger’s choice of words, and often went into in-depth discussions on single words, which may have taken away from the experience of other group members who were not as interested in the particular topic. And I think that’s an important point to reflect upon.

You see, each one of us chose this story for our own individual reasons. For some, it was the plot, for some, the writing, and for others, the characters (to give an example, though the actual reasons would be far more complex). Now, when engaging in group discussions, what happened was that not everyone was interested in every topic at any given point. As a result, certain conversations and discussions were dominated more by the members who were most interested in that topic. Moreover, not everyone was as willing to speak as others. So while there were moments when people were explicitly asked to share their views, for the most part, only a few people actually engaged in the discussions. This, to me, is a serious concern about the whole concept of talk in a literacy circle, one which I’ll build upon towards the end.

Over all, the discussions, and the peer journal entries and feedback helped me realize how many multiple ways there were of interpreting this story. And that realization definitely deepens your understanding of the text. Though, to be fair, I’m not sure how much of what I’ve written in this post came from the discussion, but as an exercise, I think it was certainly engaging and entertaining. And this has made me realize (though not for the first time) that I reflect best on topics when I start writing about them. Most of my thoughts begin to flow while I write, and so, most of what I have written in this post is not something I thought to bring up during the actual group discussion.

If I had to sum up “high quality” literature based on the reading of this story, I would say that it’s literature that makes you think. I know that’s a very broad and vague answer, but I’m not sure how to make it more specific than that. Salinger’s story forced the entire group to think, because none of us were sure about what exactly he was trying to do. He left room for myriad interpretations, and I’m assuming that was intentional. But I don’t think it’s necessary for a story to be vague in order to make readers think. I think it could even be straight to the point and yet be thought-provoking. And I suppose that’s what I’d expect from children’s literature as well. Perhaps the difference would be that the teacher might have to play a more active role in prodding the students to think about certain aspects of the text, but given time, that responsibility could be passed on to the students as well.

If such a literary discussion is to be carried out in a classroom, I think a few points need to be considered. First of all, the members of the group need to be comfortable with each other. If they’re not, they probably wouldn’t speak up as much. Secondly, the facilitator (or the group members) has to make a conscious effort to try and include everyone in the conversation. It is very easy for two or three people to get carried off in a discussion, and consequently exclude others unintentionally. Conversely, I don’t think it’s as easy to actually pause and ask the silent members for their opinion. I’m not suggesting that everyone should be mandated to talk; just that they should be given the opportunity. But building upon the point that I had raised earlier, I’m not sure that it’s even fair to expect every member of the group to engage in the discussion. What if some people actually prefer to listen? What if they prefer to think through writing, and not talking? How do we find a balance between respecting such differences while ensuring that the discussion is fruitful for all?

But the most important part of a literary circle, I think, is to cultivate respect for differing opinions, and to try and accommodate those opinions in your own thoughts. It’s not enough to merely listen to another opinion. Sometimes, we need to (grudgingly) accept that another interpretation makes more sense than our own, or if we feel strongly enough about our own view, to actually try and convince others. Heated discussions may follow. I may not like it. You may not like it.  But maybe that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be all about the love.

Occasionally, it can be a little squalid.