External links
- Abstract at The New Yorker site
- Still Paging Mr. Salinger at The New York Times
- "Hapworth 16, 1924" Revisited at The Satirist: America's Most Critical Journal
| "Hapworth 16, 1924" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by J. D. Salinger | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publication | |
| Published in | The New Yorker |
| Publication date | June 19, 1965 |
"Hapworth 16, 1924" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger that appeared in the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker . [1]
The story is the last original work Salinger published during his lifetime, and filled almost the entire magazine. It is the "youngest" of his Glass family stories, in the sense that the narrated events happen chronologically before those in the rest of the series.
46-year-old Buddy Glass reproduces the contents of a letter written by his older brother Seymour, deceased since his suicide 17 years earlier in 1948. Seymour wrote the letter to their parents while he and Buddy (two years his junior) were attending Camp Simon Hapworth, Maine, in 1924. The literary voice conveyed in the letter is that of a highly articulate and strikingly precocious boy of seven. The letter, written from the camp infirmary (Seymour has injured his leg) is a wide-ranging commentary on the camp personnel, the camp attendees, and his relationships with his family, humanity and God. Seymour and Buddy largely prefer to occupy themselves writing poems and short stories rather than participate in group activities. They therefore meet with some hostility.
Seymour devotes a large part of the letter to enumerating his reading list and requests for further reading material from his parents. He offers critical appraisals of a number of major literary figures. The letter closes with a lengthy discourse on the significance of God. [2] [3]
The circumstances and considerations that led chief fiction editor William Shawn at The New Yorker to devote virtually the entire June 19, 1965, edition to "Hapworth 16, 1924" are obscure. [4] Biographer Kenneth Slawenki writes, "the files of The New Yorker are unusually silent on the details of the novella's reception by the editorial staff and its eventual reception by William Shawn." [5] The correspondence between Salinger and Shawn chronicling the decision may have been deliberately suppressed. [6] Slawenski speculates that the appearance of Salinger's piece in the journal was "a fait accompli rather than a topic of debate". [7]
After the story's appearance in The New Yorker, Salinger—who had already withdrawn to his New Hampshire home—stopped publishing altogether. Since the story never appeared in book form, readers had to seek out that issue or find it on microfilm. Finally, with the release of The Complete New Yorker on DVD in 2005, the story was once again widely available.
In 1996, Orchises Press, a small Virginia publishing house, started a process of publishing "Hapworth" in book form. Orchises Press owner Roger Lathbury has described the effort in The Washington Post and, three months after Salinger's death, in New York magazine. [8] [9] [10] According to Lathbury, Salinger was deeply concerned with the proposed book's appearance, even visiting Washington to examine the cloth for the binding. Salinger also sent Lathbury numerous "infectious and delightful and loving" letters. [9]
Following publishing norms, Lathbury applied for Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data, unaware of how publicly available the information would be. A writer in Seattle, researching an article on Jeff Bezos, came across the "Hapworth" publication date, [11] and told his sister, a journalist for the Washington Business Journal , who wrote an article about the upcoming book. [12] This led to substantial coverage in the press. Shortly before the books were to be shipped, Salinger changed his mind, and Orchises withdrew the book. New publication dates were repeatedly announced, but it never appeared. [13] Lathbury said, "I never reached back out. I thought about writing some letters, but it wouldn't have done any good." [9]
Crucial to any to any approach to the Glass family stories is a recognition of Salinger's refusal to recast standard literary forms, a tendency that becomes most manifest in the diffuse and digressive Seymour: An Introduction and the shapeless and interminable "Hapworth."—Literary critic John Wenke in J. D. Salinger: A Study of the Short Fiction (1991). [14]
Both contemporary and later literary critics harshly panned "Hapworth 16, 1924"; writing in The New York Times , Michiko Kakutani called it "a sour, implausible and, sad to say, completely charmless story .... filled with digressions, narcissistic asides and ridiculous shaggy-dog circumlocutions." [15]
Calling it "virtually unreadable" and "an enigma", critic John Wenke compares "Hapworth" to viewing a neighbor's unedited family home movies. [16] He writes:
Possibly the least structured and most tedious piece of fiction ever produced by an important writer, "Hapworth" seems designed to bore, to tax patience, as if Salinger was trying to torment his readers. [17] [18]
Wenke adds that the story is a striking departure from the "urbane, pithy and wry" short fiction The New Yorker's editors and readership favored. [19]
Biographer Kenneth Slawenski considers the piece "professionally, a disaster" [20] and ponders what may have motivated Salinger to submit the work for publication:
Questions regarding "Hapworth" have plagued Salinger fans ever since. Did he intentionally write the story as his final publication? Why is "Hapworth" so unreadable? The story fostered a suspicion that...Salinger attempted to release himself from the affections of average readers by feeding them a work that was completely indigestible. [21]
Biographer Ian Hamilton concurs that Salinger appears to abandon his loyal readership and retreat into the exclusive realm of his characters. He writes, "The Glass family has, in this last story, become Salinger's subject and his readership, his creatures and his companions. His life is finally made one with art." [22]
Salinger is said to have considered the story a "high point of his writing" and made tentative steps to have it reprinted, though those came to nothing. [8]
I scored the publishing coup of the decade: his final book. And then I blew it.
a sour, implausible and, sad to say, completely charmless story…filled with digressions, narcissistic asides and ridiculous shaggy-dog circumlocutions.
"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, originally published in the January 31, 1948, issue of The New Yorker. It was anthologized in 1949's 55 Short Stories from the New Yorker, as well as in Salinger's 1953 collection Nine Stories. The story is an enigmatic examination of a young married couple, Muriel and Seymour Glass, on vacation in Florida. It is the first of his stories to feature a member of the fictional Glass family.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction is a single volume featuring two novellas by J. D. Salinger, which were previously published in The New Yorker: Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955) and Seymour: An Introduction (1959). Little, Brown republished them in this anthology in 1963. It was the first time the novellas had appeared in book form. The book was the third best-selling novel in the United States in 1963, according to Publishers Weekly.
“Slight Rebellion off Madison” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 21 December, 1946 issue of The New Yorker.
“A Boy in France” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 31 March, 1945 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Go See Eddie” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the University of Kansas City Review in December 1940. The story is included in the 2014 Salinger collection Three Early Stories.
"The Hang of It" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, first published in the July 12, 1941 issue of Collier's magazine.
“The Heart of a Broken Story” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the September 1941 issue of Esquire.
“The Long Debut of Lois Taggett” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the September-October 1942 issue of Story.
“Personal Notes of an Infantryman” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 12 September, 1942 issue of Collier's.
“The Varioni Brothers” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 17 July, 1943 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Both Parties Concerned” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 26 February, 1944 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Soft-Boiled Sergeant” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the 26 February, 1944 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Once a Week Won’t Kill You” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the November–December 1944 issue of Story. The story is included in the 2014 Salinger collection Three Early Stories.
“Blue Melody” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the September 1948 issue of Cosmopolitan. The story was inspired by the life of Bessie Smith and was originally titled "Needle on a Scratchy Phonograph Record". Cosmopolitan changed the title to "Blue Melody" without Salinger's consent, a "slick" magazine tactic that was one of the reasons the author decided, in the late forties, that "he wanted to publish only in The New Yorker."
“Elaine” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the March-April, 1945 issue of Story.
“The Inverted Forest” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the December 1947 issue of Cosmopolitan. The work was republished in Cosmopolitan's "Diamond Jubilee" issue in March 1961. The story marked the start of Salinger's focus on the poet as a distinguished creative genius, and on the impossibilities he finds when trying to adapt to society.
"This Sandwich Has No Mayonnaise" is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the October 1945 issue of Esquire. The story was published in the 1958 anthology The Armchair Esquire, edited by Arnold Gingrich and L. Rust Hills.
“A Girl I Knew” is an uncollected work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger which appeared in the February 1948 issue of Good Housekeeping.
“The Young Folks” is a work of short fiction by J. D. Salinger published in the March–April issue of Story magazine. The story is included in the 2014 Salinger collection Three Early Stories.
Neither Salinger in his lifetime nor his estate after his death has ever authorized the publication of a volume of Salinger's registered early short fiction which appeared in magazines between 1940 and 1965. Reprints of his early stories have appeared under the auspices of Esquire and The New Yorker, to which Salinger stories had originally been sold.
