Salinger Revisited: Just Before the War with the Eskimos

This is one of those Salinger stories that left me feeling, “huh?” There is the usual Salinger wit and sharp prose (certainly, this is one of my favorite titles for a Salinger story, even if the story itself is not completely satisfying). Wikipedia informs me that, “At the time of its publication, it confused yet nevertheless delighted its audience.” which is certainly a sentiment with which I can identify. 

I’ll close these comments with my favorite sentence from the story:

Very probably, it was not part o the sofa vaudeville of a showoff but, rather, the private, exposed achievement of a young man who, at one time or another, might have tried shaving himself left-handed.