J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [63]
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“A Boy in France” is a quiet tale of the inner workings of a battle-worn soldier in search of a moment’s rest in a foxhole. It is the second of three stories that Salinger documented having written while on the front lines during the closing months of 1944.* Although it contains no reference to any Caulfield family member, it mirrors the rhythm and message of The Catcher in the Rye and other Caulfield works. Therefore, it should be considered as Salinger’s sixth Caulfield story.
While critics have tended to neglect it, “A Boy in France” represents an important stage in the development of Salinger’s work. His previous story, “The Magic Foxhole,” asked about the existence and nature of God. As if in reply to those questions, “A Boy in France” contains a declaration of conviction, and through this story, faith and authorship become intertwined.
The story takes place in Normandy, where Salinger began writing it, but its content reflects more his experience at Hürtgen, where it was probably completed. Told in a near-stream of consciousness, the narrative is saturated with an authenticity that only an actual soldier could provide. As the story begins, readers sense the rumbling of distant gunfire and the smell of dank, cold earth. Sleeping alone upon this ravaged ground is an exhausted, filthy boy dressed as a soldier. He is the boy in France. He is awakened by terrible thoughts of the day’s battle, thoughts “that could not be disremembered.”32 His weary mind attempts to rally him. This is not a safe place, and he must move on. He puts on his helmet, collects his bundle, and begins his wandering in search of a place of safety. As he departs, he calls to another soldier, “I’ll holler when I get there.” But he does not know where he is going.
Finally overcome by weakness, the boy finds a safe place to rest: a foxhole, empty except for a blanket (the recent shroud of a soldier) and the stench of death. With the last of his strength he attempts in vain to “dig out the bad places,” and lowers himself into the hole. When lumps of dirt begin to cover him inside the earthen tomb, “he did nothing about it.” The boy is bitten on the leg by a red ant. In an attempt to kill the offender, he reencounters the place where he lost an entire fingernail during that day’s battle. He places the wounded finger under his blanket and recites a list of wishes that momentarily ends the war and transports him back home, where his fingernail is miraculously reaffixed. There, he recites a poetic chant, vowing to block out the world. A mere notch away from pure poetry, this incantation is among Salinger’s most melodious literary moments and imbues this story with a charm paradoxical to its setting.
At this point in his career Salinger began to write serious poetry. Whole sections of “A Boy in France” are restrained from becoming poetry only by form and punctuation. For example, when the boy’s refrain is broken up according to its flow, its sentences reveal six verses bound by the refrain of “I’ll bolt the door.”
When the boy opens his eyes he finds himself still upon the battlefield, alone with his throbbing finger. In despair, he reaches into his pocket, where he has kept a link to home. With eyes pressed close, he slowly reads “the abracadabra” that has always worked before, a breathless account of a movie premiere from a world in which there is no war. But its empty words have lost their magic here and the boy pushes them away. Yet he has kept a more faithful memory, a letter from home tattered by use. He holds it with tenderness and begins to recite it as if it were a prayer.
Readers come to realize that they already know this boy. He is Babe Gladwaller, and the letter is