J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [69]
There is a scene in “Seymour—an Introduction” in which Buddy Glass and his brother Seymour are playing marbles. Seymour stands, as Salinger relates, faultlessly “balanced,” a smooth, symmetrical marble in hand, looking upon his brother with love. Seymour is about to instruct Buddy on releasing one’s will, one’s conscious self, in order to find the place of perfect connection.40 This scene is similar to one that occurs between Kenneth Caulfield and his brother Vincent in “The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls.” And though Salinger presents the scene with Seymour as an instruction to readers on how to approach his works, those familiar with the “Ocean” tale recognize this parable as being its thrust and primary message.
“The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls” is the seventh of Salinger’s Caulfield stories and one of his finest unpublished works. It portrays the last day in the life of Allie Caulfield, who in this story is named Kenneth. In “Ocean,” readers witness the arrival of the author’s most elevated character form to date. Kenneth Caulfield is Salinger’s first enlightened child.
“The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls” takes place on Cape Cod. Vincent Caulfield, who narrates the story, is about eighteen. Also in the house are his parents, who are actors, his brother Kenneth, who is twelve, and his sister, Phoebe, who was born not long before the story takes place. Vincent’s brother Holden is away at camp.
Vincent begins his narration with a description of his brother Kenneth. He paints a portrait of a thoughtful, sensitive, and intelligent boy, a child so curious that his shoes turned up as he was always bending down to investigate things on the ground. Vincent describes his brother’s red hair, explaining that it was so vibrant as to be seen at a great distance. He relates a time when he was playing golf with Helen Beebers and became aware of his brother watching him from far off.
Kenneth had two great loves: literature and baseball. He married them by filling his lefty first baseman’s mitt with lines of poetry that he could read while in the field. Holden has discovered a quote by Robert Browning on Kenneth’s mitt, which Vincent relays:
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore, and bade me creep past.
One Saturday afternoon in July, Vincent, who is a struggling writer, comes down from his room to the porch of the house where Kenneth is sitting and reading. In a solemn mood, Vincent coaxes his younger brother away from his book and tells him the story he has just written, a short tale titled “The Bowler.”
“The Bowler” is a story of a man whose wife will not let him do anything he wanted. He cannot listen to sports on the radio, read cowboy magazines, or indulge any of his interests. The only thing his wife will let him do is go bowling, once a week, on Wednesday nights. So every Wednesday for eight years the man takes his bowling ball down from the closet and goes out. One day the man dies. His wife faithfully visits his grave every Monday to place gladioli on it. On one occasion, she happens to go on a Wednesday. On her husband’s grave, she finds fresh violets. Calling the caretaker over, she asks who left the violets. The caretaker tells her that they were left by the same woman who leaves them every Wednesday, probably the dead man’s wife. Infuriated, the woman goes home. That night, the neighbors hear the sound of crashing glass. The next morning they see a shiny, new-looking bowling ball sitting on the woman’s lawn amid shards of broken windowpane.41
Kenneth’s reaction to Vincent’s story is not what Vincent anticipated. Upset by the ending, he accuses Vincent of taking revenge