A Girl I Knew

From Bananafish

A Girl I Knew Status underpublished Original publication source Good Housekeeping Original publication date February, 1948 Salinger.org rating 3.3 Previous Next A Perfect Day for Bananafish Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut

Original art from Good Housekeeping

Originally to be titled Wien, Wien. This wonderful story seems rather autobiographical. The narrator flunks out of college and is sent to Vienna to study German and doesn't get, and doesn't want to get, the girl. At the end the story suddenly shifts gears and zooms into the future, which doesn't work too well with the rest of the piece.

Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. How well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn't necessarily affect the transformation. She was there, and she was the whole city, and that was that.

Trivia

The un-translated line ("Sie sind sehr schön. Weissen Sie dass?") translates to "You are very pretty. You know that?"

Sources

• (Feb 1948) A Girl I Knew. Good Housekeeping 126: 37, 186-196.

• Reprinted in:
  • Best American Short Stories of 1949 ed. by Martha J. Foley (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1949), pp. 248-260
  • Inverted Forest (Japanese)