December 20, 2019:
Salinger was not a good writer. His reputation is because The New Yorker had good editors.
Salinger's pre-New Yorker stories are prolix and self-indulgent. His final three Glass Family novellas are prolix and self-indulgent. Yes the final three were in the New Yorker, but he was able to bully them then 'cos fame and readership.
The New Yorker publishes good writing, but not great writing. The New Yorker's peculiar genius is its ability to appeal to snobbery while remaining militantly middlebrow. Salinger is the poster boy.