Ishiguro vs Salinger

I was thinking about Never Let Me Go and how it related to Nine Stories and The Catcher in the Rye and I realized many significant similarities and differences between Kazuo Ishiguro and J.D. Salinger. First, I looked at what each emphasized in their writing. It is clear that Ishiguro focuses most on character development, as Ruth, Kathy, and Tommy have unique backstories that help readers relate to them. Salinger focuses more on the plot and little bits and pieces that come together to make the overall story more significant. An example of this is in Nine Stories when the Glass family is mentioned throughout the stories it is a significant connection when you understand it in the end. One way Ishiguro and Salinger are similar is that they both remain ominous about parts of the storyline and allow the reader to look back and infer what has happened and what will happen. In Never Let Me Go, you are not sure at the beginning what kind of world these children live in but as you start to pick up information the predictions of ideas such as why the art is being taken and why they can't reproduce come up again and again. This idea is also evident in Nine Stories as you don't know why Seymour killed himself or why he is so paranoid about his feet. These little ideas eat at your mind as you rationalize the answers to your questions. Both Ishiguro and Salinger excel at the idea of keeping the readers immersed in the book by being quite ominous about the story. Therefore, Ishiguro and Salinger have both similarities and differences in their writing styles.