During World War II, Salinger, then a soldier, was with the first regiment to enter Paris. Hemingway was in the city, too, spending most of his time at the Ritz. When Salinger went to the hotel, hoping to find the author there, Hemingway said he recognized him from a photo that had appeared in Esquire and said that he'd read every one of Salinger's stories. Later, they exchanged letters. "You have a marvelous ear.... how happy it makes me to read the stories," Hemingway wrote to Salinger. Later, however, Salinger reportedly disparaged Hemingway to his friends, saying that he didn't think America had produced any good writers after Melville.
