It's impossible to declare one piece of fiction is better than the other - people have different preferences in the way each authors write. I think it is fair to try to discriminate styles of each other though.
To start, both Salinger and O'Brien's work are based on Hemingway's stories, or are at least fond of his writings. However, they have clear distinctions in style. Although all of these stories have lots of so called "undertones"*, Hemingway does it in the most plain way so to speak. He doesn't include many adjectives and rarely any adverbs, most of his sentences being short and in a way factual, describing an action that is going on. Sometimes his style may even seem redundant, boring some readers (such as me the first time I read it - also probably why I did rather poorly on the quizzes.. meh). However, Mr. Mitchell and the blogs people have posted has enlightened me, explaining to me how Hemingway implies situations and feelings from dialogues and actions (such as in "Indian Camp" where Nick's father insists on bringing him to the camp and teaching him certain terms and practices that Nick tries to brush off all too quickly), actions and depictions of women to create social commentary (such as "Cat in the Rain" and how the prime descriptors of the women is "wife" and "girl"), not to mention the different interpretations one can make from those actions (a prominent example is again in "Indian Camp", where Nick's father tells uncle George to "pull back that quilt . . . I'd rather not touch it" - this can be seen as Nick's father just not wanting to get his sterile hands dirty or just thinks that things Indians touch/use are nasty). His style of writing is like giving us a sketchy framework of a painting and having us fill it in, and one can expect that people's pictures will be different from other people's. Even so, I must admit that I still prefer other short story authors, but at least I respect him.
As for Tim O'Brien, I really don't have that much to say - my previous post should give you a sense of my amazement in his variety style that is also captivating. He makes me feel as if his "bros" on the battlefield are also my "bros", everyone having their own quirks and practices. Maybe it's because his writing is closer to our generation than Hemingway's, but it feels more relatable, even though I've never experienced war before. I get put into each character's minds even when he doens't specifically describes a scene from their point of view (in fact rarely - he usually does 3rd person, like Hemingway), and the story kinda flows well and not as choppy as Hemingway's, making you feel uneasy if you try to put down the book in the middle of a story.
However, if I want to say who has the best ability to catch my attention and have me stick to the book, that would be Salinger. His style of writing is a lot like Hemingway's in that they both use short, direct sentences, but Salinger has less of them and emphasizes dialogue a lot. Like Mr. Mitchell expressed today, the dialogue between Muriel and her mother shows their relationship and personalities, even though Salinger never directly says so. For example, the way they cut each other off mid-sentence shows how , and because we are seeing this phone call though Muriel's point of view (again, this is not totally true because we are seeing this through third person, but the fact that Muriel's actions are emphasized/we-actually-see-them puts us in her position, aka "mom quit nagging and shut up"). This one was quite evident for me, but someone (Evan or Mr. Mitchell?) pointed out that Muriel's mother's comment about the psychiatrist Muriel had for Seymour is a rather disapproving one, reminding of one the sort of "New Yorker seen-it-all" sort of attitude, and that the psychiatrist Muriel's mother found is actually reliable, as it allowed her to tell Muriel rather confidently that Seymour will break down and go crazy. His writing is really magnetic, and the dialogue kind of puts you in the situation and you're engaged in their conversation. Not only that, the ending made me reread parts of the story (something I don't do very often) to get a sense of why Seymour shot himself in the head. The ending also reflect's Hemingway's style of short, to the point sentences in the form of "He did that. And that. And that, And... etc.". We can see the mother's protectiveness in her voice, as she seems constantly provoked by the littlest things, such as a sun burn or a blue coat, while Muriel just wants her mom to stop nagging so much (see I wouldn't have used the word "nagging" if Salinger gave us a view from the mother, and instead would probably use the word "deep care" or "genuinely looking out for" or something along those lines).
Again, this is just me and my point of view, and I'm sure there are other opinions out there that I most definitely respect.
*Maybe the phrase "under-lying meanings" fits better here? I'm not quite sure.
