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Franny and Zooey

by J.D. Salinger

3.98 · Rating Details · 154,701 Ratings · 4,936 Reviews

The short story, Franny, takes place in an unnamed college town and tells the tale of an undergraduate who is becoming disenchanted with the selfishness and inauthenticity she perceives all around her.

The novella, Zooey, is named for Zooey Glass, the second-youngest member of the Glass family. As his younger sister, Franny, suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown in ...more

Paperback, 201 pages

Published January 30th 2001 by Back Bay Books (first published 1957)

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Community Reviews

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Feb 10, 2014 s.penkevich rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Everyone

Recommended to s.penkevich by: Poems between books on shelves

Shelves: favorites, family, spiritual

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

The blinking cursor that preceded this review, the place-holder of possibility before the big bang of creation, speaks volumes when taken in relation to J.D. Salinger’s exquisite Franny and Zooey. In a novel about identity, about forging who we are from a blank slate in the void of society and humanity, we are constantly called to the floor and reminded how often we impose our ego, or wishes, our desires, and become a caricature of ours ...more

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May 30, 2007 Lee rated it it was amazing

I am a huge JD Salinger fan, and I'm one of those people who's read "Catcher in the Rye" like 200 times, several times a year since I was about twelve. I buy into every cliche said about it: it changed my life, it made me want to write, it validated my own teen angst, Salinger captures teen-speak amazingly well, Holden Caulfield is vulnerable and wise, a kid-hero, etc. I have such an emotional attachment to the book that I find it hard to tolerate much criticism of it. Case in point: I recently I am a huge JD Salinger fan, and I'm one of those people who's read "Catcher in the Rye" like 200 times, several times a year since I was about twelve. I buy into every cliche said about it: it changed my life, it made me want to write, it validated my own teen angst, Salinger captures teen-speak amazingly well, Holden Caulfield is vulnerable and wise, a kid-hero, etc. I have such an emotional attachment to the book that I find it hard to tolerate much criticism of it. Case in point: I recently came across an article written by Jonathan Yardley in 2004 for the Washington Post entitled "J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly". One of the best quotes from the piece:

"Rereading 'The Catcher in the Rye' after all those years was almost literally a painful experience: The combination of Salinger's execrable prose and Caulfield's jejune narcissism produced effects comparable to mainlining castor oil."

Ouch. Double ouch because I had to look up "jejune".

This article prompted me to delve deeper into the Salinger canon, and I resurfaced holding "Franny & Zooey". Yardley may have prompted me to question my devotion, but this book cemented what I already knew: JD Salinger is a wonderful writer and his characters are the written equivalent of crack. You just can't get enough.

"Franny & Zooey" is one of several books/short stories written about the Glass family. There are seven Glass kids, all of whom were, at various points, panelists on a radio quiz show with the best name ever: "It's A Wise Child".

"Franny & Zooey" focuses on the two youngest siblings, hence the title, who are both in the midst of emotional and existential breakdowns. Franny, away at college in Boston, has read a book called "The Way of the Pilgrim, which has instilled in her an obsession with the concept of "praying without ceasing". Suddenly, everything around her is meaningless, she can't study or eat or sleep, and returns to New York to recouperate. Zooey is a sometimes-working actor, determined to help his sister.

The book touches on familiar Salinger-esque themes, including relgious devotion/fanaticism, kids vs. adults, a potentially meaningless world, etc. This book explores religion in an engaging, relatable way. Franny's qustions are universal and Zooey's answers are valid.

Authorities on the Glass Family will appreciate the insight into the unit, particularly into eldest brothers Seymour (who at that point has already committed suicide) and Buddy, who narrates the story. Zooey blames them for using himself and Franny as philosphical guinea pigs, pumping them full from the time they were toddlers with vast and varied dogma simply to see what would stick.

All of that said, I think the most important thing about this book, and all of Salinger's books, is its pure, joyful readability. "Franney & Zooey" contains passages that are absolutely HILARIOUS, specifically the extensive conversation between Zooey and his nagging mother, Bessie, that takes place in the bathroom. I was laughing out loud throughout.

He's been called the voice of several generations, but Salinger's ability to maintain belly-laugh-worthy humor while touching on such dark themes might be the most notable (and most underappreciated) thing about him. ...more

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Nov 05, 2010 Ben rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, good-fiction, read-in-2010, memorable-characters

This is great; it really is. In many ways it’s the anti Cornwell-Patterson-Grisham-King-Coben-Brown. Franny and Zooey isn’t fast paced or plot driven; it isn’t thrilling (in the traditional sense), and its concepts aren’t surfaced-based or easy to come by (or even embraced by the mainstream populace), but Salinger didn’t write for these people; he wrote for himself and if you identified with what he wrote, good for you -- if not, so be it. Even so, it’s not flourishy or fancy; there’s nothing pr This is great; it really is. In many ways it’s the anti Cornwell-Patterson-Grisham-King-Coben-Brown. Franny and Zooey isn’t fast paced or plot driven; it isn’t thrilling (in the traditional sense), and its concepts aren’t surfaced-based or easy to come by (or even embraced by the mainstream populace), but Salinger didn’t write for these people; he wrote for himself and if you identified with what he wrote, good for you -- if not, so be it. Even so, it’s not flourishy or fancy; there’s nothing pretentious about it. There is a general disdain for snobbery running through its veins.

“You raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam 'unskilled laughter' coming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's right -- God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of your business, really. That's none of your business, Franny. An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”

Franny and Zooey would be have been prescient if it were written today. Salinger’s kooky, wacky sense of humor; his accuracy with individualized thought; his passion for non-conformity and for the individual, are all unmatched, even today. In retrospect of all we know and can (now) see of his time period, Salinger's poking and mocking of (then current) society, make Franny and Zooey seem like it was written (brilliantly) today.

Maybe it's because this book has to do with an older brother and younger sister (I’m an older brother), or maybe it's because I know how much some of my friends love this novel, but I felt rushes of something like nostalgia during my reading; some kind of sentimentality or appreciation for my friends that love this. (If you think you can’t get sentimental over a Salinger novel, you’re obviously not part of the group that loves him -- you can’t be). And while I don’t love Salinger the way some of my friends do*, I sure as fuck appreciate him, and I sure as fuck had an absolute blast reading Franny and Zooey-- my new favorite Salinger novel.

*Whether he’s one of your favorite authors or not, if you’re of the breed that can indentify with Salinger's thinking -- and can maybe even see some similarities between you and some of his characters -- you feel a love for this man.
...more

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Sep 16, 2007 Jason rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: no one

If you liked Catcher in the Rye more than your average novel, then you probably have considered reading Franny and Zooey. It's one of very few books that J.D. Salinger wrote because he kind of turned into a weird old recluse. I was really excited about reading this. I expected big things. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.
Problem number one: Zooey, who is essentially the "protagonist" (or one of two main characters) is pretty much identical to the main character from Catcher in the Rye, H ...more

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Jul 12, 2013 Jason rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dead-tree-edition, reviewed, 2013

Did you know that Zooey Glass was voted People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1961?

What? No, I’m kidding. Why would you have ever believed that? Did you think the magazine even existed back in ’61? Geez.

But if it did, fictional or not, Zooey could almost certainly have been a contender. And back then he would have been eligible, too. Of course, you wouldn’t get the Zooey Glass looks without a little of the Zooey Glass attitude, and are you sure you’d want to have dealt with that? It was a littl Did you know that Zooey Glass was voted People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1961?

What? No, I’m kidding. Why would you have ever believed that? Did you think the magazine even existed back in ’61? Geez.

But if it did, fictional or not, Zooey could almost certainly have been a contender. And back then he would have been eligible, too. Of course, you wouldn’t get the Zooey Glass looks without a little of the Zooey Glass attitude, and are you sure you’d want to have dealt with that? It was a little...I don’t know...caustic? At least three levels above endearing sarcasm (and those are three levels in the wrong direction, by the way), Zooey could chew you up and spit you out without even blinking an eye. But yeah, I get it. He’s hot.

Franny’s not so bad looking herself, but she—like her delightful brother—may not have made the best dinner date companion. Franny, who seems to me an older, wiser, and less retarded version of Holden Caulfield (and I say this affectionately because I love Holden in all his beautiful retardedness), expresses a whole slew of disgust for the world around her, and for the state of the arts and of academia in particular. In fact, they both do (Franny and Zooey), to an extent that is both sad and comical at the same time.

So what is up with the Glass kids? Why are they so damaged? Zooey attributes their psychological issues (his and Franny’s) to their older brothers Seymour and Buddy, one of whom is dead, and the other being a stand-in for Salinger himself (or so I’ve read), as they practically forced their intellect onto their younger siblings at an impressionable age, critically injuring their ability to be happy later, and isolating them from a society that can’t comprehend their lofty criticisms of...well, nearly everything. I mean, don’t you think Franny and Zooey would have preferred to be as carefree as other members of society seem to be? Wouldn’t they wish to trade their brainiac existence, at least occasionally, for a some flip-flops and iced tea? Well, in the end, maybe not.

I liked this book very much. I loved the Glass family, as messed up as they are, along with its matriarch. I thought it interesting, too, how reading this was like reading a play. Aside from Buddy’s letter to Zooey, Franny and Zooey has a clear delineation of three distinct scenes in two distinct acts. The sets are simple, yet close attention is paid to their design. Actor positions are described at every turn. Maybe it’s just me...maybe I wanted this to be a play for some weird reason, but it’s also what appealed most to me about the book, I think. It is the dialogue between the actors (and it is almost always one-on-one) that elucidates their character and it is the characters that made me love this book as much as I did.

Oh, and Zooey Glass is hot. ...more

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Aug 03, 2016 Mahdi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: فیلمش-رو-دیدم, داستان-خارجی, کتب-پیشنهاد-شده

من
توى يک مهمانى، در اتاقى در بسته تمامش كردم. بعد موقع برگشت، كتاب را كردم توى شلوارم و با پاى برهنه توى خيابان خلوت ساعت سه صبح قدم زدم، و به اين فكر كردم كه من دقيقاً به دنبال چى هستم؟

فرانی
فرانی دختری است تحصیلکرده و باهوش (خصوصیت مشترک همه ی خانواده ی گلاس) که از قشر روشنفکر که خودش هم جزئی از آن است بیزار است، از خودشیفتگی ها و "ایگو"هاشان، از بدبینی های دائم و نمایشی شان به همه چیز، از غر زدن های ناتمام شان، و از همه ی خصوصیات دیگر نفرت انگیز این قشر. این نفرت از خود و اضطراب ها و اندوه های من
توى يک مهمانى، در اتاقى در بسته تمامش كردم. بعد موقع برگشت، كتاب را كردم توى شلوارم و با پاى برهنه توى خيابان خلوت ساعت سه صبح قدم زدم، و به اين فكر كردم كه من دقيقاً به دنبال چى هستم؟

فرانی
فرانی دختری است تحصیلکرده و باهوش (خصوصیت مشترک همه ی خانواده ی گلاس) که از قشر روشنفکر که خودش هم جزئی از آن است بیزار است، از خودشیفتگی ها و "ایگو"هاشان، از بدبینی های دائم و نمایشی شان به همه چیز، از غر زدن های ناتمام شان، و از همه ی خصوصیات دیگر نفرت انگیز این قشر. این نفرت از خود و اضطراب ها و اندوه های دیگر، همه دست به دست هم داده اند و او را به نوعی عرفان سوق داده اند، عرفانی که خودش هم چندان شناخت درستی از ماهیت آن ندارد، و فقط می خواهد روح ناآرام و معترضش را به وسیله ای آرام کند.

زویی
زویی، برادر فرانی، یکی از همان کسانی است که به راحتی می تواند مورد نفرت خواهرش واقع شود. روشنفکری سرشار از خودشیفتگی، بدبینی به همه چیز، طعنه و کنایه زدن و غر زدن های ناتمام. با این فرق که زویی شناختی از عرفان، این آخرین دست آویز فرانی، دارد که فرانی از آن بی خبر است. زویی خود دوره ای از این پناه بردن افراطی به ماوراء را از سر گذرانده است و در گذار سالیان، به شکل تعدیل شده ای از آن ایمان آورده است: پناه بردن به زندگی با همه ی مظاهر آن.
تمام زیبایی و اهمیت کتاب، در بیست سی صفحه ی انتهایی است، که زویی طی بحثی پر شور با فرانی، اشکالات عرفانش را به او نشان می دهد و او را به زندگی باز می گرداند. بسیاری از حرف های زویی، به قدری جای درستی را نشانه گرفته اند، که می شود مطمئن بود نویسنده خودش چنین دوره ی عرفانی را از سر گذرانده و این حاصل تفکرات طولانی خودش است که به رشته ی تحریر درآورده است.

سیمور و بادی و بوبو و والت و ویکر
سالینجر به زندگی این فرزندان غایب خانواده ی گلاس در داستان های کوتاه دیگر پرداخته است، که متأسفانه من آن ها را نخوانده ام. از آن جا که هر یک از این داستان های کوتاه تنها بخشی از سرنوشت خاندان گلاس را به نمایش می گذارند، به نظرم جا دارد که مجموع آن ها به همراه فرانی و زویی در یک کتاب چاپ شوند، به طوری که این پازل چهل تکه تصویر جامعی از این خانواده ی سرخورده ی نیویورکی ارائه دهد. ...more

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Oct 20, 2012 ·Karen· rated it liked it

Shelves: mttbr-2012

"Well you are stupid Mum, you are one of the most stupid people I know, really what were you thinking when you decided to even read this for God's sake." Lights another cigarette. "I mean to say, for God's sake, it's full of this kind of histrionic dialogue with incessant overuse of italics, and the people in it don't so much speak as hold forth as if they were on the stage somewhere for God's sake, and they just go on and on about Jesus and chakras and anahata and all this goddam mystical stuff ...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Mike Puma rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: the literarily inclined

Shelves: 2013

The blurb above, by the author, suggests that the two ‘stories’ included in this volume are, in fact, separate stories. Wikipedia, the source of all information easily obtained, and perhaps even correct and/or true, suggests the volume contains a short story and a novella. I, and others, will suggest to you that, regardless of origin and intent, this volume works very well as a novel. Nothing I’d care to fight over, argue about, or stake reputation on, just sayin.’

In the Franny section (chapter)

In the Franny section (chapter), we meet a giddy Franny Glass, through a letter announcing her excitement to be seeing soon and love for, one Lane Coutell, Lit major. Very shortly after her arrival, her enthusiasm wanes, a wariness of phonyism (a la Holden Caulfield) is voiced, and both may have something to do with a newfound interest in constant prayer.

In the Zooey section (chapter), Buddy Glass, the narrator, describes the circumstances of his writing the stories of the Glass siblings, the concerns voiced by the three Glass family members who are the main characters in his ‘prose home movie,’ and reintroduces himself through a letter to his brother Zooey, who reads the letter while soaking in the bathtub before several confrontational exchanges with Franny and their mother, Bessie, on matters of family, religion, art, performance (action), and, yes, love. Acting matters. Embodiment matters. The world’s a stage, and so is the parlor. Let there be lights, camera, action. Amazing.

“Don’t you know that? Don’t you know that goddam secret yet? And don’t you know—listen to me, now—don’t you know who that Fat Lady really is?. . . Ah, buddy. Ah buddy. It’s Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”

I read this to be familiar with title given its prominence in the beginning section of Postmodern Belief: American Literature and Religion Since 1960, by Amy Hungerford. A very interesting classroom discussion of F&Z by Hungerford, full of the spoilers I’ve omitted, may be found here. My advice with regard to the video is to read the story first, then to avoid some classroom rubric, skip to about 8.5 mins.

Go for it, esp. if you were forced to read The Catcher in the Rye in school and were left wondering what the all the Salinger fuss is about.

...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Mariel rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: and she gave away the secrets of her past

Recommended to Mariel by: and she expressed herself in many different ways

I'll tell you one thing, Franny. One thing I know. And don't get upset. It isn't anything bad. But if it's the religious life you want, you ought to know right now that you're missing out on every single goddam religious action that's going on around this house. You don't even have sense enough to drink when somebody brings you a cup of consecrated chicken soup- which is the only kind of chicken soup Bessie ever brings to anybody around this madhouse. So you just tell me, just tell me, buddy. E

I'll tell you one thing, Franny. One thing I know. And don't get upset. It isn't anything bad. But if it's the religious life you want, you ought to know right now that you're missing out on every single goddam religious action that's going on around this house. You don't even have sense enough to drink when somebody brings you a cup of consecrated chicken soup- which is the only kind of chicken soup Bessie ever brings to anybody around this madhouse. So you just tell me, just tell me, buddy. Even if you went out and searched the whole world for a master- some guru, some boly man- to tell you how to say your Jesus Prayer properly, what good would it do you? How in hell are you going to recognize a legitimate holy man when you see one if you don't even know a cup of consecrated chicken soup when it's right in front of your nose? Can you tell me that?

What Zooey says to Franny in the last part of Franny and Zooey is maybe the most wonderful thing I have read. I have been slowly rerereading F&Z all day, wanting to get to what Zooey says to Franny. Afraid, a little, to get there if I didn't have Franny's joyful smile at the ceiling. You know when someone is right and if you cannot accept that light maybe it is going to be dark forever.

But I'll tell you a terrible secret- Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know- listen to me, now- don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? ... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ himself. Christ himself, buddy.

I could read what Zooey says forever if I had to. It's hard to remember it sometimes when you get lost. My friend Kristen had to tell me something about this kind of grief once. When you know, can understand suicide and it doesn't change the gut. The loss. It's not about understanding it, or having the words. It's love, taking it away. It's not reasoned and you can know it and mourn it at the same time. She said something better than the way I'm putting it. It was a long time ago but I need to remember it now. I've been obsessed for months now with something David Grossman said about how writing is the only place where the thing and the loss of it can co-exist. I don't know how to do it, yet, at least not all the way. I have this idea that if I could figure out how to have the thing and the loss of it that things would be okay. Understanding in my head is not hard for me. I have been that person too. My cousin may die. It is her fourth attempt in two years. If you know about what Kate Gompert says in Infinite Jest then you'll know why I found it so chilling. My cousin said words so much the same, those words that aren't mine so I can't say them, and needed the electric shock treatment. It was her hope. She looked forward to it and lived with me so she could get it here. I could not want her to live like that. It doesn't stop me from feeling this pain. I am so scared. I watched her for months in 2011/2012 on my couch in a deadened existence. She slept all of the time and I hardly slept at all. I know about the no words can help thing. I didn't try to say anything and I wasn't going to leave. She did tell my grandmother that I didn't treat her as if she was crazy helped. There was no chance I was ever going to treat her like she was crazy. That was all I could do and I don't blame myself. I'm not close with her. I haven't heard a word from her in almost a year. And I turned to J.D. Salinger. (I could feel like Zooey with his reading material too. I felt inside so much that I wanted to be Zooey and not me. He knows what to do.) I can't stop thinking about the Glass family. Something about them that I have loved for so much of my life is how their past and present lives seem to go on at the same time. Like it could be Grossman's the thing and the loss of it co-existing. Seymour killed himself and he knew about the fat lady. I came to terms with this a long time ago (if I'm going to continue to survive my family and suicide I don't know what else to do but learn how to do this). When it happens and every other time are not the same time. I know it from myself and I know it from others. I also know that it doesn't do anything to take away the permanent falling in my stomach. Just missing and love and I don't feel selfish because I don't feel any kind of asking in my heart. It's not for me. I can't think past fear.

So the way that their family lives on at the same time. I'm going to try it right now. This is something I had with my cousin (and her little brother. She is eight years younger than me and he ten my junior). When they were kids I babysat them. Most of the time these afternoons turned all night because certain people never came back when they said they were going to (totally illegal, by the way). I made up all kinds of stories for them. My twin did too. We'd invent together sometimes. It was the best feeling, really, to do that. But what I loved and want to remember now is that for years afterwards, even when they were adults, they'd bring up these stories any time they saw me. They'd ask to hear them again. I wouldn't remember anything about it, either. "Remember the one when..." Best. feeling. ever. Some times things are so damned hard I don't know what I'm going to do but I can remember that still. I don't want to repeat the stories here because I couldn't ever think they were good. But it meant a lot to me that they thought they did. It's something to be remembered like that even though I come from a family that never asks or tells anything. You can find out that she was in an abusive relationship and not doing well and last you heard she was with some great guy and all was good. I know in my head there's no such thing as right words. I know in my gut that one time those kids had the right words for me. It can happen. And yeah, the Seymour's fat lady. I know everyone who loves Franny & Zooey loves that. Franny falls apart and says the Lord's prayer. If you say whomever your lords name is over and over something is bound to happen. You are bound to be heard sooner or later if you just keep saying it. Something will happen. A miracle? What if you just remember them and then the name is the miracle. You can feel divorced from the world and not trust that anyone else is Seymour's Fat Lady. I really love Salinger. I got the same feeling when I reread Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenter & Seymour that the world was people who could be your family. And if everyone is Jesus that is something. I don't want to start thinking that there's right words you could say to fix it. But when Zooey does it... It happened. I don't care if I'm in the land of oversharing for some people, either. Because I truly believe that people are Seymour's Fat Lady. Sure, words aren't going to fix it and knowing and the heart aren't going to fix each other. So, have them at the same time. Next time I could be Franny again and there's the chance again to listen to Zooey. Just an amazing book.

P.s. I changed my rating to a five from a four because you love what you love when it isn't perfect. I felt suffocated by Bessie and I wasn't in love until Zooey talks but I NEEDED it. Right words, right? ...more

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Dec 08, 2010 David rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone on the planet

Shelves: top-20

I swore to myself that I would write a review of this book before the end of 2010, so here goes. I should issue a warning - I'm totally stoked up on hot Jameson toddies due to this nasty cold that took over my body on Monday (recipe: ample whiskey, cloves, lemons and suagar, all of which you mash together - and this is important - BEFORE you add the hot water; then guzzle as the situation demands). But then, it was unlikely that I would ever be able to review this - one of my top 3 books of all I swore to myself that I would write a review of this book before the end of 2010, so here goes. I should issue a warning - I'm totally stoked up on hot Jameson toddies due to this nasty cold that took over my body on Monday (recipe: ample whiskey, cloves, lemons and suagar, all of which you mash together - and this is important - BEFORE you add the hot water; then guzzle as the situation demands). But then, it was unlikely that I would ever be able to review this - one of my top 3 books of all time - stone cold sober. And for those who wonder what kind of difference there might be between reviews on goodreads and those posted on other sites, rest assured - this is the kind of review I am self-aware enough never to post anywhere else. But self-indulgent enough, and trusting enough, to risk here on goodreads.

I think the main reason I love this book so much is that, no matter how many times I read it, every time I do it feels as if Salinger is speaking directly to me. When I first came across it (from reading "Catcher in the Rye", of course) it felt as if I had been stumbling through this enormous library all my life when suddenly I came across this secret text that had been written just for me, and only for me. Now, I'm not an idiot, so of course one part of me knows that this isn't so - there are no "magic texts", nobody is out there writing just for me. But though, on the surface I am this consummate rationalist (I have a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics, for Chrissakes), thank God I am at some level smart enough to appreciate the magic in finding a text that seems to speak to me so forcefully.

"I'm not an idiot". No. In fact I'm super-smart (not arrogance, just a statement of fact). And often, before reading this book, this felt like more of a curse than a blessing. But it was Salinger's story of the hyper-smart Glass children that first offered me a viable way to come to terms with my own gifts. At one level, there's the advice that her siblings attempt to pass on to Franny, who has reached a kind of spiritual crisis triggered by a realisation of her own giftedness. There's the love, concern and humanity with which they try to help her through that crisis, to help her to make the realisation that her talent doesn't have to be something that separates her from the great majority of people. That there is a sacred responsibility to develop and follow one's talents.

And any hint of elitism, or intellectual snobbery, or some of the other charges that are sometimes thrown against Salinger are rendered so obviously meaningless and beyond the point in the last few pages of this extraordinary love story:

Zooey: "I was furious. The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and I just damned well wasn't going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour. I said they couldn't see them anyway where we sat. He said to shine them anyway. He said to shine them for the Fat Lady. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his face, and so I did it. He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every time I ever went on the air again ..."

Franny was standing. "He told me too", she said into the phone. "He told me to be funny for the Fat Lady, once"

Zooey: "I don't care where an actor acts. ... But I'll tell you a terrible secret... There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. ..... There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. ... I can't talk any more, buddy."

And I can't write any more right now. ...more

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Dec 09, 2015 Carmen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Carmen by: Mother

Shelves: fiction, classics, traditionally-published

Lane was speaking now as someone does who has been monopolizing conversation for a good quarter of an hour or so and who believes he has just hit a stride where his voice can do absolutely no wrong.

Oh-kay. Let's break this down.

Salinger is a brilliant writer. And the first part of this two-part book is absolute perfection.

The section called "Franny" is amazing. It's about 20 percent of the book. It's a wonderful and to-the-point story about a college "girl" who becomes increasingly fed up with t ...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Seth T. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bookclub

I am the luckiest person in the world. The last few months have led me through an unbroken string of good books. I have had so much fun reading that I'm just in love with books right now.

And isn't that the way it should be?

In any case, Salinger's Franny and Zooey is the most recent in what I hope will be a continuing tradition of engaging, well-written stories. I have to admit I approached the work with some skepticism, having been wholly uninterested in Catcher in the Rye when it was forced up ...more

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Nov 09, 2014 Barry Pierce rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2014

Ugh I love Salinger. It's a crime that he left behind just a handful of work. This collection contains a short story (Franny) and a novella (Zooey). Both deal with typical Salingerian problems (death, grief, "what is the true meaning of life" and whatnot) and he handles them really well. His writing is nothing short of superb and flawless. I do feel that Zooey went on for a bit too long however. Spending that much time with Salinger's characters can be a bit trying (hence the universal hate of H ...more

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Aug 06, 2009 Megha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

Yesterday was the day of Rakshabandhan, an Indian festival celebrating the relationship between brothers and sisters, and I spent this day a few thousand miles away from my siblings. Last night I spent 2 hours at the dinner table talking to my roommate about those years when I used to celebrate Rakshabandhan at home with my sister and brother, about the years when we were growing up together. After yesterday's somewhat long dinner, I picked up Franny and Zooey from the page where I had left it t ...more

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Mar 26, 2015 Francisco rated it it was amazing

I think I lost count of the number of times I've read this little book. The first time more than forty years and then periodically every few years. I'm sixty-two-years-old today and I just realized that there will come a time when all I will want to do is re-read the books that have impacted me in some way or another. There's not much time, you know. This is a religious book written at a time much like our own when writing a book with religious themes was a risky endeavor. The author risked bein I think I lost count of the number of times I've read this little book. The first time more than forty years and then periodically every few years. I'm sixty-two-years-old today and I just realized that there will come a time when all I will want to do is re-read the books that have impacted me in some way or another. There's not much time, you know. This is a religious book written at a time much like our own when writing a book with religious themes was a risky endeavor. The author risked being branded as didactic - someone more interested in conveying a message than in entertaining you. Risky business made even riskier by the fact that nothing happens here. Where's the suspense in the story of a young girl repeating the Jesus prayer as if her life depended on it? I tell myself that I come back to the book for the writing. The way Salinger mixes humor with quotes from the Bhagavad Gita, the unbelievable description of the contents of a medicine cabinet, the seamless way the author takes you inside one character's mind in one line and to another's mind in the next. Wait. How did he just do that? But as it always happens, I soon stop noticing the literary magic and find myself feeling what the characters are feeling and believing they are as real as real. And real too is their longing that there has to be more to life than the hungers of our ego. That longing for a way to live that is not phony (to use one of Salinger's favorite words) is a universal longing that cuts across all major religions, all moral reflection. It's not so much that the book has a message as that it puts us in a place where we are more likely to remember a message we've forgotten. The older I get the more I understand that a book can be a vehicle for grace. The grace, the gift a book bestows, need not be considered as having a divine origin for you to be open to it. All that is needed is a listening quality, an awareness that the book is reminding you, bringing back to life, something in you that needs to be awakened. ...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Chiara Pagliochini rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: letteratura-angloamericana

« Accidenti, » disse, « ce ne sono di cose belle al mondo. E quando dico belle intendo belle. Siamo degli idioti a svicolare sempre dalle cose. Sempre, sempre, sempre lì ad annotare tutti gli accidenti che capitano al nostro piccolo e schifoso io ».

Capitano, talvolta, degli incidenti straordinari. Tu sei lì con la guardia abbassata, a carezzare il tuo piccolo e schifoso io, e d’un tratto le parole giuste ti cascano tra capo e collo come una secchiata d’acqua fredda (o meglio, come un confortant « Accidenti, » disse, « ce ne sono di cose belle al mondo. E quando dico belle intendo belle. Siamo degli idioti a svicolare sempre dalle cose. Sempre, sempre, sempre lì ad annotare tutti gli accidenti che capitano al nostro piccolo e schifoso io ».

Capitano, talvolta, degli incidenti straordinari. Tu sei lì con la guardia abbassata, a carezzare il tuo piccolo e schifoso io, e d’un tratto le parole giuste ti cascano tra capo e collo come una secchiata d’acqua fredda (o meglio, come un confortante tè caldo quando sei raffreddata). La risposta che cercavi da settimane… ti basta allungare la mano per prenderla. E tutto avviene con una tale disinvoltura, una tale generosità da questo disinteressato signor Salinger che non puoi fare a meno di rivolgergli un sorriso dolcissimo, tra le lacrime che già t’ha fatto scendere.
Ho raccolto questo libro con me durante un viaggio in autobus. La copertina, sul retro, non svela nulla della trama. L’ho scelto dalla pila dei non-letti unicamente perché sembrava abbastanza leggero da tenere in borsa. Eppure, per qualche buffa coincidenza, non avrei potuto leggere questo breve romanzo in un momento migliore.

Non avrei potuto leggerlo in un momento migliore perché anch’io, come la Franny che si affaccia nel titolo, sto attraversando « un esaurimento nervoso di quart’ordine », per dirla con le parole del fratello Zooey. Non mi sono messa in testa di aggiustare il mio mondo biascicando ininterrottamente una preghiera a Dio, ma ho appuntato in un quaderno il proposito (altrettanto insano) di fare più torte e più passeggiate. Anch’io, come Franny, « sono stufa di tutti questi ego, ego, ego. Del mio e di quello di tutti gli altri. Sono stufa della gente che vuol “arrivare” da qualche parte, fare qualcosa di notevole eccetera, essere un tipo interessante. É disgustoso, disgustoso e basta. Me ne infischio di quello che dicono. [...] Sono stufa di non avere il coraggio di essere nessuno e basta. Sono stufa di me e di tutti quelli che vogliono fare colpo, in un modo o nell’altro ». Sono preda, cioè, di una cieca, distruttiva misantropia, che non risparmia me stessa né gli altri e che sento destinata a portarmi rannicchiata in posizione fetale sul divano, con mamma che mi spinge sotto il naso una tazza di brodo di pollo e un gatto grasso avvolto nel plaid.
Essere Franny non è piacevole per Franny né per coloro che la circondano: è avvolgersi in una cappa di ritrosia e inerzia, volersi del male e voler male agli altri perché non ci si ama più. Avere paura di amarsi, soprattutto, paura che stimarsi il giusto sia di per sé un atto di narcisismo, che dare una valutazione, per quanto oggettiva, delle proprie capacità sia necessariamente una dimostrazione di superbia intellettuale. Conseguentemente, disistimarsi e, quello che riesce di meno, simulare una umiltà che caratterialmente non si possiede, per poi esplodere, di tanto in tanto, in commenti di una sentenziosità caustica e faziosa.
C’è in Franny qualcosa dell’Holden, ma c’è soprattutto Franny, un personaggio a tutto tondo, così vivo che quasi pare di poterci uscire per un caffè. E la vitalità, l’assoluta realisticità sono quello che di più colpisce nella creazione cesellata di qualsiasi personaggio: da Lane, ragazzo di Franny (che, nella sua spocchia da studente di college, fa quasi tenerezza) alla signora Glass, madre di Franny, Zooey e degli altri fratelli Glass, vestaglia e sigaretta, dispensatrice di brodi, pragmatica e vigile.
Parole a parte merita la straordinaria figura di Zooey, che emerge dalla pagina con tutta una gestualità e un modo di parlare, un affabulatore così affascinante, un provocatore così sofisticato, che davvero balza su dalle righe per dialogare col lettore.

I fratelli Glass sono accomunati da una straordinaria intelligenza e, quel che più conta, da una certa voracità di conoscenza. Tutti e sette, dal 1927 al 1943, hanno preso parte a un programma radiofonico intitolato “Bambino eccezionale”, da cui (è legittimo dirlo) non si sono mai più ripresi. Sono cresciuti cercando di meritare sempre il titolo di “bambini eccezionali”, di essere all’altezza del proprio passato di piccoli geni e di quello dei fratelli. Puntellano, nonostante gli anni e i colpi del sistema, una certa idea di sé che hanno costruito nella prima infanzia, un’idea di superiorità intellettuale ma anche di anormalità. È Zooey stesso a definire lui e Franny degli “anormali”. Illuminanti, a tal proposito, le parole della signora Glass: « Non capisco proprio a cosa serva sapere tante cose ed essere tanto intelligenti e così via, se non riuscite a essere felici ». Una frase con cui ciascuna madre – specialmente la mia – potrebbe uscirsene da un momento all’altro.

Il cuore del romanzo è una conversazione tra Franny e Zooey, sollecitato dalla madre a “fare un discorsetto” alla sorella minore. Niente di straordinario, nessuna evoluzione pirotecnica nella trama. Con grande spontaneità Salinger ci invita a prender parte a un esercizio per cambiare il nostro angolo prospettico, le nostre lenti di osservazione del mondo. Vogliamo guardarlo con la lente del nostro ego affaticato, acuto e schifato dalla realtà? Vogliamo schifarci di tutto e di tutto spogliarci? O vogliamo, al contrario, pensare che in ognuno di quelli che schifiamo e da cui vogliamo allontanarci c’è magari un piccolo ego costretto in spoglie che non gli appartengono, un ego piangente e solo? Vogliamo essere autoreferenziali, pensare di poter cavarcela da soli, o vogliamo, per il bene nostro e degli altri, esercitare (verso noi stessi e verso gli altri) la funzione straordinaria della generosità?
Ecco, nelle parole gentili, ironiche, provocatorie che Zooey rivolge a Franny io ci ho visto tutta la lunga ed elaborata risposta che cercavo da giorni. Risposta che né amici né parenti erano riusciti a fornirmi in modo così spiritoso, esaustivo e ben scritto.

Ben scritto, occorre sottolinearlo, perché questo breve romanzo è anche un gioiellino di bella scrittura, scrittura intelligente e raffinata, vivace ed eclettica, dotata di una grandiosa lucidità di analisi e di un piglio dinamicissimo nelle descrizioni. Un Salinger che non mi ha fatto in alcun modo rimpiangere “Il giovane Holden” e di cui ho deciso, da ora in avanti, di divorare metodicamente la produzione.
Magari si potesse avere un piccolo Zooey così saggio, formato statuina, da mettere sul comodino quando si sta male. Nel caso ne trovaste uno, sapete cosa regalarmi per il compleanno. ...more

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Dec 09, 2015 Gypsy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: دوسشون-دارم, پیشنهاد-دوستان-عزیزم, مخاطب-خاص-دار, فراستاره-ها

خدایا.. واقعاً بهچنین چیزی نیاز داشتم.. چن وخته بهاینچیزا فک میکنم؟ چن وخته دغدغههام رنگ و بوی اینکتابو گرفته؟ ایناوّلین داستانی بود که از سلینجر خوندم و باید بگم خیلی، خیلی، خیلی ازش خوشم اومد. اگه همهی کتاباش همینطوریـن، محشره. با داستاناش آدمو درمان میکنه.

نکتهی حیرتانگیز داستان، اینهکه نود درصدش دیالوگه و من شخصاً اصلاً خسته نشدم با دیالوگا. اونقد طبیعی و واقعی بودن و خب روح ِ منم بهشون نیاز داش.. و چقد نویسنده صادق و روراس نوشتهشون.. شخصیّتپردازی ِ بینظیر تکتک ِ شخصیّتها ستودنیه. فرنی رو با
خدایا.. واقعاً به‌چنین چیزی نیاز داشتم.. چن وخته به‌این‌چیزا فک می‌کنم؟ چن وخته دغدغه‌هام رنگ و بوی این‌کتابو گرفته؟ این‌اوّلین داستانی بود که از سلینجر خوندم و باید بگم خیلی، خیلی، خیلی ازش خوشم اومد. اگه همه‌ی کتاباش همین‌طوری‌ـن، محشره. با داستاناش آدمو درمان می‌کنه.

نکته‌ی حیرت‌انگیز داستان، اینه‌که نود درصدش دیالوگه و من شخصاً اصلاً خسته نشدم با دیالوگا. اون‌قد طبیعی و واقعی بودن و خب روح ِ منم بهشون نیاز داش.. و چقد نویسنده صادق و روراس نوشته‌شون.. شخصیّت‌پردازی ِ بی‌نظیر تک‌تک ِ شخصیّت‌ها ستودنیه. فرنی رو با تمام وجود، درک می‌کردم. در عین این‌که سرزنشش می‌کردم. روح سیمور در بند بند داستان مث یه‌قدیس حضور داش و زویی، زویی.. چقد این‌شخصیّت نازنین، نابغه، سادیسمی، دلسوز، مهربون، دیوونه و اعصاب‌خرد کن بود. ازون‌دس آدمایی که از فرط ِ هوش و نبوغ، روانی شدن! :دی شخصیّتی که هم خعلی دوسش دارم و هم مث فرنی، دلم می‌خواد بکشمش. :دی

و خب، با همه‌ی این‌تعریفا، اصلاً داستانی نیس که هر کسی بخونه و بفهمه. نه این‌که خدایی نکرده بخوام شعور کسی رو بیارم پایین، مسئله اینه‌که چقد می‌تونی درون داستان فرو بری. چقد لمسش می‌کنی و تجربه‌هاشو مزّه‌مزّه کنی. هوش، درک، احساس، هر اسمی که می‌شه روش گذاش. به‌هر حال، مخاطبش خاصّه. و مسئله‌ی بزرگشم همون‌بحران‌های معرفتی- عقیدتی ِ بنیادی غرب هس که به‌عرفان‌های شرقی پناه می‌آرن و ازین بحث‌های جامعه‌شناسانه‌ای که شخصاً شیفته‌شونم. احتمالاً واسه همینه که کتاب علوم‌اجتماعی چارممونو نیگه داشتم.

+ فقط چرا این‌قد سیگار می‌کشیدن؟ ینی سیگاره تموم نشده، یکی دیگه روشن می‌کردن! ازون مامانشون بگیر تا زویی و فرنی با اون‌همه ناز و اداش. :دی ...more

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Mar 31, 2016 David Schaafsma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-books-ever, fiction-20th-century, postwar-fiction-class, books-loved-2014

So, this semester I am teaching a course on postwar American novels. If you want to take a look at my syllabus, ask. But I am basically a high school English teacher who became an English educator, and only relatively recently have been asked to teach “straight” lit courses at my university as I usually have taught methods (of teaching) classes (though also YA and Graphic Novels) in the past quarter century. I just turned 61, and have not read many of these novels for this course for literally d So, this semester I am teaching a course on postwar American novels. If you want to take a look at my syllabus, ask. But I am basically a high school English teacher who became an English educator, and only relatively recently have been asked to teach “straight” lit courses at my university as I usually have taught methods (of teaching) classes (though also YA and Graphic Novels) in the past quarter century. I just turned 61, and have not read many of these novels for this course for literally decades, many of them since I was in my early twenties, when they were truly identity-forming for me as reader, teacher (less so this because I have almost taught none of them in all my nearly forty years of teaching), and person, for sure. I see them now as Great Books, but not quite in the classical canon sense, I have thought, because when I think of the Canon I think of Shakespeare and Milton and not Kerouac and Heller. For me this period is Beats (fifties, drugs and he self) and Hippies (sixties and early seventies, drugs and social causes) and Beyond (some postmodern stuff, less chemical and more fictional experimentation), basically.

When I first began choosing the books for this course I went to Goodreads lists and picked out maybe 75 American novels I thought were “important” for one reason or the other in the years 1945-1980. I knew we could only read 12-14 of them, and I knew some of them might be pretty long, so I starred ones on my list that I really wanted to re-read, books I had loved, and came up with maybe 18-20. My thinking at this point was that the course would be kind of about ME, a kind of Re-reading my Self course, reading as autobiography, as in: What do I recall these books meant to me then, how did I understand them, and how do I read them differently now? Who do I think I was then, who do I think I am now, and how did/do these books figure in the process? Shoshana Felman wrote a book called What Does a Woman Want?: Reading and Sexual Difference? which among other things makes the point that with some books, they are essentially autobiographical, that we read ourselves in and through them so much that we see them as telling our own stories. In her book she illustrates this by telling stories about some of her favorite books. I like that. Reading a book through your life, in part, with some books, at least. And for the process I even have some old copies of texts with underlined passages and margin commentary from the old days! Cool, right?

Most college courses are probably usually like that in some ways, that they are all about the teacher’s project or research or obsessions, so it wouldn’t be weird for students to experience a class like that (though most college English classes have nothing to do with reader response or subjective readings of texts, they are all about close readings or some postmodern theoretical frame for the reading), but I have not usually done things this way, thinking it as kind of narcissistic, so I caved and invited the registered students to help me choose the books. About half of the students enthusiastically participated; I went with the enthusiastic choices of certain books even if they were not on my primo list, though I did keep a couple from my own original list. I also ended up with a couple on the final list I had never read, which is cool. Oh, the list? Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, Nabokov’s Lolita, Kerouac’s On the Road, Plath’s The Bell Jar, Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Heller’s Catch 22, Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, Capote’s In Cold Blood, and Mailer’s Executioner’s Song. Lots of white men, you say? Guilty as charged, but then a lot of male and female students helped me! What follows is the first book we read in this course.

Postwar Novel Story #1: Franny and Zooey is usually the book you read after you join the 60? 90? million people who have read Catcher in the Rye. If you hate Holden, this will end your Salinger journey, but for those of us who felt/feel he speaks for us in naming all the phoniness in the world, we next read the somewhat kinder, gentler Franny and Zooey, and especially fall in love with Franny, the female Holden, a fragile, driven-to-nervous-breakdown early twenties kid, more like Holden than Zooey, Franny's somewhat harsher but also more insightful older brother. In fact (and this is a Salingerism to say things like “in fact” and interjections like this) you see Holden in all the Glass family (centrally suicidal Seymour; Buddy, the writer/recluse who retreats to the New Hampshire woods and is a stand-in for Salinger himself ; 20 something drop-out, “nervous breakdown” actress Franny and commercially successful but self-and other-loathing 25 year old Zooey).

No plot summary will I write, but the two separate but related stories that comprise this collection are the separately published (in The New Yorker, 1955) “Franny” which is about a meeting with her current hilariously phony boyfriend Lane in the City, focusing on Franny in spiritual/psychological crisis, and “Zooey,” published two years later, (also in The New Yorker) focusing on the family’s attempts at intervention into Franny’s crisis, while also addressing Zooey’s very related crisis. Both are kinda early twenties stuck, wondering how to live their lives with Purpose and Meaning, as I was then. There’s very little plot to tell even if were to try, actually; most of both stories are a series of extended dialogues, broken up mainly by a lot of chain smoking, but the dialogues are amazing, sometimes exasperating in that the Glass family is pretty messed up, and self-absorbed, but also sometimes quite moving in that their struggles are spiritual, in response to a messed-up world, where the Glass kids find they are lost and struggling to find themselves in what Salinger and they saw as “pure” versions of spiritual truth such as Buddhist and Hindu notions of self-lessness (ideas Salinger was steeped in since the late forties until he died), which Franny finds imbedded in two books on “Christ-consciousness”, books about a pilgrim learning “the Jesus Prayer” (“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”),which are also books about what it means to pray without ceasing, to become prayer/Christ/Buddha/Dharma/Satori, etc. Basically the concern is how to live a life of integrity, if not quite ethical commitment. Though it’s still more about self (and the goal of artistic perfection Salinger wanted for himself, free of Fame and Media and Buzz, etc) than ethical commitment, though, really. It’s what you should do for yourself. Individualism, one siren song of the fifties after all that patriotism and the war. But also spirituality, after a horrific world war. Back to life as usual? Salinger hopes not.

When I first read this book I had “borrowed” (and still have) it from the bedroom Marthena Bosch had vacated in what became my sister Shirley’s house in Holland, MI. Marthena was maybe fifteen years older than me, and had broken from the Dutch Reformed faith I was basically also raised in. She had books on her shelf like an edited collection of The Beats, On the Road, all of Salinger, Hesse, and books on Zen Buddhism. I consumed these books in the late sixties, in my late teens, and probably read Franny after Catcher in my junior or senior year in high school. What political and spiritual turmoil the late sixties were for me, starting with books about race (from the sixties race riots, Black Like Me, Nigger by Dick Gregory, Dr King’s works); the women’s movement (I actually read Marthena’s copy of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvior at 16 to find out something about feminism, all this bra-burning and female anger I was startled to see, and this type of person--a girl--that aside from my sisters and mom I had absolutely no experience with); the Vietnam War (I drove to Ann Arbor to encounter the SDS, Weatherman, Black Power, Marx, Mao, ant-war protests, and read books on all these topics), and great psychedelic and angry and ecstatic music. I had been raised to attend this very conservative Calvinist church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, going to church twice every Sunday, went to a Christian high school and Calvin College and even started out teaching in Christian high schools, but all my teens and twenties were more about spiritual struggle, about doubt, than pure faith, and ultimately I sought how to live a spiritual and ethical life without the shackles of Calvinist religion. Or any religion, having left the church finally at 28, though at 18 I was pretty God-haunted, wanting to live as Christ, which for me was something like what I learned from Franny and Zooey, to live without ego, to live for others, and Franny’s cry against ego, ego, ego was a struggle for me because I liked acting and writing stories and getting published and had set a goal to have a book of fiction published in my twenties, and Zooey’s commitment to living a life focused on perfecting a devotion to art (for him and Franny, acting, for Buddy and me, writing) made sense for me. I struggled with the inherently self-ish nature of art/writing (writing fiction was really all about me) versus the Dr. King-commitment to changing the world (through teaching), and I still write and teach and try to balance these things. Is it okay to write a poem about myself or would it be better to write a story about students in an urban classroom? Are both okay?

I was struck in this present reading of the book that Salinger has two basic “ghosts” in the “machine” of his art; one is the war, since he served in WW II and was part of the liberation of concentration camps and fought at D Day and other significant battles. His turn to Zen and Hinduism is a turn away from the enlightenment Reason that led to the Holocaust and Hiroshima, that Drive to Certainty that led/leads to Corporate America and the Military-Industrial Complex. So much Darkness. So he writes of Buddy’s retreat from consumerism and mass media that became his own retreat, and Franny and Zooey help us see self-lessness as a remedy for the madness of the world. A second ghost in Salinger’s work is Innocence, Beauty, something the War ended for the world in many ways, and very specifically ended for him when the girl he had loved at 20, 16 year old Oona O’Neill, left him for Charlie Chaplin when he was abroad fighting the War. Salinger is severely criticized by some for his lifelong interest in younger women, but the way I see it work out in his fiction is that young children, and maybe particularly girls, okay, come to symbolize innocence for him, beauty, things that got destroyed by the war and the adult world, generally, so in this book you see Buddy, Seymour, Zooey, all notice young girls and sort of hold them up with some frail hope as what we must in some sense hold on to (innocence, I mean): (“We got to get ourselves back to the Garden,” Joni Mitchell says). Holden wants to play catcher in the rye to save children from growing up and going crazy from phoniness and materialism and selfishness and Franny is just entering adulthood and is seeing the emptiness of much of the (post war) self-absorbed world and so is Zooey who has had five years of “success” in it. It’s hard to have integrity in this world, they seem to say, and I feel the same way as I did then about this: I agree with them.

When I first read this book I think part of my attraction to it was class envy, too. I was a working class kid whose Dad worked himself to the bone every day, long days, all his life, and I wanted a more contemplative, artistic live with plenty of time for reflection. Franny and Zooey were messed up in certain ways, sure, but they seemed to have enough leisure to spend time talking about Big Ideas and Purpose and the Meaning of Life, and because they were educated, and in the upper middle class, they had time for that. My parents and siblings were high school graduates and weren’t into reading or the arts (except sis Nancy, an artist) or serving the world like social workers or teachers did, and like I was considering doing. I knew I needed college to help me carve out a scholarly/artistic life. When I read Franny now I can see that class envy I had. I wanted that life of privilege, though I wanted some kind of authentic spiritual life, too. I was still In the Church and hoping to find a way to Be Me in it. I left that Church, finally.

Now as I read Franny and Zooey again I feel a little nostalgic for the explicit struggles with faith and religion that I had then. Franny’s struggle makes me long for that, moves me, makes me realize my life is missing something. Maybe, I think, I need a little of that praying-without-ceasing stuff that my friend Tony is experiencing in his Grand Rapids urban ministry. Zooey inspires me to live that better spiritual life, anyway. While I did not choose it, Salinger’s retreat from NYC makes perfect sense to me now. The struggle for Salinger and Buddy and Zooey was to live life without arrogance (okay, Zooey’s a little blunt and even a little mean to Bessie, and Franny, even when he is right), without being judgmental, which I find pretty difficult to do in this Tea Party world.

What do I learn or relearn about teaching and learning from it? I relearn there’s a big difference between knowledge and wisdom, and that schools generally teach the former without the latter, which is what gets us in so much Trouble. I relearn that sometimes the Eastern “no knowledge” or unknowing would be better for us than the certainty that leads to arrogance. That being good and doing good teaching and writing and art without ego if at all possible is better than any honor or award or accomplishment or even paycheck. There’s a Dr. Tupper that teaches Franny who is actually a fraud, a fake, a pretentious academic phony. Having read of him, how can I not resist being like him as I teach this class? I loved this book then and love it even more now as I think I understand it better. It’s a kind of preaching/teaching book with a moral to it, but it’s one I like.

And what gorgeous writing there is in this book, with terrific dialogue, especially, completely convincing and real to me. The Glass family is a kind of prototype for the Royal Tenenbaum family, too, in many ways, all these precocious, f’ed up rich kids never really quite adjusting to the world. Dealing with the madness of the world in ways that bring them close to madness. My reading and teaching have come full circle back to issues of self (in good ways) they hadn’t really seen in any focused way for decades. I’m glad for the trip back and forward now through the reading. Oh, and I just saw the recent Salinger biography after I read it which I thought was terrible on the whole but still sometimes interesting. ...more

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Jan 31, 2010 Ellen rated it liked it

Shelves: novels, young-adult

Edited to include visual: "Disaffected Young Adult," which is a picture of MFSO, used with his permission, with the following explanation (in his words): "I refer to it [the picture:] as 'Too Much Fun' and that it's from the end of my first year in college in the summer of 2004 while in the midst of three days with no sleep or food and a lot of chemicals."

* * *

As a former Salinger aficionado, I wanted to look back and consider how I felt about Salinger now.

In Salinger’s two-part novel, Franny an ...more

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Jan 11, 2016 ~Geektastic~ rated it liked it

Shelves: owned, 20th-century-classics, dysfunctional, reviewed, 2012

I just don’t know how I feel about Franny and Zooey. I really don’t. I read it a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t write anything about it, as I couldn’t decide if I loved it, just liked it or absolutely hated it. I can rule out hating it I suppose, as I finished it and I never finish books that I truly despise. And I don’t think I loved it. I’m pretty sure I didn’t. My overall reaction, by process of elimination, is a general ambivalence. Part of my issue here is the damn star rating. Two makes I just don’t know how I feel about Franny and Zooey. I really don’t. I read it a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t write anything about it, as I couldn’t decide if I loved it, just liked it or absolutely hated it. I can rule out hating it I suppose, as I finished it and I never finish books that I truly despise. And I don’t think I loved it. I’m pretty sure I didn’t. My overall reaction, by process of elimination, is a general ambivalence. Part of my issue here is the damn star rating. Two makes it seem like it wasn’t worth the time, and being so short it would have to have been really terrible to not warrant a couple of hours of my day. Three makes it seem like I like it and would recommend it, and I’m not sure that’s the way I want to go either. I’m going to go ahead and try to write this review, and hopefully by doing so I’ll come up with a genuine opinion by the time I am finished.

I generally like to start these things off with a synopsis; it helps me put things in perspective and highlights the most notable aspects of the story. But even here I’m stumped, as there isn’t much plot to work with. F&Z consists of two separate but linked short stories that were originally published a couple of years apart. The eponymous characters are brother and sister, the youngest siblings in a privileged and eccentric New York family, who both appear to be suffering from an overload of existential angst and the pressures of being “gifted.”

We first meet Franny Glass on a lunch date with her college beau, an unremarkable 1950’s college intellectual stereotype. It gradually becomes evident that she is experiencing some sort of mental crisis. Nearly the entire episode is a conversation by which we receive hints that Franny’s behavior is being influenced by an odd religious book she has been carrying around with her. Over the course of the meal, definite shades of Holden Caufield emerge in Franny’s disdain for academia, only rather than railing against the wholesale phoniness of adults, she attacks the pretension and self-involvement of the academic world (not that the two concepts are all that different). I’ll just say, I find Franny’s rejection of self-involvement to be a little ironic, as it’s her own existential crisis and subsequent self-obsession that seems to be prompting her dissatisfaction in the first place. Franny’s tale is the shorter of the two, and it leaves off without any real resolution to the questions it has provoked.

Zooey Glass is a conflicted, self-absorbed “genius” actor who is still trying to live up to the promise of his precocious childhood while coping with the family skeletons that are collecting dust in the corners of the nostalgia-riddled Glass home. Unlike “Franny,” which doesn’t stand alone well, “Zooey” is a tiny universe of its own; in less than 100 pages, we learn all of the significant history of the family. The story opens with Zooey reading a letter from his older brother; a long, rambling correspondence that contains an oblique history of the Glass family in its slowly crumbling pages. Here I have to give Salinger credit for stuffing so much exposition into a letter and managing to make it one of the most engaging parts of the story. The fact that Buddy Glass wrote such a long letter in the 1950’s, when written correspondence was on its way out of vogue, says something about the eccentric nature of the Glass family. Also, the secrets revealed so early in the story are an expert set-up for the deluge of self-analysis to follow. Another high point: Mrs. Glass, the classic downtrodden Catholic matriarch of a strange and conflicted family. She worries, she smokes, she complains and she intrudes, but she also clearly loves her ungrateful, troubled brood.

We spend a while with Zooey as he reads his brother’s letter in the bath (he’s vain, that Zooey) and interacts, rather unpleasantly, with his mother. After we get to know him, and in my case dislike him more than a little, we discover that Franny’s story will continue within Zooey’s, because they are essentially dealing with the same thing and our time with Zooey and his letter has shown us what is most likely driving Franny’s apparent mania. Both are trying to move forward after a bizarre childhood education and brief notoriety as “gifted” children, all the while surrounded by the artifacts of that time and the knowledge that one of their siblings couldn’t shake these things and move on the way they so desperately want (and need) to. There is a quiet and not-so-quiet desperation in The Conversation that Zooey instigates with his sister. And instigation is an important distinction here; Zooey loves to hear himself talk, and he also loves to provoke. The Conversation generally consists of Zooey obnoxiously, but not entirely ineffectually, prodding Fanny’s mind like a tongue worries a sore tooth.

The Conversation is the bulk of the “story.” It boils down to a strange juxtaposition of self-involved privilege and genuinely problematic psychological issues. Are they just poor little rich kids? Sometimes it seems so, but there is undoubtedly a darkness to the exchange that keeps it from sinking completely under the combined weight of Zooey’s narcissism and Franny’s naivete. There are revelations embedded in their talk, muted but somewhat startling insights into the nature of the Glass family history and its legacy for the youngest generation. Psychoanalysis was the fad of the day, and there are definite shades of self-diagnosis and justification going on, particularly in Zooey. Franny is flailing and searching, demanding some kind of solid truth from the world and retreating from it at the same time, while her brother turns the search inward and tries to rouse Franny to do the same.

There is no real progress or resolution. It rambles, we listen. I found much of it interesting, but it was difficult to divorce my interest in what was being discussed with how little I liked Franny or Zooey. They did, in the end, seem like privileged kids with barely relatable problems. But at the same time, I found myself undeniably fascinated with the Glass family as an entity. The past hangs heavily over the family, and the youngest children haven’t figured out how to carry the weight. The fact that Zooey is prompting, or rather, forcing Fanny to think about it all is at least one step in the right direction for their mental survival, but I don’t know if I really bought the “ah ha” moment at the end. Franny’s bizarre obsession seems alien, a construct to initiate The Conversation rather than a genuine attempt to relieve some sort of hazy dissatisfaction with the world. I suppose it is intended to carry some sort of symbolism about human struggle and the strange ways we find solace, as well as reflect on the unconventional Glass family itself, but it felt forced and pretentious. Then again, pretention seems to be the Glass forte, with the children all railing against something with their pseudo-intellectual analysis of everything and their borrowed, threadbare spirituality. There is something very familiar, very 1950’s about all of this, but not having much experience with writing from that time I can’t quite put my finger on it.

So I have essentially reached the end of my ramble, and I still feel the same ambivalence. Which is perhaps for the best, as that is pretty much how this book pans out. There is no resolution; nothing definitive really happens. I guess I’ll go ahead and give this one a 3, since it interested me enough to prompt this long-winded analysis, but I still feel pretty up in the air about it. I think I will try to read some of Salinger’s other stories and get a better grasp on the Glass family and Salinger’s style.
...more

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Jun 18, 2013 Hadrian rated it really liked it

Shelves: american, fiction

I'm just interested in finding out what the hell goes. I mean do you have to be a goddam bohemian type, or dead, for Chrissake, to be a real poet? What do you want — some bastard with wavy hair?

Here we've got a pair of beautiful goddamned crises of the ego. It's easy to talk about Salinger like he's a period piece, like Norman Rockwell, greasers, or car fins, but he's really good and rhythmic here, with foaming mad dialogue and fearful trembling neurotics.

Salinger seems to me to be one of the ma I'm just interested in finding out what the hell goes. I mean do you have to be a goddam bohemian type, or dead, for Chrissake, to be a real poet? What do you want — some bastard with wavy hair?

Here we've got a pair of beautiful goddamned crises of the ego. It's easy to talk about Salinger like he's a period piece, like Norman Rockwell, greasers, or car fins, but he's really good and rhythmic here, with foaming mad dialogue and fearful trembling neurotics.

Salinger seems to me to be one of the main prophets of a sect of American Faiths and beliefs. I'm not necessarily referring an institutional organization or a church, like the Baptists or Catholics. Rather, there seems to be more of a focus on a certain subset of ethical questions like freedom vs. responsibility, materialism v. anti-materialism, authenticity vs. unreality, individuality vs. plurality, egalitarianism vs. elitism, and so forth. These are not uniquely American questions, but ones which we tend to focus on - at least from my limited experience.

Salinger places both of these sides in opposition, but not in the pedantic way which he rails about. Each person is not a squarish allegory for these ideas. The settings, after all, are a family drama and a coffee table conversation in New Haven.

Salinger here relates the American conflict of ideas clothed the intense and furious dialogue of a lover's quarrel or a dysfunctional family argument. It is not always from the Big Themes that this book is good. It's the writing style which is more engrossing as well. Most of it is conversation, with all of the fluidity and speed which that entails.

I can't believe I hadn't read this yet. Here's to you, Salinger, you shining sunuvvabitch.

I’m not afraid to compete. It’s just the opposite. Don’t you see that? I’m afraid I will compete — that’s what scares me. That’s why I quit the Theatre Department. Just because I’m so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else’s values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn’t make it right. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I’m sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash. ...more

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May 09, 2012 Steve rated it really liked it

Something my Uncle Bob once told me about his days as a competitive bridge player always stuck with me. He said the further he got into it, and the more advanced the players were, the less fun it all became. I guess at some level it got to be a serious business – one where everyone wanted to show that they were as smart as or smarter than all the other laser-focused competitors. Any social element of the game was beside the point, or worse still, a distraction. J.D. Salinger’s idée fixe for many Something my Uncle Bob once told me about his days as a competitive bridge player always stuck with me. He said the further he got into it, and the more advanced the players were, the less fun it all became. I guess at some level it got to be a serious business – one where everyone wanted to show that they were as smart as or smarter than all the other laser-focused competitors. Any social element of the game was beside the point, or worse still, a distraction. J.D. Salinger’s idée fixe for many years, the Glass family, was a lot like that in the game of life, it seems. They had plenty of insights, but not much in the way of joy. Is this a disappointment? Maybe a little. The natural tendency is to use smart people as guides, but that’s not always wise.

The Basic Plot

Franny and Zooey were the youngest of seven siblings. All of them, when they were young, were stars on a radio quiz show. Beyond a command of the facts, they could also be witty and engaging on cue. In the first of the book’s two stories, Franny is a college student visiting a boyfriend of sorts for the big Yale game. Her date’s hopes for a nice show-off weekend were thwarted, though, when Franny’s vague peevishness grows into a spiritual crisis. She ultimately passes out. The first story mostly just sets the stage for the more important second story. That one starts with Zooey, a part-time actor in his mid-twenties, having a snarky conversation with his mom while he takes a long bath. This segment establishes his character as one who thinks he knows everything, actually does know a lot, suffers fools less than gladly, and seems to consider his mother one of the fools. At least he shows some concern for his younger sister who is now home. Finally dressed and ready for his day of nothing much, we get to the meat of the story. He prods Franny for the details leading to her breakdown. She’s reluctant to say much at first, but Zooey persists. We discover what’s bothering her (people, essentially, and her place in the world among them), what her attempted solution is (repeating the Jesus Prayer – Lord Jesus have mercy on me – until a Zen-like state and oneness with Christ is achieved), and Zooey’s appraisal of this (that it’s not exclusively a Christian phenomenon she’s going for or even a religious one). Then Zooey tells her (and us) a more pertinent homily, one that their oldest brother Seymour had told about being your best for the fat lady (= the every-schlub in the radio audience who wants reasons to admire them). And you know what? (You may or may not consider this a spoiler.) (view spoiler)

Sorting It All Out

It’s hard to know my own mind with this impactful little book. Since it’s clear that Salinger relates strongly to these gifted, knowing characters, my view of the story becomes almost more of an assessment of the author himself. What do we make of the charges leveled against him as a pretentious elitist and bourgeoisie basher? That’s even harder for me to figure. Certainly, F&Z can be evaluated with those same traits in mind. In addition, the author and the book share themes relating to the cult of celebrity, reclusiveness, and Buddhist philosophy. But the key for me is figuring how effectively F, Z, and JD rise above their innate disdain for the common man. It’s easy to see how the elitism of others – a kind less honestly come by – is shot down. Lane Coutell, Franny’s date for the football weekend, was a pseudo-intellectual who thought very well of himself for his discourse on Flaubert. I think we’re meant to relate this to the phoniness that another Salinger character famously berated. But what about the smarter-than-thou Glasses? They’re the truly clever ones, right? Their cerebral attainment is not pseudo (though I suspect it’s all relative). On the face of it, Salinger’s fat lady solution has them on the right track – accepting of mankind despite its middlebrow flab. Does Seymour’s soft glowing light bulb suddenly mean their disaffected days are behind them? Even if we do accept their conversion, might there be something just a tad condescending about it? I think I need to read more of the Glass stories to round out my view. What I will venture to say, though, is that the changes in attitude still seem unlikely to bring them much wonder and joy.

In a sense, we might view this book as meta-elitism. I wonder what that would make my critique of it? If you’re thinking your own critique of my critique would be anti-meta-meta-elitism, let me remind you that, at least in this context, there’s a fine line between anti- and meta-. ;-) Anyway, getting to the bottom line, I figure a book that generates this much debate with myself must be pretty good.
...more

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Sep 08, 2007 Heron rated it it was amazing

I am of a certain group of people for whom high school ruined large swatches of literature. Dickens. I hate Dickens. I hated A Separate Peace. And I hated Catcher in the Rye. Why must 10th graders dissect literature to the point of obscenity? Can't we let a book be a book? Must we catalog every leitmotif, every metaphor down to the last period?
Franny and Zooey appeared on my bookshelf thanks to my well-read boyfriend, who did not let the public school system get to him in the way it got to m ...more

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Nov 13, 2007 Lindsay rated it really liked it

One day last year I was hunting around the web for some factual anecdotes about J.D. Salinger drinking his own urine and stuff like that when I came across this semi-legit Salinger biography site. Just a straight up old fashioned Angelfire page, big boring blocks of Times New Roman and a randomly placed graphic here and there. But it had a lot of great information about all of Salinger's fetishes and neuroses, and I was really digging it all until I got to this little parenthetical aside where t ...more

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Aug 09, 2016 Batul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

اول بگم که سالینجر توی مجبور کردن خواننده به خوندن چیزی که ازش چیزی نمیفهمه یا حتی لذت نمیبره استاده!! :-) اولاش اینجوری بود، بعد کمکم خوشم اومد ولی باز یه چیزایی که مربوط به آمریکاییها بود رو نمیفهمیدم. مترجم هم اصلا توضیح خاصی نداده بود. ولی در نهایت اون چیزا اهمیت نداشتن. حرف نهایی سالینجر رو دوست داشتم، آخرش از اون کتابها بود که میبندیش و لبخند میزنی و همونجوری چند دقیقهای میشینی فکر میکنی.

اینجوری :-)

زویی رو دوست داشتم. شاید به خاطر اینکه منم هیولام. دوست داشتم یه هیولا باهام حرف بزنه و یه ...more

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Jan 17, 2014 Melanie rated it liked it

Ten days after having finished reading this mysterious object of a "book", I am still at a loss to find words that can actually explain what it is exactly that I felt while reading this most puzzling piece of writing.

Its melancholy and elegance were only matched by its mannerisms and lack of focus. I still have absolutely no idea what it was trying to achieve or even what it was trying to say. As much as I enjoyed being suffused in its delicate atmosphere, I was also mostly gasping for air, for ...more

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Mar 03, 2014 Melanie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone lucky enough

This restless, fierce, biting little novel has me hands down beat. I don't even know how to praise it truly I'm reeling and also mentally tabling every time I turned away a cup of consecrated chicken soup. At least I'm still in love with Yorick's skull

Franny: I can't think of thirty or so pages as evocative and haunting as you unable to shut out all the static. Zooey showing you how, somehow through all of his own static, is the greatest act of love.

This novel is very special. I dropped it like ...more

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Apr 13, 2015 Bruno rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: letteratura-americana

Caro Salinger, se solo sapessi quanto mi hai migliorato la giornata! Sono seduto accanto alla finestra e fuori è una splendida giornata primaverile con un sole accecante.
Chiudo gli occhi e immagino che questa sia la stessa luce che illuminava il salotto di casa Glass.

Insomma, oggi ho deciso di canalizzare solo energia positiva!

"Voglio dire, se riesci a farti venire un collasso con tutte le tue forze, perché non puoi usare quella stessa energia per star bene e darti da fare?"

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Mar 23, 2015 Teresa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: n-usa, g-contos, 5-estrelas, l-1001bymrbyd

Salinger, um dos Bartlebys de Vila-Matas...
A sua obra é pequena mas grandiosa. Afastou-se da escrita e da vida social nos anos sessenta e o pouco que se sabe da sua vida não passa de especulação. Faleceu em 2010.
Além do romance À Espera no Centeio, escreveu novelas e contos, tendo alguns como personagens a família Glass, cujos sete irmãos são prodígios de inteligência e infelicidade...Um dos irmãos - Buddy, o escritor - é considerado, pelos estudiosos de Salinger, como o seu alter ego; outros ...more

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Aug 08, 2016 Zahra Dashti rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: رمان-خارجی, جدید-داریم

عالی بود!هیچ فکر نمی کردم کتابی اینقدر دقیق بعضی از دغدغه های منو شرح بده. نمی گم عین همین ها ولی خیلی نزدیک به این رو حس می کردم و درگیر بودم. یه جورهایی یه حس روشن بینی به آدم می داد. در نهایت نتیجه ای که قلبا بهش آگاه بودم ولی همیشه یه تردید خفی ناشی از عقل حسابگر مانع از این می شد که به طور جدی ، دنبالش باشم....
ممنونم از دوست بزرگواری که باعث شد زودتر این کتاب رو بخونم

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Madison Mega-Mara...: # 8 Franny and Zooey	1	6	Apr 23, 2016 01:02PM
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Rory Gilmore 52 B...: Thoughts on Franny and Zooey	7	57	Feb 01, 2015 12:09PM
Simply Salinger: JD Salinger (<3)	4	63	Jul 27, 2014 12:28AM
About Zooey.	13	172	Apr 27, 2014 11:53AM
A lecture on this book	24	428	Apr 27, 2014 11:47AM

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About J.D. Salinger

Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he publishe Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he published the critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in The New Yorker magazine, which became home to much of his subsequent work. In 1951 Salinger released his novel The Catcher in the Rye, an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.

The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention and scrutiny: Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently. He followed Catcher with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953), a collection of a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961), and a collection of two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965.

Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton and the release in the late 1990s of memoirs written by two people close to him: Joyce Maynard, an ex-lover; and Margaret Salinger, his daughter. In 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish "Hapworth 16, 1924" in book form, but amid the ensuing publicity, the release was indefinitely delayed. He made headlines around the globe in June 2009, after filing a lawsuit against another writer for copyright infringement resulting from that writer's use of one of Salinger's characters from The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger died of natural causes on January 27, 2010, at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.
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“I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.” — 2831 likes

“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.” — 1751 likes

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