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 the guy had written, "Franny and Zooey (I have never and doubt I ever will meet someone who has read that book twice)." What! Reading that made me so angry, and I wished I could have debunked his theory right there on the spot, but I had only read it once myself.

I think I started reading Franny and Zooey for the first time the day my dog died (Chester, who, if we're keeping score, was my all-time favorite dog). I was 16 or 17 and while I liked it well enough, I remember having this sense that I wouldn't be able to understand a lot of it until I was in college. And I was right. I use Franny and Zooey as my own personal Way of the Pilgrim, in that I pick it up now every time I think I am having a premature nervous breakdown because I feel like I'm living in a Twilight Zone of godamn English department section men, or whatever Franny calls them. There are moments when Salinger's writing style feels frustratingly self-conscious (in this book even more than others), but it's absolutely the college version of Catcher in the Rye in terms of "MAN, THAT'S EXACTLY HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW"-esque catharsis. Or something like that.

Also, every time I reread a Glass family story I still cling a little bit to my teenage fantasy that Buddy Glass will someday crawl out of the pages and marry me.

Τελείως love-hate relationship. Θα μπορούσα να γράψω 3 σελίδες και να αναλύω αυτό το μικρό βιβλιαράκι, αλλά θα παραθέσω αυτό που εν τέλει αποκόμισα.

n  "Δεν ξέρω τι ωφελεί να 'χετε τόσες γνώσεις και να 'σαστε ξεφτέρια, αν δεν είστε ευτυχισμένοι"n

ΥΓ: Δεν μπορώ να αντισταθώ, πρέπει να μαθω τι συνέβη στον Σίμορ

به نام او

فرنی در سال 1955 در مجله نیویورکر به چاپ رسید و به دنبال آن زویی در سال 1357 منتشر شد. این دو داستان آغازگر یک رشته داستان اند که دارم درباره خانواده گِلَس در نیویورکِ قرن بیستم مینویسم. این مجموعه طرحی درازمدت و جاه طلبانه است و فکر میکنم این خطر هست که دیر یا زود به بن بست برسم یا در شیوه و سبک و ادا و اصولِ خود محو و ناپدید شوم. اما روی هم رفته خیلی امیدوارم. کار کردن روی داستانهای خانواده گلس را خیلی دوست دارم، بیشتر عمرم را به انتظارِ آنها گذرانده ام و تصور می کنم برنامه جنون آمیزم آنقدر واقعگرایانه هست که آنها را با دقت و مهارت به سرانجام برسانم

متن بالا بخشی از مقدمه سالینجر بر چاپ اول کتاب فرنی و زویی است که در سال 1961 منتشر شده است

بیشتر رمان خوانها و کتاب دوستان سراسر دنیا دیوید جروم سالینجر را با کتابِ ناتورِدشت و شخصیت به یادماندنیِ هولدن کالفیلد می شناسند و از همین روست که این کتاب که اول باردر 1951 منتشر شد هنوز هم که هنوز است جزو پرفروشترین کتابهای داستانی دنیاست. ولی بخش دیگری از طرفداران سالینجر (که من هم جزو آن دسته هستم) علاوه بر احترامی که برای هولدن کالفید قائل اند، شیفته اعضای خانواده گلس اند. خانواده ای که در چندین و چند داستان کوتاه و بلند سالینجر خودی نشان می دهند و ما را با دنیای جذاب و پیچیده خود آشنا می کنند.

فرنی و زویی هم در مورد دو فرزند آخر این خانواده است و شروعی است برای آشنایی هرچه بیشتر ما با ایشان، البته سالینجر پیش از این در کتاب نه داستان (با ترجمه کاوه میرعباسی) در دو داستان ما را آماده این آشنایی کرده بود
سالینجر بعد از فرنی و زویی در کتاب «تیرهای سقف را بالاتر بگذارید نجاران؛ سیمور: پیشگفتار» باز هم در مورد اعضای این خانواده خصوصا سیمور برادر بزرگتر و جذاب ترین عضو این آن داستان سرایی می کند.

باری خواندن این کتاب به شدت توصیه می شود و نکته آخر اینکه بعد از خواندن فرنی و زویی حتما پری مهرجویی را ببینید تا ببینید آقای کارگردان چه بلایی بر سر داستان سالینجر آورده است

“I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.”
Franny and Zooey ~~~  J.D. Salinger



This was my first exposure to Salinger. I’ve made attempts in the past to read Catcher in the Rye, but I was never able to connect with it. My friend n  Spenkyn raved about Salinger’s  Franny and Zooey, so I decided this would be my introduction to Salinger. To say I was enthralled with Salinger’s writing would be an understatement.

My first thought upon reading the final page was “finally, I finished this book.” It's usually not a good thing when you're relieved once you finish a book but I feel that it's different with Salinger’s book. This was a journey, for me and the characters, in which I and they work through problems. Of course you're relieved when you find the answers at the end. And, thankfully, Salinger does give answers.

Rather than bore you with my take on “Franny and Zooey” here's a description of the book by Salinger himself. n  “FRANNY came out in The New Yorker in 1955, and was swiftly followed, in 1957 by ZOOEY. Both stories are early, critical entries in a narrative series I'm doing about a family of settlers in twentieth-century New York, the Glasses. It is a long-term project, patently an ambiguous one, and there is a real-enough danger, I suppose that sooner or later I'll bog down, perhaps disappear entirely, in my own methods, locutions, and mannerisms. On the whole, though, I'm very hopeful. I love working on these Glass stories, I've been waiting for them most of my life, and I think I have fairly decent, monomaniacal plans to finish them with due care and all-available skill.”n



These are two short stories but so closely related, 'Zooey' (a novella) starts where 'Franny' (a short story) ends, that it is probably better for both stories to be read together. Zooey Glass and Franny Glass are brother and sister and the two youngest of seven children. All of them have been on a quiz radio show 'A Wise Child' which seems to have led to all of them having difficulty in dealing with other people. 'Franny' centers on her going to meet her boyfriend, Lane, for the weekend which turns into a disaster on the first day because she seems to be out of sorts. 'Zooey' then offers an explanation of this from the brother's perspective as she comes home to be consumed in her problems. We get an insight into their history and an explanation and solution for Franny's problem



Perhaps 'Franny' was my favorite of the two, perhaps; perhaps 'Zooey' is the better of the two, perhaps. I found myself often agreeing with Zooey. Salenger’s observations of college students and their attitudes (how I miss those days) are funny and also quite true. He exposes the phony self-congratulatory and self-importance that is even more present now than when he wrote these works. Yes, Salinger is terribly judgmental, or at least, his characters are.

It’s that realization that no matter who you are, you are a very small piece in a much larger whole, and the need to accept that that’s crushing Franny. She wants to partake in the world without feeling let down with its banality. It seems the challenge Salinger is putting out there for Franny to face is how to love the world for what it is without condescending to it. It’s a sentiment felt at one time or another by everyone with any self-awareness.

I’m glad I read the short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” before reading this. It’s helpful to have some context of the Glass family when picking this up.

“Franny” is a short story following the youngest member of the Glass family, Franny, as she struggles to compose herself during a lunch date with her boyfriend, Lane, on a weekend visit she makes to him in 1950s upstate New York.

“Zooey” is a novella following her older brother, the second youngest member of the Glass family, Zachary/Zooey, in the fallout of the events of Franny’s story as they contemplate their unconventional upbringing and education via their two oldest brothers Seymour and Buddy.

Both stories have strong themes of religion, especially how to reach a sort of nirvana, and also reflects on common themes in Salinger’s work include authenticity, creativity, and beauty.

I really enjoyed these stories and appreciated how it gave more insight to the family. It was obviously well written and while at times it felt a bit repetitive it was still engaging, funny, thoughtful and compelling enough to never get boring.

سبک کتاب رو مثل باقی آثار سلینجر دوست داشتم اما در نهایت با مضمون نهایی ارتباط مستقیم برقرار نکردم و با این وجود خوندن این کتاب ۹۹ درصد لذت خالص بود برام.

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

خداوند قلب را نه با افکار که با دردها و تناقضات راهنمایی می‌کند.
دو کوساد (از متن کتاب)

بعد از هر بار خواندن کتابی که ازش عمیقا لذت می‌برم، یک حسرت تازه برام شرع می کنه به چشمک زدن:
"چقدر کتاب خوب دیگه هست که تو زندگیم نخوندم، و بدون خوندن اون ها از زندگی می‌رم؟"

به نظرم سلینجر قبل از نویسنده بودن یک روانشناسه.
شخصیت پردازی هاش عالین و خطوط داستانی به قدری دلچسب و گیراست که به راحتی میشه زندگیشون کرد.

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.

"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, well surely Mother you should have realised that you wouldn't really enjoy it all that much, I mean it's not you is it? Mysticism and religion and stuff, you never did get that did you, so why did you read it for chrissake?"

Mother also lights a cigarette. Franny has one too, and Zooey, and Bloomberg, the cat, doesn't want to feel left out so has a cigar too.

"Also, for God's sake, you could die of secondary smoke poisoning just reading this, and you know how much you hate cigarette smoke."

"But I'm - I don't know - I'm tired Zooey. I'm just exhausted, frankly."

Yup, me too, Fran, me too.

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.) Paraphrasing: no matter where an actor acts, there isn’t anyone out there who isn’t Seymour’s fat lady. (Salinger sets this up better than I do – it was throat-tighteningly good the way he did it.)



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.

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 the phoniness and pretentiousness of everyone all around her. This is brilliantly and briefly illustrated as the story centers around her date and reunion with the boyfriend she once loved - but now finds insufferable (with good reason, IMO).

Even though Salinger shows us the young man's point of view also, it's hard for us to sympathize with him as we see him through Franny's eyes (and even his own thoughts don't always put him in the kindest light).

This is amazing. As Franny is getting increasingly and increasingly exasperated with her pompous windbag of a boyfriend, so are we. As she gets more and more ill to her stomach listening to his garbage, so do we. When she goes to the bathroom and sighs in relief at the blessed silence, we do as well.

No one is better than Salinger at painting self-important snobs - and painting the self-important snobs who take it upon themselves to sneer at the first group. Franny may be at the end of her rope with her boyfriend's endless pontificating on The Truth and his seemingly endless love for hearing his own voice - but we (or at least this reader) sees that Franny is suffering from a case of "I see the truth that no one else does, why am I so blessed/cursed" as well.

The whole story is wonderful. Lane's (Franny's boyfriend) pomposity, Franny's sudden violent reaction to his self-importance, the tension and awkwardness that comes with seeing your long-distance lover in person again after months of absence.

This story gets five stars, A+.
...

However, then we get to Part Two: Zooey, in which Franny and her brother Zooey interact at home. And this is where I feel like Salinger loses the thread.

What? Loses the thread?!? How dare you! I'll have you know that Salinger was the greatest writer of all time! His craft -

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I'm not arguing with his wordcraft. He's obviously a skilled writer with a unique and tangible worldview and a keen ear for dialogue.

But this whole story (the "Zooey" part of the book) is just TOO MUCH. OMGosh, I thought I was going to fall over and die from all this religious, philosophical, and intelligentsia nonsense.

What worked, and what was good in this second story was the family dynamics and the familial love shown here. It's subtle, it's real, it's effective.

However, as I said earlier, Salinger really loses the thread and also bogs down this story in a lot of muck. I don't need four solid pages on the true meaning of Christ. I really don't. And this isn't a RELIGIOUS thing, it's an INTELLIGENTSIA thing.

Two authors (that I know of, so far in my life) really write novels that are by and for what my friend would call "the intellectual class." The class of people who are not very wealthy - although not impoverished - who are in continual pursuit of knowledge and are eternal students. These people take jobs like professor, poet, philosopher, and author. My friend who is a professor talks about this class of people often. She's quite funny but also quite academic to-the-T in a way that I think Salinger skewers perfectly.

Two authors who really get into the essence of this 'intellectual class' are J.D. Salinger and David Lodge. However, I find Salinger much harder to take than Lodge. Both are very smart, both are funny - but while David Lodge is approachable and good-natured, Salinger is prickly and bitter. Both are funny, but Lodge is funny like that older, chubby cousin you have who is so smart but so kind and Salinger is like that bitter, whip-smart, bone-thin uncle who smokes incessantly and quotes The Bridge Over the River Kwai all the time.

Wait, what?

Lodge = smart and cuddly. Salinger = smart and prickly.

Oh. Okay, thanks.

Both break down and mock the problems that 'big thinkers' have. Both are funny and effective. But Salinger is like espresso and Lodge is like Irish Breakfast Tea with cream and sugar.

Can we stop comparing the authors to weirdo things? I'm getting lost.

Okay.

I would only give this Zooey story 3 stars. Really, it probably deserves 4, but it's so bloated and it's more than a bit pretentious. I have a hard time dealing with it, even though Salinger uses some magnificent writing in it.
...

Tl;dr - I'd recommend everyone read "Franny." It's short - and you can say you've read Salinger. It will get across to you the real idea of Salinger and what he's like. However, you can take or leave "Zooey." I know some people are crazy about this book, I ended up not being one of them - BUT, let me be clear that Salinger's skill as an author is not in question here. His skill is glaring off every page. He also manages to capture a certain time period in a way that I think is rare and special (this book was published in 1961 with the stories published in 1955 and 1957, respectively, courtesy of The New Yorker).

If you want to get a The Catcher in the Rye feeling but don't want to read a full-length novel, "Franny" will hit the spot. You can read "Zooey" if you are a big Salinger fan, or just curious, or you can stop after "Franny" and be perfectly happy (IMO).

This book has special significance to me, I own the first edition hardback that belonged to my mother. As it was my mother's book, it has a special place in my heart, even though "Zooey" is not really doing it for me. I own her copy of The Catcher in the Rye, too, which was read much more frequently than this book.

I should pick up Nine Stories. We never had that book in the house growing up and I'm still unfamiliar with its contents. A certain friend of mine is a huge Salinger fan and is chomping at the bit for his unpublished stories to finally get released. I can't say I'm at that level of fandom, but I like Salinger enough to pick up Nine Stories and give it a whirl.

P.S. Thanks to Kelly for bringing this up: I want to say, if you hated The Catcher in the Rye you are most likely NOT going to enjoy this.