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 me. I shied away from Salinger for a full month, still harboring grudges over vocabulary quizzes. Then, in a fit of boredom and resignation, I picked it up. And was transported. This is writing. I mean writing. Oh to be able to write exactly what you need to, not a word more, not a word less. To be able to carve characters like the Glass family from paper and ink.
I am so glad I waited this long to really read Salinger again. I wasn't ready before. Are we ever ready?

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?

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 Holden Caulfield). I feel that this is the weakest of his work that I've read thus far though. I still think Catcher is his greatest work, followed by Nine Stories. However I would still recommend this collection. It contains some of Salinger's best writing and furthers the melancholic chronicle of the Glass family.

Note: I suggest that before reading this book that you read Salinger's short story A Perfect Day for Bananafish. The stories of Seymour will make more sense to you after reading it.

I read this so long ago. I had enjoyed, or at least identified with, Catcher in the Rye, so I thought I would try this, which is much less known. And for good reason. I think his teenage angst had run its course and when he didn't feel it anymore he couldn't manufacture it for the book,nor transition into one more concerned with adult emotions.

*** SPOILERS AT END ***
(Well, kind of. It's only a quote, but consider yourself warned)

There's love in this book. It's not obviously *there*, there's no kissing, it's not like you're reading a love-story.
Actually, no strike that this is a love story, but it's the kind of love you have in a heated argument with your mother, or when you talk about how much of a basket case your brother is, or when you tell your sister to sort herself out because she's acting all emotional.
This book has the love you feel when you see an object belonging to one of your siblings so you pick it up and mess with it, partly because you know it would annoy them if they were there to see you doing that, and partly because you enjoy the fact it reminds you of them.
I had an argument with my sister a few months ago that ran along strikingly similar lines to what Salinger wrote. Both of us were parts Franny and Zooey; each of us were as equally neurotic, as angry, as emotionally charged, and as drained as both of the characters were. It was odd to read something that felt so organic.
It felt cathartic to reach the end of this, it felt like the first ever time that someone has said "I know what you mean, you're not the only one with a dysfunctional family," and it didn't feel disingenuous or said in some way as to infer you were being melodramatic, instead it was genuine.
This book has the barbed love that people hold for their family (specifically siblings) when they're moving from kidulthood to adulthood. It has the lashing out and bitterness of being treated like a child for years and years, the frustration at realising that you deserved to be treated like that because, well, you were a child, and the realisation that so were they in parts so you might as well accept that both of you are as equally dented as each other and move on together.

I'll leave this review on a quote: (***)

"He said you were the only one who was bitter about S.'s suicide and the only one who really forgave him for it. The rest of us, he said, were outwardly unbitter and inwardly unforgiving. That may be truer than true, how can I know?"

سلینجر دوست‌داشتنی، سلینجر دوست‌داشتنی، سلینجر دوست‌داشتنی...
هرچند که من بسیار ترجیح می‌دادم به این طرزِ مستقیم واردِ مباحث عرفانی و مذهبی نشه، و اون‌ها در لفافه بیان کنه، باز هم بیان و پرداختنِ داستان کاملاً معرکه بود. بعدِ مدّت‌ها کتاب داستانی‌ای خوندم که من رو به دنبالِ خودش می‌کشوند و باورتون نمی‌شه که چند وقت بود این حس رو تجربه نکرده بودم، آخریش باز هم یکی از داستان‌های این کتاب آخری سلینجر بود که منتشر شد، اقیانوسی پر از گوی‌های بولینگ اگر اشتباه نکنم، و قبلیاش شاید رگتایم و خداحافظ گری کوپر بوده باشن.
حرف‌های سلینجر واقعاً حرف‌های درستیه توی این کتاب جدا از ارادتم بهش. یعنی خب خیلی خیلی حرف‌های زویی رو دوست داشتم و چقدر فرنی‌ها زیادند. چقدر همۀ ما می‌تونیم فرنی باشیم و چقدر همه به زویی - سلینجر - نیاز داریم.
و هنر سلینجر در شخصیت‌پردازیه. چقدر کافی به لین پرداخته شده بود به طوری که سریعاً تموم شدنِ بخش اول اذیت نمی‌کرد اصلاً. به قدر کافی لین برای ما آشکار و روشن بود. و فرنی. و تا حدی زویی، که به نظرم ذاتِ شخصیتِ زویی در مبهم بودنشه تا حدّی.
نثر سلینجر واقعاً معرکه‌س. :)) نثری که توی ناتور دشت، فرنی و زویی، اقیانوسی پر از...، شانزدهم هپ‌ورث، یک روز خوش برای موزماهی و ... می‌بینیم و امضای سلینجره توی کارهایی که به هولدن یا خانواده گلس مربوطه.
کاش اون‌قدری نقد بلد بودم که بتونم واشکافی کنم چرا انقدر سلینجر دوست‌داشتنیه...

البته، یه نکته‌ای هم هست، اونم این که دیالوگ‌های خانم گلس و زویی یه جاهایی بیش از حد آزاردهنده می‌شد.

پایان‌بندی کتاب هم عالی. عالی.


خلاصه به نظرم یه «سلینجر» به تمام معنا بود. دست مریزاد.

salinger kitaplarını okuduktan sonra o kitaplardaki karakterler kalbinizin bi köşesine yerleşiyor ve sürekli arada sırada kendilerini size hatırlatarak orada yaşamaya devam ediyor.

فرانی و زویی خواهر و برادری باهوش از یک خانواده‌ی نسبتا پرجمعیت هستند که تحت تاثیر و تعلیمات دو برادر بزرگترشون اعتقادات مذهبی و عرفانی خاصی دارند و البته میشه گفت دچار خود درگیری‌هایی هم هستند. کتاب از دو قسمت تشکیل شده، قسمت ابتدایی با نام فرانی در مورد سفر فرانی برای دیدار با دوست پسرش و صرف غذایی در رستوران هست که به بگومگو و خرابی حال منجر میشه، قسمت دوم کتاب با نام زویی توی خونه‌ی این خانواده با حضور فرانی و زویی و مادرشون شکل میگیره که دارای سه قسمت کلی صحبت‌های زویی با مادرش، صحبت‌های فرانی و زویی و صحبت‌های تلفنی فرانی با برادر دیگه‌ش هست. کتاب ساکن و پر از مفاهیم مذهبی، عرفانی و نقد اخلاقی و روانشناسی و خالی از اتفاق و حادثه و داستانه. مدل نوشتن سلینجر روش خاص خودشه و طرفداران خاص خودش رو داره که من متاسفانه جزو این گروه نیستم.ه

I was obsessed with this book back in high school. Back then, I would have given this book a rating of ten out of five. I don't know how I would rate it if I read it today. I'm giving it a three because, in retrospect, I believe Salinger's writing had a negative impact on my ability to think and write with clarity.

Not The Catcher in the Rye, that's for sure. But interesting in parts. And parallels are there, like the dead sibling. Seymour Glass becomes Allie, the dead brother in Catcher. And lots of stuff about writing, acting, movies.

And when Zooey looks down from the window and sees that little girl outside the school wearing a red cap that looks like a fleck of paint, it's very Phoebe-at-the-School-like. You know, the whole scene where Holden loses it in Rye. And Franny, how she sees the small spot of sunlight twice, once at dinner with Lane and once at home when Zooey is lecturing her. Nice touch.

Lots of cigarettes and cigars, here. And weird, pushy mothers in the bathroom with 25-year-old sons. And Salinger's an-noy-ing hab-it of em-phasizing every other syl-lable in the dialogue, which is practically a 202-page monologue offering Jerome David a chance to pontificate on his own religion.

Whew. You'd be screwed up, too, if you lived with this Menagerie. When it comes to the Glasses, it's either suicide or hang in there until the Fat Lady sings. Why couldn't they just hide out in New Hampshire, refusing to discuss such upsetting, cerebral matters anymore (or to offer any interviews to readers or the press)?

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 چیزایی رو بزنه تو سرم تا آدم بشم! اصلا کلا خانواده خیلی باحالی بودن.

I'll be perfectly frank: I am no fan of JD Salinger (see my one-star review of Catcher in the Rye for proof), and fully expected to hate this book.

But I loved it. There are several reasons for this - for one thing, all of Holden Caulfield's irritating speech habits, like his overuse of the word "crumby" and the way he insists on referring to his little sister as "old Phoebe", are missing from the dialogue, which I was extremely grateful for.
There's definitely a Holden-like character in Franny and Zooey, but what makes this story much more enjoyable than Catcher in the Rye is this: someone actually takes the time to sit the Holden Caulfield mimic down and say, "Okay, here's the deal: you need to pull your head out of your ass and quit whining, because your life is not nearly as terrible as you think it is. Lighten the hell up before I smack you upside the head." (not a direct quote, obviously, but you get the idea)

Now tell me you didn't want to say that exact same thing to Holden at least once. I know I did. I read that part of Franny and Zooey and thought, "Thank god."