I loved this book so much I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself for several hours after reading it.

https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...

Logically, it seems that maybe shorter books would be harder to love. You spend less time with the characters, the narrative complexity must be limited, you live in the world for a minimal amount of time.

But for the past few years, I’ve found that I’m more likely to adore short books. Maybe it has something to do with the incomprehensible length of so many young adult fantasy books I’ve read, which have no need or right to stretch so far past the four hundred page mark.

Or maybe I’m endlessly impressed by the power of some authors to touch me with the strength of their voices, their prose, their characters, their stories, in less than three hundred pages.

I had fallen in love with this book, for example, within a few dozen pages.

Salinger’s writing is glorious, Franny and Zooey and the Glass family leap off the page, I could spend unlimited volumes sprawled in the overcrowded living room of their glamorous unusual apartment. The ending hits like a physical strike. I was reading of both feelings I’d always had and never put into words and emotions I had never imagined.

I need a modern day Frankenstein - someone to wake Salinger up and tell him I need enough of the Glass family’s words to spend the rest of my life with.

I don’t care about the ethics.

Bottom line: Literally no one needs me to tell them this book is amazing, but it is and I’m saying it anyway.

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reread updates

welcome back to another installment of PROJECT 5 STAR, an excuse for me to revisit all my favorite books and feel joy again.

for once.

update: it worked!!!

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pre-review

this book feels like it was made for me in a lab.

review to come / 5 stars

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currently-reading updates

30 pages in and i am already absolutely in love with franny

جمله ای که از این کتاب یادم مونده و خیلی دوسش داشتم این بود که
مادر به زووی(!)گفت چرا ازدواج نمیکنی؟
گفت من دوست دارم توی قطار کنار پنجره بشینم و دوست ندارم جامو به کسی دیگه بدم....

سالینجر خوشخوان و نقادانه‌س. ولی نه در حدی که نوجوان‌ها و آمریکایی‌ها تبلیغ‌ش رو کردن و نه در حدی سالینجر خودش رو جدی می‌گرفت.

“Fraternitudine”


Si può scrivere a lungo su questo breve romanzo diviso in due parti, come due racconti separati, intitolati a ciascuno dei due fratelli minori della famiglia Glass, la bellissima e fragile Franny e l’altrettanto bellissimo Zooey; si può dire che è un libro senza trama, tutto dedicato a far conoscere i due personaggi e indirettamente la famiglia Glass, una qualunque famiglia americana eppure diversa da tutte le altre; si può dire che le pagine scritte da Salinger sono poesia, che i dialoghi tra i due fratelli, Franny in piena crisi mistica a causa della lettura di un volumetto trovato nella stanza del fratello maggiore Seymour, una specie di guru suicidatosi anni prima, e Zooey, giovane e bell’attore di successo, sono densi, lunghi e vorticosi, spesso concettuali, parlano di psicologia e religione eppure non risultano affatto pesanti, sono perfetti per scandagliare la psicologia dei personaggi, che emergono nella loro profondità grazie anche ad una precisa successione di dettagli di sguardi e di movimenti, che fotografano stati d’animo ed emozioni in modo impressionante. Tutto questo si può dire a proposito di un romanzo apparentemente semplice ma in realtà complesso e di non facile lettura. Tuttavia ciò che me lo ha fatto amare disperatamente è quello che definisco con il termine da me coniato nel titolo di questo commento, il potente e struggente sentimento di fratellanza che lega i due protagonisti (e non solo, la fratellanza è il legame tra tutti i sette fratelli Glass, soprattutto con quelli lontani o morti come Seymour), accomunati da un’infanzia vissuta come fenomeni, come bambini prodigio che li ha resi diversi dagli altri bambini, incastrati nel loro personaggio per la vita, rabbiosi verso il mondo, insofferenti ed inquieti. Tutto questo rende i fratelli complici ed alleati tra loro eppure anche nemici spietati, carnefici l’uno dell’altro, in un rapporto affettivo di amore –odio che può esistere soltanto tra fratelli. Sarà forse perché non la proverò mai, ma quella di cui parla Salinger in questo libro è per me la forza della “fraternitudine”.

وقتی به یک نفر کتابهای سلینجر را معرفی می کنم و خوشش نیاید ناراحت می شوم. شاید فکر کنید شوخی ست اما کاملا جدی می گویم. نمی فهمم چرا از سلینجر خوششان نیامده نویسنده ای که به نظرم نابغه بود و به نظر خیلی های دیگر. من با کتاب های او زندگی کرده بودم و فکر می کردم هر کسی هم مثل من با خواندن یکی از کتاب هایش فقط یکی از آنها شیفته اش می شود. معمولا وقتی بخواهم معرفی اش بکنم می گویم. فقط تا سی سالگی نوشت و تا نود سالگی زندگی کرد.نابغه بود. قاتل جان لنون به هنگام شلیک گلوله یک نسخه از ناطور دشت در دست داشت. و می گویم بهترین کتابش ناطور دشت نیست با اینکه اسمش در لیست "صد رمانی که قبل از مرگ باید بخوانیم" هست، به نظر من فرنی و زویی و خلق خانواده ی گلس شاهکارش است. اینها را می گویم. درظاهر به نظر عجیب و غریب می رسد و نه خیلی جذاب. نمی دانم چرا نمی توانم خاطرات خودم از کتاب های سلینجر را برایشان تعریف کنم. خب اینها یک سری خاطرات شخصی ست و چرا باید برای آنها جذابیت داشته باشد. مثلا نمی گویم من نصف بیشتر کارهای زندگی ام را به خاطر خانم چاقه انجام داده ام. هروقت دیدم که نمی توانم بلند شوم و سخت است روز جدید را با این همه ملال و تکرار شروع کرد در دل گفتم " به خاطر خانم چاقه" همان طور که سیمور می خواست. وقتی مادر از برادر می پرسید چرا ازدواج نمی کنی می گفت" چون دوست دارم وقتی سوار قطار میشم کنار پنجره بشینم". همان جمله ای که زویی به خانم گلس می گفت. وقتی بهم میگفتن چرا اینقدر آدم سرد و بی احساسی هستی می گفتم :" من؟ کافیه یه غروب صورتی بهم نشون بدید که جلوتون غش کنم." همان حرفی که زویی در جواب خانم گلس گفته بود. مادر بدون اینکه کتاب را خوانده باشد گاهی اوقات که نگاهمان می کرد میگفت " فایده این همه کتاب خواندن چیه وقتی آدم نمی تونه خوشحال باشه؟" همان جمله ی خانم گلس در نگاه آخری که به زویی انداخت.
یک شب، درست یادم است زمستان سال هشتاد و پنج بود و من داشتم فیلم های برنده ی اسکار را می دیدم، فیلم هزارتوی پن و دندان درد داشتم فیلم جذاب بود ولی عجیب لابه لای آن داشتم به داستان "دختری که می شناختم" از سلینجر فکر می کردم و دندان درد را تحمل می کردم. ماجرای دختر یهودی بود که در جنگ جهانی دوم در کوره آدم سوزی سوخته بود. و سربازی که التماس می کرد برود آن بالکن خالی را ببیند،‌ جایی که خودش و دختر سالها قبل می نشستند و جور قشنگی با هم آشنا شده بودند. به واسطه ی یک آهنگ عاشقانه که در خانه ی او پخش می شد و خیلی اتفاقی چند روز بعد صدای دختر را شنیده بود که می خواندش.
با فکر کردن به آن درد دندان رفع شده بود.
روی در و دیوار اتاق سیمور و بادی پر از جملاتی از بزرگان بود. زمان دانشجویی برای چندماه دیوار اتاق خانه ای که اجاره کرده بودیم را با کاغذهای بزرگ پوشاندم و هر جمله ی زیبایی که به گوشم می رسید روی آن می نوشتم. و حتی گاهی خاطرات یک خطی را با ذکر تاریخ می نوشتم.
سالها قبل که به استخر می رفتم و به سختی شنا می کردم وقتی همه خودشان را راحت روی آب نگه می داشتند در فضای استخر هروقت از گروه فاصله می گرفتم و خودم را روی سطح آب رها می کردم به خانم چاقه فکر می کردم و فرو می رفتم و حرکات کند دست و پا زدن های شناگران را نگاه می کردم. سرعت جهان و همه ی موجودات در درون آب کم می شد و میان درخشش آبی اش یاد جمله ی دوکوساد می افتادم که بر دیوار اتاق بادی و سیمور نوشته شده بود" خداوند دل را نه با افکار و عقاید بلکه با درد و تناقض آگاه می سازد."خفه می شدم و روی سطح آب می آمدم و نفس عمیق می کشیدم.
هروقت بخواهم کتابی به کسی هدیه بدهم که از ناامیدی حرف می زند همیشه اولین گزینه ام "فرنی و زویی" ست. به خاطر جمله ی محشر زویی آنجایی که پرده ها را می کشد و آفتاب کل اتاق را روشن می کند و می گوید" بیا بریم بیرون رفیق، بیا بهترین وقت روز رو اینجا تلف نکنیم."

In an ideal fictional universe, Franny, Zooey, and Holden Caulfield would meet up and act out a suicide pact, thus sparing the world their unbearable ennui. In an ideal real world, Salinger would have gone into seclusion before he ever got published. What an insufferable way to spend 201 pages.

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.

I have no idea what life would be like if I were an emotionally edgy genius. Apparently the children of the Glass family, Salinger’s favorite creation, would have made a quick work out of me. You see, obviously I’m very average, the mediocrity that Franny Glass is appalled by and yet pretends - even to herself - to envy. These young people, apparently, are very much not average or mediocre.

n   “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.”n

And I can’t even pretend that I understand or “get” this book.

n“All I know is I’m losing my mind,” Franny said. “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—it is, it is. I don’t care what anybody says.”

Is it about elitism, pseudointellectualism and dangers of it? About the crisis of intellectual and idealistic youth faced with the cynical egotistical and exquisitely materialistic world? About the fragility of sense of self and breakdown in the face of the world that is painfully not what you want - what you need - it to be? About the mote in your neighbor’s eye and the beam in yours? The innate hypocrisy even in the best of us? The dangers of religious fervor or maybe the bizarre appeal of it? The lingering scars of a strange unconventional childhood? The need to get over yourself and do your damn part for the ubiquitous Fat Lady that is all of us? Or maybe it’s all pretentiousness and self-indulgence or maybe profound musings on the existential angst and the human condition? Or is it about a deep depression that you can’t get a person out of by simply arguing the uselessness of it?

n  “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.”n

Or maybe it’s all about the strange overuse of italics? Or a piece of literature sponsored by tobacco industry - the words spoken between cigar and cigarette drags a few times per page? And is Franny pregnant or not?

Or maybe it’s a book I should have read in college to really “get” it - just like Holden’s story spoke to me when I was just entering adolescence, at the prime age for all the angst?

F*ck if I know.

n  “Why are you breaking down, incidentally? I mean if you’re able to go into a collapse with all your might, why can’t you use the same energy to stay well and busy?“n

All I know for certain is that those gifted angsty young geniuses obviously need to be nicer to their mother. Ungrateful brats. Get off my lawn!

Help me, oh those gifted ones who actually understand this book. Help me figure out what the hell I just read. I’ll be thankful to you forever. Because I want to like it - but I just don’t really *get* it. But obviously it touched so many people in the way that I want to understand.

n   “An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.“n

A deeply confused number of stars.

——————
Recommended by: James

Sorry Salinger fans but I really did not enjoy this one.

I guess Salinger intended this book to be like a Platonic dialogue, full of profound wisdom. But instead of Franny being hectored by Zooey, reading this felt like I was being hectored by the author. The whole story is contrived, the characters are irritating & supercilious, Zooey’s ‘advice’ is condescending and actually, just terrible advice. Which would be fine if that was the point, but it felt like Salinger wants us to love Zooey, think his religiosity deep and to believe that he ‘fixed’ Franny by the end.

The first section, with Franny and Lane in the restaurant, was decent. It felt like a scene out of Mad Men, very arch. Lane was clearly supposed to be awful, and I just assumed Franny was too. So it kind of works when the characters’ awfulness is intentional. But the writing style is also irritating and in general this book was like nails on a blackboard to me.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ “i'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”

my favorite genre of books are ones under 200 pages where the entire moral is just to be kind to yourself and each other. because ultimately, what else matters? (see also, bonjour tristesse & the housekeeper and the professor, some of the few other reads that make it into my extremelyyyyy select section of five-stars.)

i loved this primarily for the insights on life and how impeccably the glass siblings were written. no one does complex characters like j.d. salinger, in a way where they are both a symbol for such universal, inexpressible-before-this human emotions while being a fully-developed three dimensional person.

what i didn't enjoy was the focus on religion. i don't have anything against books with religious aspects at all, i just felt this one exhausted the point to an almost exclusive extent. also, a good chunk of it is repetition. repetition. repetition. pondering. pondering. pondering. someone pets a cat and someone lights a cigarette. but again, the glass siblings!!!!

i’ll leave it at this with some quotes to avoid possibly analyzing everything to death, as i’m prone to.


quotes.

⊹ “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.”

⊹ “you're lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddam phenomenal world.”

⊹ “she was not one for emptying her face of expression.”

⊹ “it's everybody, i mean. everything everybody does is so — i don't know — not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. but just so tiny and meaningless and — sad-making. and the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way.”

⊹ “…but don't tell me I'm not sensitive to beauty. that's my achilles' heel, and don't you forget it. to me, everything is beautiful…. anything. peter pan. even before the curtain goes up at peter pan i'm a goddamn puddle of tears.”

⊹ “‘oh, it's lovely to see you!' franny said as the cab moved off. 'i've missed you.' The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn't mean them at all.”

⊹ “if you're a poet, you do something beautiful. i mean, you're supposed to leave something beautiful after you get off the page and everything. the ones you're talking about don't leave a single, solitary thing beautiful. all that maybe the slightly better ones do is sort of get inside your head and leave something there, but just because they do, just because they know how to leave something, it doesn't have to be a poem for heaven's sake. it may just be some kind of terribly fascinating, syntaxy droppings--excuse the expression. like manilus and esposito and all those poor men.”

⊹ “the rest, with very little exaggeration, was books. meant-to-be-picked-up books. permanently-left-behind books. uncertain-what-to-do-with books. but books, books. tall cases lined three walls of the room, filled to and beyond capacity. the overflow had been piled in stacks on the floor. there was little space left for walking, and none whatever for pacing.”

⊹ “there are nice things in the world – and i mean nice things. we're all such morons to get so sidetracked.”

⊹ “i mean not try to analyze everything to death for once, if possible, especially me.”

DNF at page 122

I didn't enjoy this book at all. It's all over the place. I understand books that focus on character development rather than plot. But i just don't like the two main characters Franny and Zooey. I just don't get what they're trying to prove. They're weird, hostile and disrespectful. I definitely enjoyed The Catcher in The Rye more than this. Hell, that's one of my favorite books of all time. This one is such a letdown.

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.

یادداشت های پراکنده

آیا من با زویی موافقم؟ نه.
زویی به نوع دیگه ای از افراط مبتلاست. این که متوجه نیست که نمیشه در همه ی حالات روحی، اینقدر راحت به "زندگی" پناه برد. متوجه نیست که آدم گاهی نیاز داره، نیاز داره که به چیزی تمسک کنه تا بتونه خودش رو حفظ کنه از متلاشی شدن، حتی اگه این چیز یه عرفان خودساخته ی غیرواقعی باشه، قاطی کردن بودا و عیسی باشه.
بعد از این که به یاری این دست آویز از طوفان گذشت، اون وقت میشه با خیال راحت به "زندگی" پناه برد.

از نکات جالبی که زویی میگه، اینه که فرانی از خودشیفتگی همه ی روشنفکرهای متظاهر بیزاره، اما حواسش نیست که تمام فعالیت های عرفانی نتیجه ی همین خودشیفتگی هستن. تمام هنرهایی که پاک و اصیل میدونه نتیجه ی خودشیفتگی هستن. اگه کسی بخواد حقیقتاً "من" خودش رو خرد کنه و کنار بذاره، هیچ حرکتی نباید بکنه، حتی به سمت کمال والا حتی به سمت رستگاری. هر قدم به سمت "رستگاری من"، در حقیقت قدمی به سمت "من" هستش. "من" رو به حقیقت بودایی ها کنار میذارن که تا پایان عمر نه کار به خصوصی می کنن، نه حرکتی، حتی به سمت "رستگاری". نیروانا یعنی همین. یعنی "رستن از رستگاری". و قطعاً فرانی در سلوک خودساخته ی عرفانیش، به دنبال این نیست.

باز از جمله نكات جالب ديگه اينه كه زويى ميگه: تو مثلاً مى خواى به مسيح دل بسپرى، اما حواست نيست كه اين تصويرى كه دارى به درگاهش دعا مى خونى مسيح نيست، بلكه خودت به دلخواه تكه هاى شخصيت هاى مختلف (بودا و قديس فرانسواى آسيزى و كه و كه و كمى هم مسيح) رو جمع كردى و دارى به درگاه اين موجود خيالى كه همه ى خوبى هاى دلخواه تو رو جمع كردن دعا مى كنى. يعنى در نياز شديدت به آرامش، واقعيت رو تحريف كردى و به خيال آرامش بخش پناه بردى، وگرنه اگه بخواى واقع بين باشى، مسيح واقعى چندان هم آرامش بخش نيست، و گاهى رفتارهاى تند و خشن و غيرمهربانانه هم داره.

خيلى خيلى جالبه كه چطور اين تحريف واقعيت و مهربان ديدن همه چيز، توى عرفان هاى مسلمان ها هم به وفور (حتى بيشتر از فرانى) رخ ميده.