Book Review 3 of 52: Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

When I first came across Franny and Zooey I was doing theater in high school (It may have been during Romeo and Juliet, at least that's what I remember). One of our theater directors, the late Mark Collins, said before every performance to "Do it for the Fat Lady." I was always kind of puzzled by what that was supposed to mean and he said to read Franny and Zooey to find out. I read it in high school, fell in love with it. Then I moved on to The Catcher in the Rye and moved on to Nine Stories from there.

Franny was published in 1955, Zooey in 1957, and the two were finally collected in novella form in 1961.

Franny and Zooey focuses on Franny and Zooey Glass from the Glass family that Salinger visits in the majority of his stories. It starts with Franny meeting her boyfriend Lane for a cocktail party followed by a football game. What follows is a late lunch where Lane goes on about school and a paper that he wrote, and Franny starting to tear into him in a self-professed mean streak she can't seem to shake. Franny starts to light up when Lane finds a book in her purse, The Way of the Pilgrim. She explains the book is about a Russian Pilgrim who wants to find out the secret to 'praying without ceasing.' He goes around, meets a bunch of interesting people, meets with priest after priest until he finally finds one who unlocks the secret to praying without ceasing. Basically it's repeating the Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, until the prayer becomes as natural to you as breathing. I could go a lot more into it, basically she's fascinated by it and Lane just kind of brushes her off. Finally she faints in the restaurant and after fainting, when Lane goes to fetch her some water, she starts mouthing the words of the prayer.

End of story, cut to Zooey. Zooey is the older brother to Franny (There are seven Glass children in all) and we meet him in the bath reading and re-reading a four year old letter from his brother Buddy. We learn Zooey is a television actor by the fact that he also skims over a recent script he was handed. His mother, Bessie, interrupts him and they have a long discussion ranging from Franny's recent emotional collapse (While Zooey was published 2 years later it takes place only 2 days after her visit to Lane), his acting career, the other Glass children (We learn one of the older children, Seymour, commited suicide which is the subject of the short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish). They do a little verbal sparring and once he's out of the bath Zooey goes and talks with his sister.

Salinger's stories are pretty much 90% talk. It's a lot of inner monologue and conversation that just works superb. It's usually people with two different agendas going back and forth, sometimes completely ignorant of what the other person is saying, but it's always incredibly engaging. Everyone has their own distinct voice, no one sounds contrived, no one says anything that you think was put in there just to make a point in the conversation or to further the story. Everything just flows so well.

When Zooey talks to Franny who is having her emotional collapse in the living room it's a wonderful conversational dance where Zooey is going around the room from the desk to the piano to the window, going from attacking Franny, to attacking the Jesus Prayer, to finally explaining the Jesus Prayer (Also bringing up its close relation to Eastern religions) and basically enlightening her. Eastern religion is at the core of a lot of Salinger's work as he practiced numerous Eastern religions throughout his early life and injected them into his stories.

Franny and Zooey is wonderful for its perfect use of wordplay. Salinger always saw himself as a succesor to F. Scott Fitzgerald and it really shows. They both knew their way around dialogue and putting a lot of underlying meaning into their stories. They were (Okay, Salinger is still alive but he's been so secluded we can talk about him in the past tense) also wonderfully screwed up people but what writer isn't?

The Glass family is a wonder to read. After Franny and Zooey I suggest moving on to Nine Stories and Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. Make sure to also spend some time with The Catcher in the Rye but don't go writing "This is my statement" in the cover and killing John Lennon, that's just tacky. If someone did that with one of my books I'd go into seclusion too.

Also it turns out Salinger has been writing, writing, writing for himself these past few decades and has what may turn out to be a great library of post-humous literature ahead of him. Not that I want him to hurry up the process because I want him to keep on writing as long as he can hold up a pen, but I'm really excited to see if he's been keeping up with the Glass family all of these years.