short stories

J. D. Salinger has a knack about puzzling his readers to the very end of the book and redeems himself with transcendent concluding remarks. "Franny and Zooey" does not possess much surface appeal as the more known "The Catcher in the Rye". The book does not really follow a conventional plot and is thus deprived of any suspense and climax. It is rather a crafted delineation of human emotions, nuances and layers of the relationships between adult siblings. Salinger, putting his arguments in the mouth of Franny and her brother Zooey, addresses the disparities between Christianity and Buddhism and the convergence of Eastern and Western thoughts.

Franny, 20, the youngest of the Glass children, is about to drop out from college as she feels sick of pedants and conceited egos. She desires to be spiritual and to pray incessantly to Jesus whom she later on out of frustration deserts for Buddhism. Franny experiences a spiritual crisis that leads to her nervous breakdown. She feels just as shallow and hypocritical as the rest of humanity.

Zooey, 25, a handsome aspiring actor, is an underachiever in the standard of the Glass family. His eldest brother Seymour had a doctoral degree but committed suicide during his vacation in Florida. His next elder brother Buddy cajoles him to obtain a doctoral degree just so he has something to fall back to if the show business doesn't work out. In helping Franny to snap out of her crisis, Zooey's bitterness toward his elder brothers inevitably surfaces that out of jaundice he expressions his feeling like being haunted by a house-full of ghost and half-dead ghost (since Buddy follows Seymour's model but he doesn't commit suicide).

At various points of the book am I stuck with doubts and unanswered questions regarding Franny's sufferings. To say the least even though the book touches upon some religious overtones but the core of which revolves around the idea of human ego, detachment, harmony and temperance. The novel affords a snapshot of how elder adult siblings can significantly influence their younger siblings at an early stage and formulate their mind. Readers shall catch a glimpse of the clash between old-schooled values and novel insights of the younger generation within a family.

2004 (7)

I haven't read a Salinger book since Catcher in the Rye, which was 14 years ago. I wish I read this one sooner. As soon as I finished reading it, I flipped to the beginning and proceeeded to read it in its entirety a second time.

What we have is a thought provoking story with a cast of very interesting, colorful characters. It is a story of identity in a world of institutions: religious, educational, and family; each with their own values and agendas, and how the characters navigate and marry these systems of beliefs and simultaneously attempt to maintain a sense of self-integrity. It follows the story of Franny, a young female college student, amist a nervous breakdown, as she attempts to find meaning and an inner sense of balance in a world she views as being phoney. Later in the book we are introduced to her brother, Zooey, who, though extrememly intelligent, battles his own demons while attempting to help his sister deal with hers.

This book has a lot of depth and there are many, many ways to interpret various sections and their details, which is what makes it such a rich novel worth reading over and over again.

Although, whoever said this book is all about "love" in their review above, really missed the point of the entire book and IMHO has no inkling of an idea what they are talking about.

I am convinced that the people who read this book and don't get anything out of it are the same people that don't like to contemplate philosophy, religion, and similar topics in order to figure out what this life is really about.

Salinger uses his unique writing style to subtly inform the reader about what he thinks life is supposed to encompass. Even more than "Catcher in the Rye," this book spoke to me. The whole book takes place in the span of two days, albeit not one after the other, but two days nonetheless. It's amazing to me that in a piece of fiction, Salinger can say so much within a beautifully painted, strategically structured two days. We learn so much about the characters and their inner conflicts, and Salinger makes it clear exactly what message he is attempting to send to the reader.

I would recommend this book to absolutely anybody - I think its message is one that everyone should hear. Whether or not the reader will listen is the true question.