"That's none of your business, Franny," Zooey says. "An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.This is going to be a really bad review because HEH it's so hard to praise a book you totally love.
It took me two weeks to finish Franny and Zooey in its entirety which is new because reading fast is something I am shamelessly proud of. What I love best about Franny and Zooey is that I consciously read it really slow. A few pages into Franny's little snippet in the novella and I knew I didn't want it to be over. Franny is exemplifies the pitfalls of an educated girl troubled by her learning--sensible, stubborn, sympathetic but worried, extremely worried of the dogma all of her education has created. I love how her character is so enlightened yet at the same time, still very much confused. It is especially fascinating that she chooses to read Russian literature at an age where she's supposed to be out on diner dates, filling up her dance card with boyfriend Lane. Although miles away from home, Franny proves that she is still a Glass, through and through. While I embraced Franny's tragedy heartily, reading Zooey felt like drowning into a sea and getting pulled back up only to drown again. I fell in love with his intelligence, conceit, interest in the arts and his arrogance that transcends no boundaries. Zooey's character evokes a constant push and pull of love and hate. Like a lover that annoys you to no end but only because you know he's actually good at almost everything. You don't want him into your life but you also can't keep him away. I love that Zooey's words are always so piercing. It hurts but it's for everyone's own good. A totally lovable misanthropist. (!)
What I love about Franny and Zooey is the way it's full of ironies. Layers and layers of irony underneath precious sheets of paper that JD Salinger wrote apart and put together over a pretty long period of time. Franny and Zooey are yin and yang, she overtly emotional and has no conviction, he strong in opinion and almost cold & distant. The Glass family is formidable but incredibly fragile. Seymour Glass is a family member everybody loves and looks up to but nobody really wants to talk about (except for Franny, of course). They are terribly fascinating but a little bit painful to watch. The setting is conformist America of the 50s but the essence of the book is Eastern and esoteric. There is a love and closeness so tangible in the Glass family despite the fact that they have already fallen apart or the fact that neither one of them could stand each other's dogma and prejudices anymore. The book is both secular and spiritual in Franny and Zooey's accounts, and in this aspect JD Salinger proves his greatness.
I love how JD Salinger left so much room (intentionally or not) for speculation over Franny and Zooey and the entire Glass Family. I felt that the book generally raises questions more than answers, and this method of fantastic self-inquiry--from who the Fat Lady really is, the spirituality involved in the novel to the non-conformist jabs the author took at a time and age of conformity to the sociological perspective of a family entirely devoid of traditional American values--makes it a gem for all ages. Whether the mystique of Franny & Zooey is a piece that threads all Glass family books together or a simple tick of the author's genius, I do not know. What I do know is that JD Salinger is a true artist and his Glass family is one of fiction's best works. Franny and Zooey's respective stories are so precocious, precious and impressive that I (and any reader who picked up the book) have found it really hard to let them go.
