Franny & Zooey

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Average customer rating 5 (3 comments)

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The Neighbors and Friends bookclub recently read "Franny and Zooey" by J.D. Salinger as the December, 2012, selection based on one member's recommendation of the novel as "the best book I ever read." I don't know that Franny and Zooey is "the best book I ever read", but it is one of the most well written books that I have ever read. The character development is flawless and creates in the reader a visceral reaction to the pain and emotional angst suffered by this sad, grieving family. The resolution for each character's internal and external conflicts is one that is realistic and likely. The subject is difficult but the writing superb. The author is able to blend pathos and humor so that the subject matter does not overwhelm the reader. It is a book revisited by me and my appreciation of it has improved since last reading it as a twenty something. Thank you, Mr. Salinger.

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J.D. Salinger’s novel, Franny and Zooey, is a very unique and enriching novel. J.D. Salinger initially wrote two sections of this novel separately. “Franny” was written as a short story in 1955, and “Zooey” was written as a novella two years later. When both stories were combined, a creative novel of family and confusion is developed. The novel Franny and Zooey is especially preferable to readers who enjoy novels that can be read at a quick tempo and can be finished quickly. The dialogue throughout this novel is continually flowing and before you knows it, you will be done with the novel. If you have read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, then you will certainly enjoy the return of the “phonies”! Due to the novel being broken into two parts, the central focus of the stories will shift from protagonist to protagonist. Some components of the novel are much more simplistic than others. Because the setting hardly changes and the time frame of the novel elapses to about a day, the character developments in this novel are the key to understanding what this novel has to offer. The means by which the protagonists grow and learn about their own flaws as well as others is the ultimate source of critiquing in this novel. In the first section of the novel, Franny, a 20-year-old talented actress, is out of college and doesn’t know why she is extremely upset. She is accusatory of phony professors and complains how snotty some actors are. Lane, Franny’s boyfriend doesn’t know how to deal with her, setting up the first conflict within the novel. In the Zooey section of the novel, Zooey is Franny’s older brother. He is 25 and also a very successful actor. Zooey is also tense with his mother concerning who is shallow and phony, and he figures out that he and Franny are both behaving similarly. They both are very disrespectful toward people they dislike and completely disregard them from their lives. Through his own arguments and self-discovery, he helps Franny realize her purpose in the world and the means by which to treat everyone. A few of the themes that the reader can easily infer after reading this novel is that of the significance of stardom, and the idea of being egotistical versus being intelligent. These themes are very easily interchangeable. One can be a direct cause of the other. Since childhood, Zoey and Franny have been celebrities. They both stared on a radio show called “It’s a Wise Child”. Their egos grew and grew with time and they continued to believe that stardom allowed for people to attack and degrade the feelings of others. Negative rants are common in this novel, one concerning Zooey stating, “I don’t trust any out-of-towners in New York. I don’t care how the hell long they’ve been here. I’m always afraid they’re going to get run over, or beaten up, while they’re busy discovering some little Armenian restaurant” (131). By the end of the novel, Zooey has realized that “there isn’t anyone out there who isn’t Seymour’s Fat Lady” (200). Zooey is referring to the Fat Lady as representing every person on earth, every Jesus himself. He is saying that every person, no matter how vain or dumb they are, deserves their respect. Because I managed to uncover a central message of Franny and Zooey, my critique of this novel is that of a very positive one. If you haven’t read The Catcher in the Rye, you may be unfamiliar with J.D. Salinger’s style, but don’t let that stop you from reading this phenomenal novel. It has a great group of characters with a well played out conflict and resolution that also reflects issues in today’s society that you don’t necessarily think of right away. If you haven’t purchased this novel already, do so or spend a day at a store wherever books are sold and just breeze through it. It is too incredible of a novel to miss out on reading.

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I loved this book and the idea it encompassed: that the world is not as amazing as some people would love us to believe. This whole book seems to take place in the course of about four scenes with only four characters, but it is so beautiful and true. Franny is a young college girl who's realized that the world is not an amazing place and is trying her hardest to get back to the state of mind of a child where nothing is wrong. She is calling upon God and her dead older brother and everything she can think of, but she sits on the family couch weeping her life away. Her slightly older brother Zooey is just as disenchanted with the world, but has come to a stalemate with it: not living through his life as a weeping mess, but not living to the fullest either. Both learn something about their enlightened state of mind when Zooey tries to help Franny out of her funk and come to realize they'll need to find a way to survive without losing this enlightenment or being a slave to it. I personally connected with this book due to it's message as I have become more and more disillusioned by the falsities in the modern world. Franny and Zooey show that this is not necessarily a negative outlook, but that it must be made to be less traumatizing and debilitating. A wonderful thinking book for our times.