Published: 1961 (Little, Brown)
What happens when precocious children grow up to be paralyzed by their own history? J.D. Salinger explores the inner-life of pseudo-Bohemian Upper East Siders, Franny and Zooey Glass, as they grapple with the suicide of their older brother and the weight of the education he gave them. Franny is a stubborn, but talented, college student who has foregone her relationship and future in the theatre to contemplate the power of the Jesus Prayer. The first part of this two part novella, Franny goes out on a date with her college boyfriend Lane, a man who she seems to not particularly care for beyond the perfunctory affection one performs to their casual boyfriend. As Franny and Lane get deeper into the date, she suffers a mental breakdown (possibly from the banality of her conversation with Lane) in the bathroom. She recovers, heads back to the table, eventually getting to the source of her breakdown. Franny feels as if all of her professors are phonies or creeps, and that she is experiencing a lack of sense and purpose in her life at college. We couldn’t get away from the Holden Caufieldness of Salinger’s protagonists, but Franny is not so one-dimensional. Franny leans on a book that, we find out later her late older brother Seymour gave her, tells the story of a wandering man in search of the perfect prayer and worship of God. Franny insinuates that this idea of nonstop prayer leading to enlightenment might be what she needs to overcome the malaise of her life. Lane largely disregards her and eventually after insisting they keep their schedule, Franny faints and is sent home.
In the second half of the novella, the action shifts to the Glass’ abode, a locationally upscale but internally Bohemian apartment. Filled with nostalgic old radios, impenetrable rooms of dead siblings, and empty rooms with fresh coats of paints, the space is eclectic as the Glass’ themselves. In the house we meet Zooey, a know-it-all actor and brother of Franny. Zooey worries about Franny, smokes cigars in the bathroom, and has passive aggressive conversations with his mother Bessie. Zooey didn’t fall too far from the tree when it comes to his ability to deflect and attack in equal measure during a casual conversation. Zooey defends his sister against Bessie’s concerns that Franny is not eating or caring much for her own acting or studies. In the last quarter of the novella, Zooey spends his time using talk therapy (or so he thinks) to try and psychoanalyze Franny’s problems in an attempt to give her a sense of meaning while explaining the reality of her inaction. Zooey attacks the legitimacy of the Jesus Prayer, only relenting when Franny pushes back at him, showing Zooey that there is some fight left in her. Franny finds her problems originate from craving attention and needing validation from others, a simple enough problem, but one without a clear fix. The whole Glass family have been conditioned from a young age, similar to The Carpenters or the Jackson 5, to sing and dance for others. The Glass’, not unlike those two successes, find it hard to function as adults away from that limelight. However, in the last few pages Zooey implores Franny to meet this level of inaction and paralysis with the gumption to go, act, do it. It seems simple, but the Jesus Prayer and its call to action is strong enough for Franny to end the novel taking Zooey’s advice, with a big smile on her face in the last scene.
Some final thoughts:
- ““I’m not afraid to compete. It’s just the opposite. Don’t you see that? I’m afraid I will compete — that’s what scares me. That’s why I quit the Theatre Department. Just because I’m so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else’s values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn’t make it right. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sick of it. 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.”
I appreciate Salinger’s use of Eastern philosophy and thought, adapted to a Western audience. The courage to be a nobody, to have nothing, giving you everything is essentially various religions and schools of thought from Daoism, to Buddhism, and beyond. As my professor in my freshman Eastern Religions class told us, “Be the butterfly in the field, flapping its wings without a care as to who you are or where you are going.”
- I thoroughly enjoy that this novel is the spiritual, and in the dynamic between Franny and Zooey, the literal origin of The Royal Tanenbaums. I picked this book to read partially because I heard this on a review of the movie for The Rewatchables on the Ringer Podcast Network. I see many of the parallels, mostly with sibling relationships and the house the Tanenbaums live in, but I would love to see a 1950s retro Tanenbaums, or just a movie with the Glass’ in the same vein as the Wes Anderson classic.
Rating: 4.2/5
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