Franny and Zooey
by J. D. Salinger
List Price:
Our Price: $4.48
You Save: $9.51 (68%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.96 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: J. D. SalingerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-01-30
ISBN: 0316769029
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780316769020
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Franny and Zooey
Book Review: "I'm afraid I will compete - that's what scares me."
Summary: 5 Stars
So says Franny to her college beau, Lane in response to his wondering why she quit acting in school. I love this line; and many more. After having read Catcher in the Rye & some of his short stories back in high-school (many years ago), I finally found the right time & place to pick up where I left off with Salinger. Franny & Zooey is a wonderful "second novel", and recaptured much of the plain language & straight-forward conversational rhythm that I remembered enjoying while reading Catcher in the Rye. There are lots of interesting reviews here about this book and how it's affected people. I truly understand now, how reading an important book at different stages of one's life can take on new significance, often in very different ways from the initial reading. Since this is my first time through Franny & Zooey, I feel obligated to compare it to Catcher. The many similarities between the two novels include the age of the main characters (college), connections with acting or actors/"hollywood", addiction to cigarettes (is there a single line in this book not spoken without a cigarette in hand?), and the confessional nature of conversation in which "family" looms large. But while Holden Caulfield, Franny, & Zooey all complain about the "phonyness" of the world around them, Holden seems (as I recall - it's been twelve years since I last read Catcher) more preoccupied with youth & preservation, while Franny & Zooey delve into religion. Ultimately, Franny & Zooey is about an existential crisis - Franny's hunger for religion & truth while feeling overwhelmed by the superficiality of pedantic professors, erudite intellectuals, and, well, her "lame" boyfriend himself. She is so overwhelmed that she faints at the restaurant.
Enter Zooey. Zooey is a bit of an intellectual himself, as is the whole Glass family. Thus, the ironical nature of much of Zooey's "speaches". Salinger lets Zooey be long-winded and he takes up most of the novel. I think some readers might be put of by this, and it can be a trifle tiresome at times, but it does end up "feeling right" afterwards when Zooey's child-prodigy monster of a character shows its true colours. This unique characterization is one reason why Salinger is recognized as a great American writer. In any event, despite his condesending treatment of his mother, which comes across as strange, mean, and funny all at once, Zooey is ultimately just being himself. This monster, Salinger seems to be saying, is exactly what his parents "Les & Bess" have created. We learn that the oldest kid, Seymour has committed suicide, and the second oldest, Buddy, has moved far away (but is present in the form of a letter & in spirit). Zooey is taking a bath, smoking, and reading his big brothers letter. It looks like Buddy has thankfully "escaped" the grasp of this obsessive family - run Buddy, run! (Before leaving the bathroom, make sure you note Salinger's precise description of the medicine cabinet's contents - there are some telling details there). Ultimately, Zooey makes his way out to the living room (also described in excellent detail) where lays Franny, curled up in a ball with the family cat. By the end, the slightly older but more immature Zooey is finally acting like a big-brother should (although tellingly, incapable of a face to face conversation - you'll have to read & see for yourself), and manages to display some real wisdom. The conversation between the two of them revolves around the nature of ego, and religious impulse, and Zooey consults with his memories of Seymour & Buddy (his gurus, whether he likes it or not) in order to calm Franny down. He's been through it, and understands her very well. He tells her not to make these signifcant issues out to be "so damn personal". It's a great moment too, when Zooey starts talking to Franny about "the Fat Lady".
As I write this review which I didn't imagine would become this long-winded (Zooey has infected me!) I realize that this book is deeper than Catcher, and perhaps more significant. I'm actually more impressed with its simplicity than its deep & meaningful subject-matter. Salinger's "greatness" is his wonderful ability to capture the beauty in something as seemingly mundane as two college kids sitting at a table, smoking, eating "snails & frog-legs", sipping martinis, and talking about themselves. You'll have no problem reading this book in one or two sittings, and then you'll come away from it thinking, "Wow! I need to re-read that some day, in some other place & time." I still hear the Zen-like clapping of Zooey's hand(s)...
One final note about Salinger. My impression is that there is no way he intended to stop writing (and I don't think he did) after Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters & Seymour. Yes, he stopped "publishing", but Franny & Zooey just feels too much like one face of a complex prism - that prism ultimately being a whole book of stories & novellas dealing with the Glass family. There's so much missing, it seems, in terms of the other family members, and especially the Mother & Father themselves. My guess is that one day, perhaps after Salinger's death as he seems to intend, we will have multiple "Franny & Zooey's" to compliment & fill out this incongruously short Glass saga . . . I, for one, look forward to the discovery & printing (& glorious fanfare!!) of a NEW Salinger story. It's just a matter of whether or not he chooses to be around for the zoo.
Summary of Franny and Zooey
The author writes: FRANNY came out in The New Yorker in 1955, and was swiftly followed, in 1957 by ZOOEY. Both stories are early, critical entries in a narrative series I'm doing about a family of settlers in twentieth-century New York, the Glasses. It is a long-term project, patently an ambiguous one, and there is a real-enough danger, I suppose that sooner or later I'll bog down, perhaps disappear entirely, in my own methods, locutions, and mannerisms. On the whole, though, I'm very hopeful. I love working on these Glass stories, I've been waiting for them most of my life, and I think I have fairly decent, monomaniacal plans to finish them with due care and all-available skill.Classics Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Classics Books
Native sonby Richard Wright
Perennial Library; Published: 1987; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.75
Native Son: And How Bigger Was Bornby Richard Wright
Perennial; Published: 1993-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $60.00
Raphael and the Noble Taskby Catherine Salton
Harper; Published: 2000-10-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.49
Price in other shops:
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.85
Price in other shops:
The Great Divorce CDby C. S. Lewis
HarperAudio; Published: 2003-11-25; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $12.82
Price in other shops:
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Black Coffee (Poirot)by Agatha Christie
Harper Collins Pb; Published: 2002-12-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $68.32
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1960s)by Joan Didion
Flamingo; Published: 2001-04-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.25
Similar Books and other products
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Storiesby Flannery O'Connor
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; Published: 1977-08-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.89
Price in other shops:
How We Survived Communism & Even Laughedby Slavenka Drakulic
Harper Perennial; Published: 1993-05-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.84
Price in other shops:
The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics)by Shirley Jackson
Penguin Classics; Published: 2006-11-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
Slowness: A Novelby Milan Kundera
Harper Perennial; Published: 1997-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (Vintage International)by Alan Sillitoe
Vintage; Published: 2010-03-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
The Waitress Was New (Archipelago Books)by Dominique Fabre
Archipelago Books; Published: 2008-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.41
Price in other shops:
The Body Artist: A Novelby Don DeLillo
Scribner; Published: 2002-01-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introductionby J.D. Salinger
Back Bay Books; Published: 2001-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.61
Price in other shops:
The Catcher in the Ryeby J. D. Salinger
Back Bay Books; Published: 2001-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.59
Price in other shops:
Nine Storiesby J.D. Salinger
Back Bay Books; Published: 2001-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.18
Price in other shops: