Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

I just finished this book tonight, while sitting in a mall food court awaiting the return of my movie-going partner from the bathroom. A really crowded place is a good location for reading, because the isolating and individual nature of reading is highlighted.

But anyway. I really enjoyed this book, probably more than I enjoyed Catcher. It's important to note that this was not conceived as a cohesive book, or at least it wasn't written all at the same time under that notion. The "Franny" section was published in The New Yorker in 1955, the "Zooey" half in the same publication two years later.

There is a heavy amount of religious talk in this book, especially the second half. This is the kind of thing that can usually make me uncomfortable when reading. Although I consider myself a spiritual person, I resist using the language or concepts of organized religion. I think organization might be the problem. So, when Franny gets all nutso about The Jesus Prayer and Zooey starts in critiquing her about it, I was afraid of being thrown into the middle of a theological debate concerning the nature of God.

In a way, I was. However, so much of the discussion between the two characters (if you can really call it discussion) had more to do with ego and one's place in, and attitude toward, the world that the whole thing can be easily secularized and absorbed that way.

The novel is particularly claustrophobic, with only a few sets and four characters given spoken dialogue. The other voices that feature heavily in the story are from other texts - an effective technique for a writer to use. We encounter characters through their letters, or collections of quotations they kept around, etc. As an avid reader and quote-collector, this was very appealing to me.

I believe there are character arcs in this story, but they are just the way such arcs should be - subtle. Nothing is dramatically toppled over here. As the author says about the second half, it's like a written home movie.

I don't have a big overall statement to make about this book, since I just finished reading it and it hasn't sunk into my regular life, yet. But I definitely enjoyed it. I would recommend reading it in as few chunks as possible - it is short and quick to read, without a lot of places and people to keep track of, and there are few section breaks. I always regretted having to set it down in the middle of an argument that two of the characters were having. Salinger did a great job of capturing the rhythm and pitch of a family argument. His portrayal of the mother is particularly, well, motherly. Despite Bessie's specific character, she has quirks that are present in any mother, and reading them so succinctly put was a joy.

If you are an overly intellectual and troubled 20-something, this book may seem like something of a talking-to. But that's not a bad thing - Zooey critiques while he loves, and even if you're not attempting a Jesus Prayer, the painful collision of his love and criticism is moving and sweet and real.