Franny and Zooey Book

It might seem redundant to have just written a review of a book which was first published in 1961 but, having heard of the death of JD Salinger just over a week ago, I felt compelled to reread 'Franny and Zooey', my favourite of the four Salinger books that are currently in print in England, and was struck once again by just how sublime a literary work it is. While 'The Catcher in the Rye' is rightly lauded and copies of it still sell in their tens of thousands each year, Salinger's collected works of stories and novellas featuring the Glass family are often overlooked despite being, in my opinion at least, Salinger's most accomplished works.

Franny and Zooey are the two youngest members of the Glass family and the two stories that comprise the book 'Franny and Zooey' chronicle their exploits over the course of a long weekend in November 1955. The first and shortest of the stories, 'Franny', takes place in an unnamed US college town and tells the tale of Franny's disenchantment with the selfishness and inauthenticity that she perceives in all those around her as they become obsessed with the significance of the big football game against Yale that is about to be played. The second story, 'Zooey', picks up Franny's story as she returns to her parent's home in New York while undergoing an existential breakdown. Zooey is Franny's older brother, an emotionally stunted former child protégé, who does his best to offer Franny brotherly love and sage advice.

'Franny and Zooey' features two of the most exquisitely crafted short stories that I have ever had the pleasure to read. While the members of the Glass family might at first appear to be unashamedly, self-centredly eccentric, after a close reading of 'Frannie and Zooey' the undeniable warmth of their family relationships and their passionate quests for spiritual and intellectual enlightenment come to the fore in such a way as to highlight the bravery and tenaciousness in their desire to become "real". Rather than concentrate on the cynicism that hounded Holden Caulfield in 'The Catcher in the Rye', with 'Frannie and Zooey' Salinger chooses to examine the spectre of nervous breakdown and to emphasise the existence of a path to happiness through spiritual enlightenment and self-realisation. I'm so glad that I was inspired to read this book again, I certainly won't be waiting so long next time.