Chantel's Reviews > Franny and Zooey

** spoiler alert ** It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on suicidal ideations, suicide, the death of a loved one, & others.

The journey of discovery is the talisman of death; the torpedo of destruction, the same canal that leads the head between trembling legs. Understanding what makes a life worth living—philosophizing the ideology of creation & the stupor of perfectionism within a nebula—hinders the freedom to exit.

What rational mind seeks out the cavity of darkness? Which part of the Cerebrum sets the intention to watch itself perish? The destruction of the world, the folding of the universe, & tremor of the faltering waves, rising only to plummet, set human beings alongside those whom they deem meaty morsels of secondary value.

Great minds have calculated the equations I reference in my reflection. Nietzsche’s plea to be still & intentional in the face of the void is hopeful unless one recognizes that he may speak truth from the profound black of the tunnel itself.

How far along the road are we that we may forget from whence we started? Does the material we collect—the pottery & soil, the ground bones & shimmering tar—allow a more insightful experience or one that places us alongside the dead & gone members of our kin who perished in an oil-soaked sadness that swallowed them from within?

Salinger’s work is too few. I am regretful in a way that rocks my bones against invisible wind, that the author did not publish more. Inside the hollow space where we meet, I long to hold out hope that he has kept his work private, like woes, dusty in an attic where I shall never reach them.

By nurturing a silly & unfounded hope, I grant my mind a reprieve habitually starved from my person. We are all in a boat where the oars are sparked with chips & molten with webs though, some of us have had a cleaning service to better prepare them for a hearty sail. Whereas others, sink face-down into the crepuscular sea.

There will always be room in my contorted brain for words that ooze ointment. Salinger’s writing style is as delicate as soufflé & as tender as sherbet on a curious tongue. His prose makes seamless the mesh & mould of a tired & hopeless narrative that follows characters who are chronically misunderstood by the rowers of boats slick & new.

Allegorically, the brain, like this imaginary boat, requires a curve or the stern will never advance through the turbulence caused naturally by the environment. Yet, these same unskilled sailors whose weapons include a worm’s soft skin body behind the eyes, find it their hero’s call to state mastery as a mystical failure.

The poet’s call toward stanzas that seek to imbue a numbing commitment to the creed presents readers with a divisive plot. Simply put, this story toys with the character’s cognizance of their intellect. Grown to age in a home in New York, New York, Franny & Zooey were raised by a slew of older siblings, each better read than the other yet no more in competition with each other than Yeshua & his vapidly driven palls.

Both characters understand what it means to grasp material; they know how to incorporate knowledge into currency & their daily lives watch them perform acts of perfectionistic grandeur to audiences that admire them from shaded whispering willows.

In its essence, Salinger writes about the ransom demanded by life from those for whom the Great Mystery is nothing but a childish rhyme unstructured & debilitated by willful ignorance. The story follows the titular siblings as they sit in the company of people who do not match them intellectually. The pair discuss, both together & in their singular, grovelling, state of despair, that the mind’s fury & potency towards comprehension has offered them the oyster’s pearl.

The author does not necessarily seek to present a new concept. The original protest that bliss is kept, nurtured, & flourishes in ignorance has long held weight in society. Unfortunately, scholastic abilities have consistently plummeted as ravages against intellectual properties, both theoretical & institutional, leading the insecure to forget their place. Everything comes at a cost; to remain able to moronically wander through life without a tedium of worry one must accept that the profound nature of existence will escape their grasp.

Perhaps, these statements are rather crass, one may even deem them cruel. Certainly, I am no stranger to the world, nor was Salinger & yet we both approach the burden of knowledge from different sides of the same bolder. Such is the beauty of the stereographic stone. However, Salinger’s characters meet me at the tip of the curve with annoyance & flustering lungs boiling with despair. What is a person to do who has no choice but to see the world as it is?

The reader meets Franny through her correspondence with her boyfriend. She appears a very superficial girl on the page & rather than believe that something has changed within her from the moment at which she wrote her letter to her arrival at the train station, one may choose to believe that Franny has intentionally done her best to play the role of the naive & innocent young girl.

What becomes quickly apparent is her struggle with herself. Whereas Franny is accustomed to sitting at the table with people of high intelligence, people who are driven & understand what they have yet to know; the world is not a mirror image of her childhood home.

Franny’s realization plagues her. She cannot focus on her post-secondary classes as the professors seem to her ridiculous & small-minded. Her dinner with her boyfriend sees her become physically ill at the prospect of having to hide behind a veil for the rest of her life.

Whereas it might appeal to her to speak the truth, that everything means nothing & that there is no shame in admiring the void that wanders close behind. Franny reads texts of old philosophers, some of which are not attributed to a specific author, in the hopes of shedding light into the darkness that has encircled her. Unfortunately, rarely does philosophy leave a reader’s soul weightless. Franny becomes gravely ill & returns home.

Zooey’s introduction to the reader reads as tedious. He is also introduced via the written word however, in his case, his older brother, Buddy, leads the reader through his correspondence & back into the story at play. Zooey is a man of great acting abilities whose intellect has distraught him since his youth. He spends time discussing semantics with his mother, who wanders in & out of the bathroom speaking about, what are meant to be dismissible worries.

Neither Franny nor Zooey has a firm grasp on what it means to be a person in the world; a person who thrives in society & a person who can wander the world making friends with those whom they deem lesser than themselves.

Do not mistake me, neither character is intentionally shallow. Rather, they struggle with carrying the array of knowledge they have & maneuvering within a world where others do not have even a fraction of what they hold. The book’s dialogue covets the inner turmoil that each character experiences.

Franny’s physical illness may be interpreted as early signs of pregnancy or she may simply be homesick. On the other hand, should one be seated in the humbly stacked living room alongside her, one will note the Nihilistic struggle of the Existentialist. Franny’s struggle feels personal to me; her willingness to wander the halls of a school in the hopes of being taught something as yet unknown to her reeks of a despair that I appreciate as an autodidact.

Rather than simply leave the story to profit off philosophical theorems, Salinger encourages the reader to find themselves in the confusing study & calculations of religious schools of thought. The learned disciple will be better suited to reflect on the texts that are mentioned. However, as a by-proxy devout child who once eagerly carried the theories of belief in her mind for an hour every Sunday, gnawing the flesh over the following days until the return to bent knees & ominous bells; Micheal Kozlov & Arsenius Troyepolsky’s “The Way of a Pilgrim” (1884) slithers within my grooves like the Great Beast Himself.

The formulaic nature of religion may appeal to those for whom the trees & rivers are not enough. I should not wish to insult any believers; I acknowledge the tenderness that might be amassed whence allowing another to comfort that which remains inside you.

However, as a reader & a veteran curious dissector, the Book of Virtues has never made much sense to me. I prefer stories that follow logic & insert sense into their folds. It is altogether more enjoyable for me to speak the language of the proverbial symmetry of life rather than question the intentions of a man who wishes me the gruelling heat of self-admonishment. Zooey’s company in this approach sinks me deeper into the well.

As Franny remains intent on enunciating the Jesus Prayer, also known as The Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”), the reader must choose whether to feel empathy towards her or maintain a neutral observer’s stance.

I return to the written words I have shared above. I too once kneeled at the feet of the Lord, spitting poison against my childhood person, calling to his gracious & demoralizing ear to pity me. Franny’s approach to the Jesus Prayer is not from a point of view of hope nor is she performing the repetition with the desire to be heard. Rather, as Zooey explains, Franny’s need for security in the logical patterns of the world has led her to mantras in which she might find comfort in the spoken word.

The will to proceed, speaking to a King of Kings, or a Son of God, or perhaps to the great wide nothing, does not alter Franny’s enthusiasm. Her physical illness as a consequence of knowing too much but not yet understanding what to do with her awareness & knowledge has left her in a position of vulnerability. It is only once Zooey heeds their mother’s call for help that Franny begins to make a breakthrough.

Perhaps those with siblings may find themselves once again in good company within these scenes, for it is not through malice or frustration that Zooey calls to Franny & speaks her name, rather, he does so with the desire of unburdening her of her hero’s journey.

The relationship that the siblings share sets the tone for their life. Their eldest brother committed suicide & yet, his presence is strong among them. They speak his name as though he were simply in the other room; no sibling is without the other even when alone in the woods. In some way, this security in one another allows them to better approach the deconstruction of their frustrations. Whereas some people seek religious teachings, the siblings—our beloved characters—lean on one another.

I found the nature of this book overwhelming. I took my time reading a few pages every night, praying silently that I could make the story last longer than the few pages Salinger gifted. Like many prayers, mine went unanswered. I turned therefore to the dogma I know well; life. In my experience, Franny & Zooey are people I know. In secretive & cunning ways, they are the Brain of my childhood TV programs; the literature lining the shelves of the adults I cherished; & they are my very own siblings, sneaking through the house with me, discussing the minutia of existence & teasing the borrow of a beloved book.

Ultimately, what makes Salinger a brilliant author is his ability to weave a shadow over the sea. His premise follows the animalistic need to behoove the isle of hymns. The songbird of his prose merits remembering as his gentle palm washes over the ink his nail beds watched form into words. In a truly perverse fashion, Salinger has made characters real, setting them into the room with the reader, hoofed feet & firm delicate cheeks leaning tenderly over the Philosopher’s Stone.