Reaction to Franny and Zooey by J.D Salinger

 

Franny and Zooey is a book that follows two child stars who were once panelist on the ‘Wise Child’ a radio show, with their other 5 siblings. With further research I found that the book is an adaption of an article published in the New Yorker magazine. The articles usually followed the Glass Family. In this case it follows Franny and Zooey Glass the two youngest of the Glass family. There are two sections in the book, Franny and Zooey. At first the two sections don't seem connected at all, I was surprised to find that in the second section it mentions that Franny is Zooeys younger sister.

I was very surprised when the book mentions Franny as the youngest sibling in the second section, I had no clue that the two protagonist would be related. The two sections did not  seem connected at first, because of how the author chooses to write them differently. It seems that it is written by two different people, in the first section it is written in third person by a speaker outside of the text, but in the second section, it states that the speaker is Zooeys ‘eldest living brother’ Buddy. In the first section Franny doesn’t mention siblings once, I assumed later on it was because she thought they had too much ego(since they were on the Wise Child), which she despises in most people.

Ego becomes a very big theme in the book, it’s mentioned almost every other page especially in the second section. Franny brings up that one of her professors are completely egoistic, to her older brother Zooey. Zooey begins to lecture her on ego, he tries to show that she can't judge people on it. He doesn't want her to be filled with hatred. He tries to tell her that he understands where shes coming from, because there are people that can be annoying and think they're always right, like his own bosses but that would be no reason to hate someone, they aren’t bad people. I believe the only reason Franny  believes they have ego is because shes the one that thinks shes always right. She believes she knows everything from what she has learned her whole life of 20 years.

             I would also like to point out something that caught my eyes, a few oxymorons placed about the text. As a child my aunt got a book from the store on all these ‘adult’ words and the first one she ever taught me, and only one that I remember was oxymoron.  Although I only noticed two, Salinger probably put more that I skimmed over by mistake. The first one I noticed was “an honest con man” It was funny to me, con men are anything but honest, thats how they make their living. The second oxymoron I saw was “unsentimental mementos.” This also rolls off the tongue nicely.  A memento is defined as an object kept as a reminder or souvenir of a person or event, if it was unsentimental then it wouldn't be worth keeping.

               I know from reading this book, I will be picking up Catcher in the Rye for my next reaction paper. J.D Salinger is a fabulous writer. The way he shaped his words really intrigued me. At times there were words I didn't understand because of the time difference but for the most part I understood it. The conversations were great, they sounded like actual conversations that go on between two people in our everyday life. The one thing I didn't love about this book was that it only had two chapters and wasn’t separated into more because then I never put the book down.