Salinger writes of his Glass family stories: “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. It’s why I like them, I relate to them, and why I annually check in to see how they are still faring. That observation is true enough, too-all member of the Glass family are over the top, theatrical, flamboyant, chock full of ego. Narrator Buddy Glass (the family writer-in-residence and Salinger’s alter ego) describes he and his siblings during their daily appearances on a radio program, “It’s a Wise Child”, from 1927 to 1943 as “insufferably ‘superior’ little bastards that should have been drowned or gassed at birth”. Franny is the youngest Glass, and Zooey is the second youngest of seven uniquely gifted children born from 1920s Vaudevillian parents. It’s two stories in a narrative series of stories about the Glass family that takes place in 1955 New York City’s upper east side. Both of these assessments are true.įranny and Zooey is really two stories published together in one book. Some critics suggested it was an 'appallingly bad story', stagey and self indulgent, but that it also showed Salinger's 'evolving beliefs”. Every time I read it, it affects me differently-depending where I am in my life. This current reading, I’m looking at the theme of intellectual entitlement.Īt once both a mystical story and a love story, at its publication in 1961, it was described both as a modern Zen tale and as a metaphor for modern society. I usually re-read it in the spring to set my compass for the rest of the year, spring being the time of renewal.

Without exaggeration, I have read Franny and Zooey every year since I was in college, so about 40 times.

Franny and zooey book