frannie and zooey
Lagusta P. Yearwood (ly001f@uhura.cc.rochester.edu)
Mon, 11 Aug 1997 22:58:34 -0400 (EDT)
a friend of mine just read _frannie and zooey_ and had some questions
about the religious aspects of it. i thought it might be interesting to
post what i wrote to her to everyone here.
probably this isn't the right time to talk about f&z since laura and sonny
have brought up so many interesting "teddy" points...but oh well.
:)
here are some thoughts i have on f&z. ive also used the book _jd
salinger_ by james lundquist a bit, in case you want to read it. its
really interesting to go back and read this criticism about him, because
it makes me realize so many new ideas and i get all excited about salinger
all over again.
(and to will, re: your comments on literary critism about salinger from
weeks ago: yes,
you were right, reading a little more of his critism in order to write
this did give me lots of new insights and i realized that there are fresh,
deep ideas and it's a mistake to write them off. sometimes it just gets
tiring when you get the feeling that they're overinterpreting and
therefore stripping the writing of it's intrinsic, basic beauty.)
anyway, rough thoughts:
it helps if you consider this novel in very zen terms. if you
don't know much about zen, i think i can explain as i explain.
major themes for the glass family (i got these from the jds book
by lundquist): "obscenity of life, redeeming value of love, zen emphasis
on transcending ego."
i guess i'll say a little about what i think each means.
"basic obscenity of life"
is just how horrifying the world can be. think of lane, frannie's
boyfriend. he's so caught up in things that don't matter, like
the fact that one of his teachers thinks he should publish some silly
paper. he's stripped his major (english) of all the beauty it
possesses by reducing it to terms of papers, and having enough of a
knowledge of a subject to show off but not a deep enough understanding to
realize and appreciate the beauty and power of words. he (and everyone he
represents, obviously) does this with all of life, but i'm using english
as an example because it's something dear to my heart. this (what he and
those like him do) is obscene.
"redeeming value of love"
there are several interpretations of this, and i'm fairly foggy on them.
one is, i think, just realizing that love can solve more
problems than hate because it is...well, you know. yada yada yada..i don't
really feel like talking about love, its too broad. i guess it's just that
if you are fairly loving, not a hateful person, if you let the terrific
things in life nourish you and keep you sane, you can deal with this
overwhelming obscenity and hopefully not contribute to it too much.
"zen emphasis on transcending the ego"
zen says that the only way to enlightenment is by realizing that
fundamentally the world and all it's creations are empty and false. a zen
master would say that you are enlightened when you destroy the ego
(because you realize that it is empty as well), and it no longer rules
your life.
salinger was a zen freak, and i believe that he was trying to
show that frannie has become sick because of her interaction with this
obscene world, the same phony-filled world that holden caufield in CITR
became so tired of. she's trying to figure out a way to reconcile herself
to living in this horrible world without succumbing to it, without
becoming a phony and without depriving herself of the incredible joy that
the world can give.
maybe this conflict is a zen koan. a koan is an extremely difficult puzzle
designed to make a zen neophyte think in a certain way. koans are
unsolvable by logic, which is what zen wants to get rid of because it
says it is ego-driven. one can only solve a koan by approaching it from many
angles and finally getting so tired with it that logic breaks down, the
ego malfunctions and then finally real understanding can come about. when
frannie has broken down from trying to figure it out. when she lets go of
logic and concerns, when she is not so tied to the jesus-prayer or
anything like that to save her, only then will she be able to live in the
world and be happy again.
frannie is trying to use the jesus prayer to get out of the
physical world and transcend her ego, but it will not work because she is
still so tied to that world. well... that seems to make sense, and i know
i've said it twice, but i can't quite figure out how. time for a hint
from the lundquist book. it says (and this seems to make sense) she's too
critical. she misses the "essential unity of all things" because
she is too harsh on the world. because of this perspective, she withdraws
from the world of the phonies, but cannot achieve enlightenment because
she is still too critical of it, and therefore tied to it.
now in the end, has she become enlightened? i definitely think so,
because 1) "she lay just lay quiet, smiling at the ceiling." notice the
word just. very zen-ish. she was just there, just being. 2) "a break in
the dial tone, of course, followed the formal break in the connection. she
appeared to find it extraordinarily beautiful to listen to..." she's made
her peace with the world, she's not upset with the phonies and their
creations. 3) the frequent references to "knowing exactly what to do." she
no longer has to be indecisive and halting, because now she has the
answers. there is no hesitation, only the fluidity of a simple life.
so, bananafishies, what do you think? did i screw up any major points?
lagusta