Franny, Zooey, and Janet


Subject: Franny, Zooey, and Janet
From: Sean Draine (seandr@microsoft.com)
Date: Mon Jun 11 2001 - 19:38:01 GMT


Thanks, Tim, for the pointer to the NYRB article, which was a refreshing
read. I first read Catcher when I was 17 and it didn't leave much of an
impression. It was F & Z that got me excited about Salinger, and I still
love these stories. Yes, the characters are precious and the writing
self-indulgent, but if a story works, these points are spurious. And
these two stories definitely work. (These criticisms were perhaps a
little ahead of their time, being more applicable to Seymour: An
Introduction and Hapworth.)

In my mind, Franny is the most efficient critique ever written of the
ambitious, arrogant, crude, and dull 20th-century American upper-middle
class male. And Zooey is an undeniably witty smart ass. He's the only
Glass child who actually lives up to the wise child hype, and the only
one strong enough to knock Buddy, Seymour, and Salinger off of their
tiresome Buddhist soapbox. Why couldn't Zooey have written S:AI?

Both stories have the feeling of being created, without derivation, out
of thin air.

-Sean

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