Re: franny & zooey

--- Jim Rovira <jrovira@drew.edu> wrote:
> This is all REALLY interesting and pretty plausible.
> See, I think you can
> say that Salinger "intended" the Franny character in
> "Zooey" to be
> understood as the same Franny in "Franny" AFTER he
> wrote "Zooey," but not at
> the time he wrote "Franny"

yes, i agree. for at the time of writing 'franny', he
had no idea of writing 'zooey'. i contend it wasn't
until *after* he published 'franny' in jan '55 that he
envisioned the complete glass clan. for in just 10
months later he is publishing 'raise high' which
formally introduces the glasses. i think it rather
likely that if franny was a glass in her story, he
would have included some names for 'my brothers'; as
in 'dinghy' specific names appear.

-- but, of course, this
> requires study outside
> the texts themselves -- we need to look at the texts
> closely _within the
> context of their publishing history_.

well, yes, ultimately, we would need these and one
wonders if they'll ever be available.

the only 'dating' fact i know of is that there is
supposedly a reference to claire's suitcase and
possibly her clothes (i think it was?) in the story.
this doesn't help us with how much of 'zooey' existed
at the time of 'fanny's' publication. but it does
demolish alsen's contention that 'franny' was written
before 'teddy'. i'm pretty sure jds didn't meet
claire until substantially after the pub date of
'teddy'.

> So which authorial intent is correct? What Salinger
> intended when he wrote
> "Franny," or how he intended "Franny" to be
> understood when he wrote
> "Zooey"? You can't have both in this case.
>
>

we *do* know that salinger did NOT intend franny to be
perceived as pregnant. ben yagoda in his history of
the 'new yorker' quotes from a jds letter in the
archives re this. my feeling is that salinger, in
formulating the clan after jan '55, felt that 'franny'
and franny were too good to leave out of it. and so,
with the character franny fresh in mind, 'raise high'
starts off with franny as an infant being read to by
seymour.
 
--kim

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Received on Tue Oct 29 12:08:10 2002