on re-reading Franny

I used to write here sometimes and never left but sometimes read, sometimes didn't. Never forgot about Salinger, just "moved on" to reading other things all the time. But last week, on the plane from Milan to New York I picked up Franny and re-read it all, straight through no searching for specific words no nothing. just re-read it with the knowledge I have of it (which is pretty detailed as it was for a long time the story that meant everything) and found so much I had never seen before. Perhaps it is the result of 2 years of reading, of living, and I saw both. Having now read Fear and Trembling, most of the first Pilgrim Book, over half of Kafka's short stories, and god only remembers what else I have read that is directly related -- muchless all this other stuff that got thrown in a long the way, having lived in New York for two years, and having lived long enough to find myself the same age as Franny ... what I found amazed me. It was not so much that I understood better. Because in the places I did it was really not so important, but more that the book was beginning to open up in a million directions it didn't before. Excuse me, I mean the story Franny isolated. What I found was that I didn't need Zooey as much as I did before. There were simply all of these beautiful moments that frightened me because they were so familiar but from myself, not from the book. Moments I must have over looked while searching for references to what I was concerned with. Moments which are so far beyond these intellectual references and are simply beautiful moments -- the way she stares at pieces of light, these sorts of things that are so small and yet open up and become so incredibly large. It's not to say it's "realistic" and that is good. It seems that it is nothing but pure beauty.

This is rather small. This isn't a statement. There is no thesis. But all I can say is that story is so perfect and beautiful. All alone or together. And I mentioned it to a friend, who said to me "yes, I re-read it last month. Because it's like takling to you." Which was by far one of the most beautiful things anyone has ever said. And if I use that word too much, excuse me. I'm just a rather pantheistic in nature in that I find the most amazing things in real life - in the way the light is in my room at certain times of day, the way it glows inwards and makes the bricks shimmer, and bleeds through the blinds. Anyway, I wish I had a question. I wish this post was justified. But I think it's all okay, anyway.

Catherine

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Received on Thu Sep 12 15:00:17 2002