“I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.” (Book post: “Franny and Zooey”)

At the end of my last post I said I wasn’t sure what book I was going to read next. Well I decided on “Franny and Zooey” by Salinger. Since it’s only 200 pages long, I just breezed through it and figured I’d post about it after I finished. So here I am.

Okay so let me try to summarize this novel. I’ve found with Salinger that he doesn’t really give you much of a plot but is very character driven. So this book is about the Glass family, predominantly the youngest of the kids. Franny is a twenty-year-old college girl and Zooey is a 25-year-old actor. I’m not exactly where Franny is going to school but they grew up in New York City. There’s a very short section in the beginning of the book from Franny’s point of view. She has a bit of a mental breakdown and goes home. The remainder of the novel is form Zooey’s perspective. There’s this weird in between part where this unknown narrator informs the reader a bit more about the Glass family history. The eldest boy, Seymour, killed himselt and and another brother died too but I don’t remember how. Seymour seems to be the important death.

Alright so the majority of this novel is dialogue. Franny’s meltdown seems to stem from her searching for a God she can believe in while also never having dealt with her eldest brother’s death. Zooey and she also seem to focus on what’s wrong with humanity and how everything a person does is just to fuel their ego.

I guess idk this was a heavy novel I’d have to read it again I’m sure to actually get it.

Also I kind of would consider Salinger’s stuff advanced YA because it seems like he prefers young characters and therefore deals with troubled young people.  So idk if you haven’t given the classics a chance maybe you could start with him.

I’m about to indulge in “The Dark Tower” series.