The family drama is both history and the interweaving of it. As we discussed learning about Seymour Glass and the effect his loss had on his wife and her mother in 1948's "A Perfect Day For Bananafish," the Glass family weathers the storm much later. J.D. Salinger's massive success with 1951's "The Catcher In The Rye," made him the story first. When your voice speaks for those who feel they are disaffected and therefore unheard, suddenly everyone listens. At first, Salinger was boastful and loud. When asked the boilerplate question regarding his influences, Salinger reeled off a laundry list: "A writer, when asked to discuss his craft, ought to get up and call out in a loud voice just the names of the writers he loves. I love Kafka, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Proust, O'Casey, Rilke, Lorca, Keats, Rimbaud, Burns, E. Bronte, Jane Austen, Henry James, Blake, and Coleridge."
In 1952, Salinger began his pursuit of Zen Buddhism. In 1953, Salinger moved out of New York City to idyllic Cornish, NH. In 1955, Salinger married Claire Douglas, a student at Radcliffe. Just one semester away from graduation, he insisted that she drop out of school. They had children and Salinger's affections changed. His interest in Zen Buddhism waned, and he even cloistered himself away to work on a story he described as following "the new isms." Douglas is the inspiration for "Franny," a short story that Salinger wrote for The New Yorker in 1955. Its complement "Zooey" followed two years later in novella form in the same magazine. (Just for fun, after you read it, see how many details above and even the authors' names match what is in the body of the work.)
In summary, "Franny and Zooey" is Salinger's needing two stories to explain (in part) one existential crisis. "Franny" has an omniscient all-knowing narrator whose unbiased detachment and sense of detail suggest that they are not a member of the Glass family. We first learn about Franny through a letter she hastily wrote to her boyfriend Lane. Lane is an Ivy Leaguer through and through. Clearly devoted to his pursuit of a Literature degree, he carries himself above the others especially thanks to his most recent paper (possibly) being chosen for publication.
Weirdly enough, Franny's letter to Lane opens with "So if I spell anything wrong have the kindness to overlook it." Franny's letter is rash and disorganized, almost as if she is trying the hardest to communicate her devotion to Lane and this impending weekend trip to New Haven - more than celebrate/consummate their love. ("Do you know I've only danced with you twice in eleven months?") When Lane meets her at the platform getting off the train, that is the purest it will ever be. The narrator states "he was the only one who really knew Franny's coat" and when he kisses her "he even kisses her coat lapel, as though it were a perfectly desirable organic extension of the person herself."
The problems begin when they actually have to talk to each other. Franny has been people-watching on the train and gathered enough information to deduce who belongs and who does not. Immediately, she feels her enthusiasm is somewhat misplaced and mistrusts what she says (the chilling Dorothy Parker-esque exchange between them in the cab on the way to eat "Oh, it's lovely to see you! I've missed you" which her internal voice responds with no feeling but guilt.)
The situation escalates at lunch. Lane, feeling confident (perhaps over-confident as he has the home-field advantage) "monopolizes" the conversation until Franny has to clear her throat before speaking. He boastfully says "testicularity" first, and thinking Franny did not hear it changes it to "masculinity." The narrator has led us to believe that cashmere-clad Franny is the most outstanding-looking woman in this grill. Lane's behavior indicates he is more focused on himself, especially when he suggests that maybe later he could read the aforementioned paper to her aloud. While every budding relationship (especially maintained at a distance) has its vicissitudes, Salinger is playing this one as the plot driving his story. Every word, pause, and non-emphasized word has consequences. Yet, Salinger is also not necessarily trying to make us as readers sympathize with Franny either - when you make that decision is entirely up to you. However, one fact is certain. The frustration of Franny is growing and like Lane, we do not know precisely why.
Nonetheless, Lane presses on as himself, no more noble/foolish than any other BMOC-type student who needs a pecking order as his motivation to work harder. He is so often talking too much, misreading any cues, and growing more self-absorbed that Franny has no choice but to lash out. Whether this is out of love or even friendship remains to be seen. However, what we are allowed to see via Salinger is a woman in crisis. Growing up in the Glass family may have made Franny just as blind to the world as Lane is becoming. There is a little green book in her purse that has changed her so dramatically, she is afraid to tell anyone - especially Lane.
Without ruining the revelation, that book is the uniting element of both "Franny" and "Zooey."
Out of the seven Glass children, Zooey is probably the most outwardly appealing (thanks to a star turn on the show "It's a Wise Child") and inwardly self-centered. "Zooey" opens with a brief introduction from an unknown older brother as Zooey sits in the bath reading a four-year-old letter from his eldest living brother, Buddy (which is also the moniker he lovingly gives to his baby sister, Franny.) Like Franny's letter, Buddy's letter to Zooey is far less concerned with the events of the day in his life than communicating and emphasizing the life lessons that Zooey should be most attentive toward. Unlike Franny's letter, the love between brothers is very palpable and true. There is a pride that Buddy carries for Zooey which infuses much of what he chooses to write ("I wish to God that I had some idea what will happen to you as an actor. You're a born one, certainly. Even Bessie (their mother) knows that.")
When the sanctity of Zooey's bath is violated by Bessie, the family dynamics that are hinted at in Buddy's letter (and hidden in Franny's reaction matrix with Lane) emerge. Salinger allows them to unfold as the distance between Bessie and Zooey increases, the claustrophobia of the bathroom provides tension and provides an almost full family history including the aforementioned eldest Glass brother, Seymour (referred to here many times as simply "S.") Like Franny's dueling with Lane, Zooey's treatment of his mother is at times understandable (Zooey feels threatened by her entering this space where he is clearly not a child anymore) and exaggerated (Zooey insults her both knowingly and unknowingly implying a childhood that has been somewhat interrupted.)
While Zooey is getting ready to go talk about his budding career as an actor, Franny is home recovering on the family sofa. Bessie has been unable to break through to her. The more she tries to help, the more her frustration takes over (like mother, like daughter - weirdly enough.) While Salinger is offering the Glass family to us yet again as the quintessential Fifties American family, he is extra careful to show their flaws not as humanizing but as traits we all have in common. As Zooey valiantly works with his sister, the words of Seymour offer the most comfort. The Glass family may be upper middle class/Upper West Side/well-educated/well off. However, at heart, they are a family of loss. They deal with it as any family of any demographic/background/nationality would -through the preservation and restoration of love.
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
