JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is an American classic. It fills school children with dread and apathy, but also solace; in red hunting hats, and love; in the imagination and longing in Holden’s voice. An anchoring touchstone to the stressed and insecure years spent in the storm of young adulthood. Or at least that’s what the book was to me.

Franny and Zooey is at once much the same and radically different. Where Holden’s voice becomes tiresome with age, the Glass family dramatics are timeless. Four Glass’ are important; Franny is Holden/Phoebe in college, suffering a very similar collapse in the opening chapters. Bessie Glass, the matriarchal tyrant, expounds on the love she once felt for 5 children to the 3 that remain. She’s defined by a fierce and unshakable eye for selfish self-sacrifice any mother would easily resonate with. Zooey, in the shadow of his older siblings and the experience of early adulthood, gives to Franny the questions that she hasn’t even gotten around to formulating. And answers that are only half complete, mired in his own inexperience, his own insecurities, and the quest he still has in front of him.

Buddy is the last character of importance, and his voice is only heard briefly, twice. Once via unedited letter to Zooey, and once as Zooey’s imitation over Buddy’s old bedroom phone. Salinger, in the book, uses Buddy as a mirror for his own voice, to be injected into the story. It’s a novel writing technique. I’ve seen similar in Vonnegut, but not anywhere else. I hypothesize that it takes an amount of creative credit before using an author character in a book without coming off as a cope-out or uninspired. Sort of “Let you story speak for you” criticism. Vonnegut needed it to remark on the differences between God, himself, and the story. Salinger used it to give greater perspective to his book and his characters. Buddy adds another dimension, separating Franny from Zooey, and Zooey from himself. It’s also a framing tool, giving structure to the family drama that Salinger stages.

I love this book. It’s my second reread and this time I’ve had such a deep connection with the other characters. Whereas before I used to be Franny listening to Zooey, I’m now most empathic to Bessie as her busy hands tries to take care of her remaining children. She sees them as nearly perfect, emphasized by her constant nagging of trivialities and inability to offer constructive help. [Like what on earth is chicken broth going to do? Why all the complaining about a phone?] She’s a capable mother, even though she herself is a flawed human being. And her own insecurities and realities are such an interesting dynamic compared to F&Z’s more relatable [yet philosophical] pondering.

Bessie reminds me much of my own mom. She’s not perfect, but within her domain, she’s an indomitable commander. That strict control is both a shield against the things outside that zone, but also a representation of the very best she can do to provide for her world entire. My mom can no longer solve my problems; they’ve out-scaled her. But she can still cook pounds of food, scrub my floors, buy my toilet paper in bulk from Costco [you think it’s bad, but it’s all I can do to keep her from doing goddamn beer runs]. She loves me, deeply and entirely, but when I’m in quiet desperation about my place in the world, confused about my career path, trying to somehow find someone to love me, and helplessly faking the confidence to wear rings in public; what’s the poor lady to do? [Answer: more food. And underwear. God, I love that lady.]

The Fat Lady is the last point I want to touch on. The Glass children have been raised in prosperity and expectation. I won’t say it’s the most difficult life circumstance, and it would be ungracious to offer the comparison. However, it’s a status that most of my peer group can identify with, certainly it’s a metaphor that fits my own childhood well. Life like that does come with its own set of challenges. Zooey and Franny [Holden too] have a hard time finding anything worth their efforts. Everyone’s a moron, every commitment a shame. What pursuit is worth this burden we call life, when everything is derivative and we’re all just phonies?

Enter the Fat Lady. She’s not appealing, in fact she downright unattractive. That’s not the point. She’s there, she’s watching, and your only job is to wow her, from the very bottom of her soul.

Which is to say, fuck who you’re doing it for. Fuck who’s watching. Do it because it’s there. Do it because perfection isn’t realistic, but it’s the only goal worth aiming at, every time, for yourself.

Zooey is quietly following suit, exemplified by the careful patience he takes in preparing to go out. Bath, shave, socks with garners. All for drinks with a friend he doesn’t even like. It resonates nicely against Seymore’s initial chide of shining his shoes.

But even Zooey doesn’t meet his older brother’s bar [Bessie’s “most intricately calibrated, her kindest son”]. It’s that last page where Salinger puts it as plain as he can. Seymore is the dead ghost that haunts this entire family, because they still live in the shadow of his life. He treated every sap, sucker, genius, joe-shmoe, and the world as an audience entire, as though they each contained Christ’s love within them.

Now I’m not religious. Although I’ve got plenty of curiosity and respect towards this universal quest to seek God, redemption, and peace. And Salinger is no apostle. But this is it. This is what we’re aiming for. To treat the fat, veiny, unkind, cancerous lady with the love and respect of our ultimate best effort. Because there’s precious little time we have here. There’s precious few opportunities to be present.

Franny and Zooey is required reading. It’s required because Salinger is painting a mundane drama that reverberates against every single young adult person, just as Holden Caufield does for every sadboi angst-y teenager. Yet it’s this unremarkable few hours that perfectly encapsulates the entirety of a family in heartbreaking honesty. It culminates in delivering a final manifesto of a life sentence, the very basis for which human experience should be guided by, its most fulfilling pilgrimage, in the occasionally uneven, awkward, and flawed embrace the people you most care and admire. It’s easily devoured in a day or two of reading, and it worth revisiting as often as you can, in any frame of mind. 4.96/5.00