The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: side_show on August 01, 2005, 03:54:51 pm
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Hi all,
It's August, have all of you got your copies of Franny and Zooey? I've started reading, and am enjoying it thus far.
Things I've noticed early on: Salilnger's distaste for "phoney-ism," his study of the disenchantment of youth and the search for the authentic self are all present, as they are in Catcher in the Rye.
While reading this, especially since I've just started on "Zooey," I can't help but wonder if The Royal Tannenbaums was inspired by this book in some ways- the tone of Wes Anderson films in general reminds me a bit of Salinger come to think of it. Sort of a look at an upper middle to upper class society of academics...
Alright everybody, discuss away!
PS: As for me, I'm changing ISP's, and I have to turn my modem in today and wait for my new ISP's modem to arrive by courier over the next few days, so I may be absent for a little while as I wait on Canada Post to do their thing.
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Having not read Salinger for a very long time, I completed "Franny" and mentioned to my wife that, to me, it seemed to evoke (to me) F. Scott Fitzgerald. Then I read the first few pages, the intro part of "Zooey" and sure enough, he mentions (as the writer, a character mentioned in the third person) being influenced by F Scott Fitzgerald. So I'm kind of feeling like maybe I'll do OK in this book discussion thingy.
I'm not sure I could write this "goddam" tightly; so seemingly spare and yet descriptive. It's so mechanically flawless - almost like a work of literary engineering. Very interesting what reading this is evoking in me.
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What's the opposite of a luddite?
I have the damn book sitting here, unread, because I have been on the go so much and I don't feel like carrying it in addition to my PDA and iPod.
Can anyone recommend a place to download ebooks (either in PDB, PDF, or some format I can read on a Palm Tungsten T5)?
Man, paper books are looking so primative to me these days.
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I don't really want to go first. I'm not the literary scholar here. I read mostly for enjoyment, I rarely grasp the subtext or deeper meaning or whatever. I can't say that I really understand what Salinger is trying to tell us. The first impression I have is that I deeply dislike virtually every character in this book. They are all very unpleasant people. My second impression is they all smoke a hell of a lot. The author should try to use something else as a prop at least occasionally. I do understand that Salinger is making a statement about phonies and egotism but I can't say I really know what conclusion he is leading us toward. Use your ego in the service of the lord? that doesn't seem very satisfying somehow.
Ok, i'll step aside and let the big brains take over.
~Paul
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This was the 50's, Paul. People smoked then, even on TV.
So, I dug my copy out of the shelves and I've been trying to give it a very close reading. I'm underlining! Anyhow, I happened to notice something scrawled on the inside back cover. I don't know when I wrote it, but it does pretty much summarize my opinion of Salinger.
"JDS = a stylist w/o being sterile. Manages to convey character & emotion in a consciously artful way."
Paul, I was surprised by your statement that you don't like any of the characters. They all seem convincingly human to me and thereby likeable. May I suggest you give the book another reading. It's pretty dang short. Also, I would ask why it matters whether you like the characters. Is a story only enjoyable if the partici##### are somehow admirable?
It's hard for me to imagine reading this book without some idea of the backstory/context. Salinger gives you some idea of who the Glasses are, but the family history and characterizations are pretty well developed in other works. Seymour, as always, is a looming presence over the family. You could argue that Franny and Zooey should be read last among the Glass family works. It's about the youngest family members and it is somewhat aided by an understanding of the family history.
I'm also impressed by how Salinger manages to incorporate some fairly sophisticated theological ideas without become dry or preachy.
It's unfortunate that Salinger is perceived as a writer for adolescents. I guess it's based on Catcher in the Rye, which I consider the least of his works. And I wouldn't deny that all of his writing appeals (by design?) to the young adult mind. But it's a crime to cast Salinger as just an emo/YA/coming of age writer. He writes just about the tightest prose of anybody in the 20th century. The fact that his stories are especially appealing to young adults should not diminish that accomplishment.
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Reading these posts makes me remember my last post-adolescent reading of this book pretty vividly - As a grownup I felt that Salinger's characters were always going on about how they hated pretentious people, when they were themselves the most pretentious people I'd ever met in fiction or real life. Which was unbelievably irritating.
I think that's why he's a better writer for adolescents than adults - nearly all of us sympathize with those sentiments as adolescents, but as adults a lot of us just want to slap those kids silly.
Or maybe I'm just old, shallow and curmudgeonly.
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throughout Franny, i was thinking this reading was going to suck. Lane and Franny were horribly unsympathetic for me. I wanted to put a tire iron through Lane's face, and shake Franny until she got a fuck*n clue.
Upon getting into the Zooey, i remembered why i had bought 9 stories years ago. This person can write like a magician can make coins disapear.
Regardless, to Answer AW's question to Paul (sorry Paul), it's important to _me_ to have sympathetic characters in what i read, because i deal with humanity on a daily basis, and am forced to deal with many unsympathetic characters. I do not want to read about them in my "me time". Rather, i don't mind reading about them as a Sympathetic Character's foil or nemesis or etc. But, even then, i guess i prefer there to be some sympathy for the antagonist. Otherwise, why do i care? and if i do not care, why am i reading it?
Which is what i was thinking when i finished Franny. "Why did i read this?" Then, when i finished Zooey, i knew why.
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Paul, you say that you feel all the characters are unpleasant. How much would you attribute that to the characters personal levels of unhapppiness?
For instance, i would not see most of them as unpleasant, perhaps possibly or occassionally unpleasant to be around, but interesting and and complicated. However, they all seem to have low radition levels of unhappiness eminating from them. Also, you strike me (via msg board vibes) as a generally happy person. Is that the dischord that strikes them as unpleasant?
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My wife asked me last night what this book was about. It's actually not the easiest question to answer.
I like it and I started to respond to the above, but I still have a few pages left...so I'll hold off.
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I should probably respond to the questions that were raised by my earlier post, but I don't have time right now, being at work, but I'd love to hear what the rest of you thought of the book anyway.
~Paul
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Okay, I've been trying to post a frelling review here for two days, and I can't. I don't know what's up. I'll keep trying, though.
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I am having such a hard time getting through this book people. Zooey's finally out of the tub, and he's about to shave. Woo. Hoo.
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I guess it wouldn't help if I told you that you just read the best part...
<snicker> joking...
This book is a journey, not a destination.
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Okay, so I finished the book today. And I have to admit, the benefits of this book club to me, is that I completed reading a book I would have otherwise given up on. Overall, I say I agree with wombat that Salinger writes books best suited to those of an age and mindset of youthful rebellion, unwisened by having lived much life. The me of ten years ago would have probably liked this book.
Asherdan, yes the "fat lady on the porch" thing is a nice pay off. I really liked that image, and I really wonder if Salinger got this strong concept/image in his head, and basically built a whole book around it. I don't know that the supposed "pay off" is worth the journey. The book lacked the sort of moments through-out that I need to hold my interest, and only became interesting to me in the Franny section and in the last few pages of Zooey.
I found it a frustrating book, as noted earlier. I agree that characters do not need to be likeable, but these characters aren't unlikeable, detestable or villainous (all interesting incentives for me to want to figure them out) - they are just annoying to the point where I built a strong psychological distance from them to the point where I just wanted to get away from them most of the time, not continue reading. I was deeply annoyed at the whole bloody family. Zooey as a know it all, Bessie as being so damn much of a mother... Franny, for being a whiney baby, Seymour for failing his family in his absence, and Buddy, for being a weirdly looming presence as the absent, but always "there" narrator. This is exactly like being part of a family - for each person/character to be able to get totally on your nerves, but each in a different way. I dread visiting my family, just like I dreaded picking up this book.
The narrative of the book came off as clunky to me. We start with Franny, and we're presented with what seems to be your standard omnipotent 3rd person narrative. Then we shift to Zooey, and we get a weird first person narrative that seems to be Salinger himself using Buddy as a mouthpiece, "the general reader will no doubt jump to the heady conclusion that the writer of the letter and I are one and the same person. Jump he will, and, I'm afraid, jump he should." Then we get the letter as a strong first person (Buddy) as narrator, followed buy the rest of the story, where Buddy sort of recedes to the background for the most part, and it begins to feel like and omnipotent 3rd person narrative again, and I started wondering how Buddy, who wasn't there, would know anything about what went on. Only then I started to wonder when Zooey impersonates Buddy on the phone as to exactly what the hell is going on... Why did Salinger create such a strange narrative technique? The only sense I can make of it is that he's made a self conscious effort by creating such a weird narrative structure, to keep himself as author present in the story in a awkwardly incongruous way.
Overall, this is not a book that I enjoyed. That said, I did like the entire Franny section, and there were moments and fragments that I enjoyed in the Zooey section.
Some favorite quotes:
Lane blowing steam: “the think you could say he lacks is testicularity. Know what I mean?”
Franny of acting: “to be backstage after the play was over. All those egos running around feeling terribly charitable and warm. Kissing everybody and wearing their makeup all over the place, and then trying to be horribly natural and friendly when your friends came backstage to see you. I just hated myself….” This is a perfect portrait of how I feel about theatre sometimes, even though I usually love my work, the ego behind performance is… insulting. I don’t know anything about Salinger, apart from the fact that he’s some sort of a recluse, but he must have some experience with the stage, actors, theatre life.
Buddy of those detestable academics: “no doubt we all deserve the dark, wordy, academic deaths we all sooner or later die.”
Zooey on the melancholy state of mind “ ‘God damn it,’” he said, ‘there are nice things in the world – and I mean nice things. We’re all such morons to get so sidetracked.’”
Zooey on art: “An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.”
Anyone else have thoughs, comments?