You open the book and just get started with the story. It has a simple plain cover, there is no blurb, no review excerpts, no description of the story on the cover, no description of the author, no notes in the end. The first thing I want to talk about is the physical book. So what do I think about ‘ Franny and Zooey‘? ‘ Zooey‘ is clearly a sequel to ‘ Franny‘ but the two stories can be read independently too. We learn a little bit about their other siblings and the interesting, happy and sad things that happened in their family in the past. They discuss literature, teaching, theatre, the educational system, spirituality, the meaning of life and other fascinating things during this conversation. The second part of the story features a long conversation between Zooey and his sister Franny. Bessie reminded me of the matriarchal characters in Anne Tyler’s books, especially ‘ Breathing Lessons‘, who try intervening and intruding frequently in their children’s lives. During this conversation, we discover that Bessie is worried about all her children, especially about Franny, and wants Zooey to talk to her and find out what is happening. In the initial part of the story, the conversation is between Zooey and his mother Bessie. The story ‘ Zooey‘ is also mostly a conversation, or rather two conversations. (In case you are wondering, because Zooey is such a unique name, the actress Zooey Deschanel, who used to star in the TV show ‘ New Girl‘, is named after this Zooey.) They have other siblings too.

We learn at the beginning of the story that Zooey is the brother of Franny and Franny is the youngest at home. In ‘ Zooey‘, the main characters are Zooey, his mother Bessie and Franny. But the conversation here is more sharper, less pleasant, making it very interesting. Reading this story is like watching the movie ‘ Before Sunrise‘ – there is no plot and it is all conversation. The conversation is about poetry, literature, theatre and related things. They are both students in college, and they meet during a weekend and have a long conversation. The main characters in ‘ Franny‘ are Franny and her boyfriend Lane. ‘ Franny‘ is around 30 pages long and ‘ Zooey‘ is around 100 pages long. ‘Franny and Zooey’ has two stories, ‘ Franny‘ and ‘ Zooey‘. I hoped to read ‘ Franny and Zooey‘ someday and find out how I felt about it. I had read ‘ The Catcher in the Rye‘ years back and I remember liking it, though I can’t remember much of the the plot now.

When I was discussing J.D.Salinger books with one of my friends a long time back, she told me that her favourite Salinger book was ‘ Franny and Zooey‘ and she liked it more than ‘ The Catcher in the Rye‘.

Salinger franny