This reader’s guide was contributed by Leslie Gleue. Thanks, Leslie!
Publication Details:
First published in The New Yorker on January 29, 1955 – pages 24-32, 35-43. Later published in the same book as “Zooey” in a volume called Franny and Zooey, which was published by Little, Brown in the Fall of 1961.
Character List:
Franny Glass – a young college student traveling to visit her boyfriend for “the Yale game.” Franny is the youngest of the Glass family’s children.
Lane Coutell – Franny’s boyfriend
Plot Synopsis:
Franny travels by train to meet her boyfriend, Lane, for a fun weekend of football and friends. Things seem off when they meet at the platform, and they decide to go to a restaurant that is popular with the intellectual crowd. Franny is nervous and out of sorts, chain-smoking and barely eating. Lane tries to have a “normal” conversation with her, but she is distracted. Lane gets insulted at several different points of the conversation. She excuses herself to go the restroom, and comes back feeling better. She finally tells him about a book she’s carrying with her, called “The Way of the Pilgrim.” It’s about a man who travels travels to master the art of continuous prayer through something called the Jesus Prayer. To do this, one repeats “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner” over and over until it becomes a part of their very breath and heartbeat. This appeals to Franny, because it represents purification. Lane is bored by this and discounts the idea. Franny gets up to go to the bathroom again, and faints. When she comes to, Lane suggests that she get some rest. She stares at the ceiling, silently repeating the Jesus Prayer.
The New Yorker, May 4, 1957 pages 32-42, 44, 47-48, 50, 52,54,57-59, 62, 64, 67-68, 70, 73-74, 76-78, 80-82, 87-90, 92-96, 99-102, 105-106, 108-112, 115-122, 125-139 (original appearance). Later published by Little Brown as Franny and Zooey in 1961, and dedicated to William Shawn.
Character List
Frances Glass (“Franny”)
A 20 year old college student
Zachary Martin Glass (“Zooey”)
Zooey is 25 years old. He is considered one of the most attractive and successful of the Glass children. It is noted that he is a successful television actor.
Bessie Glass
Irish-born family matriarch. Bessie worries about her children who have all seemed to grow up almost by themselves after years of success on “It’s a Wise Child.”
Les Glass
The absent father, Les is more or less only mentioned in “Zooey.” He is of Jewish descent and he and Bessie were successful Vaudevillians
Buddy Glass
Buddy is the second-oldest of the Glass children, he teaches at a women’s college.
Seymour Glass
Seymour has been dead 13 years during the course of events that composes “Zooey.” Franny says she wants to talk to Seymour and that doing so is the only thing that will make her feel better.
Plot Synopsis
“Zooey” continues the story of Franny’s “spiritual awakening” on Monday, two days after Franny’s trip to Princeton. The novella also gives the reader additional information about the unusual upbringing of the Glass children, whose radio appearances as child geniuses, has created a unique bond among them. Salinger indicates even more in “Zooey” than in other Glass family stories that the Glass siblings have a unique understanding of one another based on this shared experience.
The narrative opens with Zooey, smoking and soaking in a hot bathtub, reading a four-year old letter from his brother, Buddy. The letter encourages Zooey to continue pursuing his acting career. Zooey’s mother, Bessie, enters the bathroom, and the two have a long discussion, wherein Bessie expresses her worries about Franny, whose existential anxiety seen in “Franny” has progressed to a state of emotional collapse. During the conversation, Zooey vacillates between a sort of tit-for-tat banter with his mother and a downright rude dismissal of her and repeatedly asks that she leave. Bessie accepts Zooey’s behavior, and quips that he’s becoming more and more like his brother Buddy.
After Bessie leaves, Zooey gets dressed and moves into the living room, where he finds Franny on the sofa with her cat Bloomberg, and begins speaking with her. After upsetting Franny by questioning her motives for reciting the “Jesus Prayer,” Zooey goes into Seymour and Buddy’s former bedroom and reads the back of their door, which is covered in philosophical and literary quotations. After contemplation, Zooey telephones Franny, pretending to be their brother Buddy. Franny eventually acknowledges the ruse, but she and Zooey continue to talk. Knowing that Franny reveres their oldest brother, Seymour – the spiritual leader of the family, who committed suicide years earlier – Zooey shares with her some words of wisdom that Seymour once gave him. At the end of the call, as the fundamental “secret” of Seymour’s advice is revealed, Franny seems, in a moment reminiscent of a mystical satori, to find profound existential illumination in what Zooey has told her.
