Bad Glacier

Book 8: Franny & Zooey, by J.D. Salinger

Book 9: The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

Franny & Zooey is actually made up of two related stories smashed together into a short book. Franny and Zooey are two members of the Glass family, all of whom seem to be too damned smart and too damned witty for their own damned good. The Catcher in the Rye follows Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old sick of the “phonies” he sees everywhere, around New York after he fails out of school. It’s one of the better descriptions of adolescent angst I’ve read (not that I’ve read many of those). And it has nothing (well, almost nothing) to do with baseball. Not that I thought it did before I read it. That’s just silly. Hey, shut up! I don’t come to your blog and mock you!

Well, maybe I will now, jerk.

Both Franny and Holden are learning to deal with the ego, phoniness, and urge to conform they hate in others but still find in themselves. The books follow the different paths Franny and Holden take while trying to come to grips with these problems. They’re both quick reads, so it’s hard to say much about them without giving away something significant, so I won’t. They’re good books. Read them sometime.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2005 at 11:51 am and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.