Adventures in Reading: "Franny and Zooey" by JD Salinger

This book was a much needed breath of fresh air after "Anna Karenina".

"Franny and Zooey" is actually two related short stories in one book. "Franny" is about Franny Glass, and it's more or less a vignette that takes place one afternoon in her life. "Zooey" focus on Zooey Glass, Franny's older brother, but it delves much more deeply into the entire family. It builds off of "Franny" by providing a greater narrative for the scene that took place during that story.

Here's why I loved this book: Salinger is a genious with characters. Now, this is my first and only Salinger read to date, so I can only use "Franny and Zooey" as a basis for my statement, but based on the fact that people love his writing, I'm going to venture a guess that his characterization is great in everything he does. I mean, there's just no way this is a fluke.

And he is now my hero of characterization. He really creates a character: motivation, habits, mannerisms, speech patterns, quirks, strengths and weaknesses...he does it all. I realized this when I found myself a bit annoyed with the way Zooey spoke. His repetition of certain words started to grate on me, and then it dawned on me...maybe it grated on Salinger too. Or maybe, just maybe, this was supposed to make me dislike Zooey a bit. Maybe Salinger was telling me something about Zooey's character with his somewhat annoying way of speaking. This might sound really elementary as far as writing and reading goes, and well, it is, but the fact remains that characterization is usually really difficult for me, and this is the first time that it's clicked in my head the way characters should be written. That's not to say that everyone should write in the same style as Salinger, but I do think that making a character come alive is one of a writer's main jobs. Having a concrete example of how to do this that I can come back to again and again is going to be pretty invaluable!

So there it is. Two excellent examples of characterization. Well done, Mr. Salinger!

Oh, and PS: it took me less than a week to read this thing. After "Anna Karenina", it felt like the blink of an eye!