Franny and Zooey can’t talk their way to a story

J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey isn’t really a novel as far as I can tell. I understand Salinger’s immense talent and popularity, but I just don’t get this one. The whole book is really just 3 conversations. There is no real action here, and I almost feel like it is just Salinger telling us his views on various subjects and life in general, through the characters here.

The book is two short stories. The first, Franny, has her meeting her boyfriend Lane for dinner. He regales her with his stories of college and social life, and has a definitely high view of himself. She however deteriorates mentally as the night progresses. Lane doesn’t know it, but Franny is just bored with him and has been repeating a mantra all night. She tells Lane about the book she has been reading, about a pilgrim that gets closer to enlightenment by repeating the same prayer over and over again. Finally she becomes so overwhelmed with the whole situation that she collapses.

The second story is about Zooey, who we learn quickly is Franny’s brother. They come from a large and very well-thought of family, where all of the children are extremely intelligent, but that intelligence comes with high expectations which has all ready caused the eldest to commit suicide. Zooey spends the first half of this story talking to him mother (who he halfway despises for how she raised him, calling her by name instead of “mom”), and the second half talking to Franny. Again, the reader is subjected to Salinger force feeding us his views through his characters’ dialogue. There is even less action in this story than the first, and 90% of this story is just dialogue.

I can hardly call this is a novel, as a novel (for me) contains a story. There is no real story here, unless you count the background of the characters, as referenced in the conversations they have. As I don’t really care what Salinger’s religious views were, this book holds no value for me. I read through it all despite wanting to give up when it became apparent that nothing was going to happen, but I can’t recommend it unless you are one of those people for whom Catcher in the Rye changed your life.