Franny and Zooey

Putting Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger on my list was really cheating--I've read it before. But, I've been wanting to reread it and now seemed like a good time to do so, in light of Salinger's death.

I wanted to revisit this book, because when I read it in high school, I remember being really moved by the discussions of religion and spirituality. I wanted to see if I'd still feel that way. Well, this time around, it struck me that Franny was being quite self-indulgent to have a major meltdown and refuse any help from her worried family during her crisis of faith. Sure, a crisis of faith is major, but it just seemed like she didn't have to ignore her family. Her brother Zooey, however, comes off as quite the saint by talking her through her conundrum.

Even though Franny did annoy me this time around, I still found it to be a brilliant book. Reading this and The Bell Jar and the short stories of Dorothy Parker, which I've been picking up now and again, I really want to audit some classes in twentieth-century American lit. I don't want to write papers or anything, but I'd love to be in a really smart book club led by an expert.

In the not-so-brilliant-book category, I tried to read Lauren Henderson's Jane Austen's Guide to Dating at the gym, but it took itself far too seriously. I thought it'd be a fun, tongue-in-cheek approach to looking at modern dating situations through the lens of Austen's characters, but it was an earnest dating guide based on principles from her books. It even had a quiz to see which Austen heroine you most resembled, which Austen hero your love interest matched, and then a chart to see if you would be compatible. I abandoned this one about 14 pages in.

Now it's on to The Brothers Karamazov, which I think I'll be reading for awhile . . .