J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [161]
At first glance, the brilliance of the Glass children seems to construct an enclave against a boorish world, or, as Buddy Glass puts it, “a sort of semantic geometry in which the shortest distance between any two points is a fullish circle.” This chauvinism may seem to be the haughtiest of Salinger’s “neckties”—a love of a closed society of overly precious characters that derails objectivity. However, a close examination of “Zooey” reveals that the story actually concentrates on its characters’ flaws and not their virtues.
As foreshadowed in her own story, Franny’s faith in the Jesus Prayer and Way of the Pilgrim has fostered a spiritual snobbery that has cut her off from the rest of the world and now threatens to alienate her from her own family. Encountered largely on its own in “Franny,” this elitism is portrayed as an inheritance from her brothers Seymour and Buddy in “Zooey.”* In order to arrange this point, Salinger was forced to retract the portion of “Franny” that explains her encountering Way of the Pilgrim in her school library. In “Zooey,” the book is discovered instead on Seymour’s desk, where it has lain since his death seven years before. Through this correction, Salinger not only condemns Seymour for imposing dogma on the youngest of his family members but also connects the crisis of Franny’s spiritual conceit with the aloofness of the Glass clan itself.
Readers are first introduced to Franny’s older brother, Zooey, who is cornered in the bathtub by their mother, Bessie Glass. Bessie persuades Zooey to attempt to lift Franny up from her malaise, but Zooey is also suffering from a subtler but no less damaging spiritual crisis. He is consumed by a personal struggle with his own ego, and his growth has been stunted by a religious upbringing so advanced that it has turned him bigoted against others.
Salinger causes Zooey to refer to the bathroom as his “little chapel” and Bessie to recite more than forty items in the bathroom medicine chest. Each object is clearly tied to ego. Creams, nail files, powders, and toothpastes are mixed with ignored mementos of individual family lives: seashells, ancient tickets to a play, and a broken ring. Lest readers somehow miss the connection with these items and the affliction of ego, Zooey then engages in the most common Salinger demonstration of self-centeredness: he pays extraordinary homage to his nails.
The story’s second section takes place in the family living room and consists of a conversation between Zooey and Franny. The setting of this scene is perhaps the most highly symbolic of the story. When first presented, the room is being used by Franny as a kind of spiritual tomb and is infested with the ghosts of the past. Crammed with articles and furniture, it is dark, heavy, and dust-laden. Each eclectic piece of furniture, every nick and stain, book and family keepsake, is described in both physical and historical detail. Each object and imperfection carries flashbacks that haunt the scene and seem to hover over the sleeping Franny like the ghosts of children long grown or long dead.*
Ostensibly, the room is awaiting the arrival of painters to cover the myriad historical blemishes and renew it with a fresh coat of paint. In preparation for the workers, Bessie removes the heavy damask curtains from the windows as Franny sleeps on the couch nearby. Suddenly, perhaps for the first time in countless years, the room is awash in sunlight, illuminating the clutter that will clearly make the painters’ job impossible.
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