One of my all-time favorite books to teach is the Zooey side of JD Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey.” Without giving too much away for those who haven’t read this wonderful novel(a), the end has one of the most stunning, beautiful conversations about Jesus I’ve come across in literature.
That JD Salinger’s recent death has folks waxing poetic about not only his most famous work, “The Catcher in the Rye” but his other, lesser known short stories and books like “Franny and Zooey” has been a joy. I, too, gleefully anticipate that Salinger has another few unpublished manuscripts sitting around that some time soon we will finally get to read.
One of the most interesting articles about Salinger I’ve come across lately I found this morning: “The Mystic in the Rye: JD Salinger’s Religious Fiction” by Louis A. Ruprecht. A lot of Ruprecht’s piece includes an insightful analysis of the spiritual dimensions of “The Catcher in the Rye” (something I’ve not seen much of before) and then a wonderful look at the spiritual significance of two of Salinger’s most significant characters other than Holden–Seymour Glass and Zooey Glass–Ruprecht explores them through Salinger’s short stories and in Franny and Zooey since they appear throughout.
For anyone interested in a smart analysis of the spiritual and religious dimensions of Salinger’s work, this article is a must.