That me and Franny of Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger may be the same person. I checked the book out from the library after an AP study group today, in which I pretended to part with the members at the door, claiming to have left something back upstairs. I then hightailed it to the fiction section, where I met my dearest dad. This section is, it should be noted, bizarrely hidden behind DVDs, video games, and rentable art, of all things. I asked my dad why someone would rent art and he said his parents put it all over the house, because it was like getting new pictures every month, but for free. I rather liked the sound of that. Romantic, almost. I couldn't get the name JD Salinger out of my brain, for reasons unknown to me. Does that ever happen to you? Like getting a song stuck in your head, but with names and words and phrases. That happens to me constantly. I swear I'm certifiable. I couldn't even remember who he was, although upon arrival at his section, which could not have been more buried, but I was a girl on a mission, I remembered he wrote The Catcher in the Rye. It should be noted that this is one of my favorite books, though I hate to be a cliche so I don't exactly spread that fact around. Also we read it for school Freshman year, at which point it was promptly tainted forever. Of all the books in his section I picked up Franny and Zooey, embarrassingly enough because of name recognition from an interview where Zooey Deschanel says she got her name from it. It was her mother's favorite, or something. The details of this interview frankly escape me. I picked it up and instantly liked it because there is no cover art of any kind, and there is no information on the back, simply the title reprinted in big black font. Unassuming, not some tiny Times New Roman, but not unnecessarily whimsical either. I really like this book. I like the plain white cover with a simple green binding. Not emerald or forest or spring. Just green. And the title. Franny and Zooey. It's perfect that title. And the dedication in the beginning, a sweet and sincere thank you to the editor and Salinger's closest friend (heaven help him, as Salinger puts it). But the book itself, that's what I really like. I'm not terribly far along, but some books you can just tell right away you'll love. Love at first sight, that's what this is. It reads the way I talk and write; coherent yet impossibly tangential at times, the way my brain works, the way I love to read. I'm just so very content. I have enclosed a picture of my new love, in case words did not suffice.
EDIT: Since posting this, I've grown increasingly concerned that this post was premature and I have jinxed the rest of the book. So try and pretend this didn't happen, won't you? Thanks, jinx gods.
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Tags: books, happiness, life, love, reading, writing
