| Author Quoted | J.D. Salinger |
| Title Quoted | Franny and Zooey |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1962/11/22 |
| Imprint | [S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1961 |
| Quotation | What have I read of his? I started Franny and Zooey. That is to say, I started Franny, and after that I started Zooey. I thought it was well written. I thought the people were alive, and I could see where one would get deeply absorbed in their concerns, but let me put it this way: I am profoundly engrossed in the 12th century school of Chartres, and in Zen (which I understand comes later in Zooey?) and in Sufism, and in some novices I am supposed to be teaching about the monastic life, and in the peace movement, and in poetry of a sort. My reaction to Franny and Zooey was simply that it was keeping me from something else in which I was really interested. I have absolutely nothing against Franny or Zooey. I am glad they had people who wrote such nice letters to them. But this is what I walked away from twenty years ago and it is just very remote, it doesn't come through any more. I am sorry, this may be a confession that I have drifted away from the human race, though I don't think even Salinger would interpret it that way. |
| Quotation Source | The Road to Joy: Letters to New and Old Friends.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / [S.l.] : Flame. 1990, p. 324 |
| Letter to | Donald Fiene |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
(If there is a link above showing up as a number, click it to open another window with a full text version.) |