SOURCE: Samuels, David. “Marginal Notes on Franny and Zooey.” American Scholar 68, no. 3 (summer 1999): 128-33.

In the following essay, Samuels explores the significance of Franny and Zooey, concluding that the novella is, ultimately, an answer to “the question of how to live.”

No one becomes a reader except in answer to some baffling inner necessity, of the kind that leads people to turn cartwheels outside the 7-Eleven, jump headlong through a plate-glass window, join the circus, or buy a low-end foreign car when the nearest appropriate auto-repair shop is fifty miles away. With these dramatic examples fresh in your mind, you'll probably require only a small amount of additional convincing that my little theory—based on years of painful experience—is true. Reading requires a loner's temperament, a high tolerance for silence, and an unhealthy preference for the company of people who are imaginary or dead.

It also requires...