Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Salinger, J. D. - Anne Marple （review date 18 September 1961）

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Anne Marple （review date 18 September 1961）

SOURCE: “Salinger's Oasis of Innocence,” in The New Republic, September 18, 1961, pp. 22-3.

[In the following review, Marple offers a generally positive assessment of Franny and Zooey, but finds fault in Salinger's portrayal of women and “the inability of his adult characters to reconcile physical and spiritual love.”]

Salinger's first full length novel, The Catcher in the Rye, emerged after scattered fragments concerning his characters appeared during a seven year span. For some time now, it has been evident that Salinger's second novel may be developing in the same way. Salinger writes of Franny and Zooey: “Both stories are early, critical entries in a narrative series I am doing about a family of settlers in 20th Century New York, the Glasses.”

“Franny” is a beautifully balanced short story. Franny, at twenty, is on the edge of “a tenth-rate...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Anne Marple （review date 18 September 1961）
   2. J. D. O'Hara （essay date Winter 1963-1964）
   3. Bernice and Sanford Goldstein （essay date Autumn 1966）
   4. Kerry McSweeney （essay date Spring 1978）
   5. Edwin Haviland Miller （essay date Winter 1982）
   6. Sanford Pinsker （essay date Winter 1986）
   7. Max F. Schulz （essay date 1987）
   8. Helen Weinberg （essay date 1987）
   9. John Wenke （essay date 1987）
   10. Terry Teachout （essay date September 1987）
   11. Joyce Rowe （essay date 1991）
   12. Peter Shaw （essay date 1991）
   13. Pamela Steinle （essay date 1991）
   14. Susan K. Mitchell （essay date December 1992）
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. J. D. Salinger