She enthusiastically narrates the content of this book, and then twice in the story, when left alone, practices the Jesus prayer. In “Franny”, the eponymous protagonist Franny Glass tells her boyfriend Lane Coutell about the Russian hesychast book The Way of a Pilgrim, which is an instruction in the Jesus Prayer. It is significant that in the Glass family stories another religious tradition manifests itself-one which was not obvious in Nine Stories-hesychasm. In the stories “Franny” and “Zooey”, Salinger actually employs a direct statement, and therefore these stories, to a certain degree, appear to be expanded commentaries to his Nine Stories. In the Glass family stories, Salinger overcomes the enigmatic, supplementing the former concreteness with “problematic” dialogues of his characters who appear to be carriers of quite specific philosophical ideas and religious values. The interpretive paradox was caused, firstly, by the complete absence of any comments by the author himself, and secondly, by his primary focus not on philosophical and religious reflection, but on presenting an exclusively objective world and characters given in specific situational sensations to the reader 1. However, its revealing strengthened the feeling of the enigmatic nature of Salinger’s texts and often resulted in critics justifying contradictory or at least “different interpretations” ( French 1963, p. This collision is apparent in his Nine Stories.

Salinger (1919–2010) constitute a collision of various philosophical theories and religious practices among which theistic existentialism, psychoanalysis, Zen, and Vedantism occupy a special place.

Having brought to light the nature of Franny’s mistakes and her peccant intention, Salinger reestablishes the hesychast ideal and connects it with Søren Kierkegaard’s principle of theistic existentialism. At the same time, he approaches it with a certain irony and exposes several pitfalls of incorrectly interpreting the Jesus prayer, as illustrated by Franny, one of Salinger’s characters. From the hesychast book Salinger borrows a number of images and presents its philosophy as a spiritual ideal. In this article, the text of The Way of a Pilgrim is read within the framework of Salinger’s stories and is interpreted as being significant for his later texts. However, scholars have never actually attempted to fundamentally analyze the textual interconnections between Salinger’s stories and the hesychast work. This reference has often been noted in both critical works on Salinger and studies dedicated to the book The Way of a Pilgrim.

Salinger who mentions and re-narrates it in his stories “Franny” and “Zooey”. It has gained popularity in the English-speaking world thanks to J.D. The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way-is a Russian hesychast text that was first published in 1881 and translated into English in 1931.

Salinger franny and zooey