tonight's my night for reviews about books that nearly drove me crazy.
this is one of those books. i had loved franny and zooey but i didn't think that the little book that nearly drove fanny crazy was anything more than a plot device. and then one day i walked into a bookstore i'd never been in before, and there it was. franny's special book, the one that changed everything. it was real.
i'd been struggling to maintain some kind of faith at that point. i wanted very badly to believe, and that need had been deeply ingrained. and so i took the book home. i read it. and then as franny did, i began to put it into practice: i tried to pray without ceasing. i believe i succeeded. and i got to a strange place in my mind that way. and finally i felt as i did about the ouija board as a child, that i was toying with things that were as big as they were simple, and i was frightened. i saw that my praying without ceasing made it impossible for me to live in the world. and so i put the book away. and i stopped praying. period. maybe i will start again someday. but certainly not today.