Glassy Essence
John Updike reviews Salinger's Franny and Zooey. Reading about the Glass family, like reading about the Bagthorpes or watching The Royal Tenenbaums, is a guilty pleasure tinged with recognition and wish-fulfilment. Updike says much the same:
Of Zooey, we are assured he has a "somewhat preposterous ability to quote, instantaneously and, usually, verbatim, almost anything he had ever read, or even listened to, with genuine interest." The purpose of such sentences is surely not to particularize imaginary people but to instill in the reader a mood of blind worship, tinged with envy.
Many of the stories are online here