Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Both of these stories were beautiful, beautiful beautiful. It baffles me to read all of these reviews written by people who were wild about "Raise high..." and almost indifferent toward "Seymour:" I feel that Seymour was the single most important book out of the Glass series. Yes, it's difficult to get through the first time, because, as Buddy says, the General Reader's most immediate want is to "see the author get the hell on with his story," which Buddy doesn't do because, really, there is no "story." However, if you are the type of person who can sit still long enough to follow through with Buddy's run on sentences and footnotes, et cetera, you will find, tucked in several places throughout the story, "the good, the real," the holy. I've read this book about 5 times, and I can't help walking around dazed for days after I'm through with it, marvelling at the tiny things that have suddenly taken on a sort of surreal beauty. My personal Salinger favorite. [email protected]

This has been my favorite Salinger book since 1970. I have them all, but RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM stays in my mind all the time. The opening sequence changed my life and prepared me for some very hard times in the next 40 years. Fiction does, indeed, help us to understand humanity better than any other source.

I was recently paging through a new book by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy) where he offhandedly comments on various works of literature he has been reading-- it seemed like a clever idea, and I was bored. Apparently, Mr. Hornby read through the entire work of Salinger in a week. Though he was largely satisfied with Salinger's collection of stories, he complained that these last two entries in the Glass Family Saga (which I am reviewing here) were tedious. Hornby noted that he wasn't very interested in the character of Seymour, and he especially didn't care about how Seymour shot his marbles.

Well, I'm afraid that if you've read any of the Glass family stories and don't care much for Seymour, then you had better avoid this two story collection. Salinger's work (including Catcher) is permeated with the loss of a brother who meant the world to his siblings. Every crease and crevice of his face was meaningful, every sigh and utterance. The way Seymour shot his marbles as a boy DOES have relevance, because his philosophy of not aiming (a variation on the Zen practice of archery) is one of the central themes of the stories.

Thus, if the appearance of aimlessness bothers you (the narrator of these two stories, Buddy, is a strong adherent-- so watch out), then you might want to stick to more conventional fiction. I found the entire five story cycle to be the one of most profound pieces of work I have ever come across, but then again-- Seymour isn't for everyone.

Just what it is about Salinger I don't know, but I was captivated from the first time I read Franny and Zooey. Maybe it's the down to earthness of the dialogue, the kookiness of the characters. Maybe it's the way he says things worth saying without being too lofty or literary, or maybe it's the way that you feel part of his world, get into the heads of the characters. Whatever it is it's good, and too complicated to define easily, which makes it better. Buy this book and all the books. The Glass family can be your friends too.

Both stories are incredible, in different ways. "Raise High..." is a beautiful glimpse into both Buddy and Seymour (the diary entry about his scars was incredible). And "Seymour"...wow. It is so original, funny, but poignant at the same time ("John Keats, please put you scarf on"). I don't dare compare these to any of his other works because I wouldn't discourage anyone form reading other Salinger works. They are all wonderful. He is by far the best writer of our time.

Definitely "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction" is not J. D. Salinger's most popular and most read work. People who read this book are die-hard fans of this writer and really like the Glass family and are interested in knowing more about them. Those who want to read only one or two Salinger books should stick to "The Catcher in The Rye" and either "Franny and Zooey" or "Nine Stories".

To begin with "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction" is not an easy book. Its rhythm is like a roller coaster, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes up, sometimes down -- but always difficult and inaccessible to those who are not familiar with the Glass's mythology and history. Even Salinger habitués may find some difficult in reading this work.

"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" tells the story of Seymour's wedding. But, the main character here and narrator is Buddy Glass, the groom's brother, who is the only member of the family to attend the ceremony. All the narrative deals with the fact that Seymour abandon's his bride in the church and doesn't show up.

Buddy is forced to deal whit the situation. He is forced to be with some guests, who happen to be bride's relative. And most of the time he pretends not to be Seymour's brother. Like most Salinger's work, the most important thing in the narrative is the character's thoughts rather than his actions, words etc.

While considering this event, Buddy recreates most of his family's history. And this is a valuable account to those are interested in learn more about the Glasses. So far, sort of a typical Salinger writing.

The second part "Seymour: An Introduction" is more difficult and problematic to those readers. First thing is that is not an introduction -- at least not our typical introduction. First off, because the reader is already familiar with Seymour, from "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters", or from "A Perfect Day the Bananafish" (from "Nine Stories", which happens to be paradoxical, since the short story tells an event that happens later on in the character's life).

Buddy who describes his older brother -- who he happens to admire-- again narrates the story. The narrative this time round is like a labyrinth rather than a roller coaster. The images are formed without a correlation, the narrator jumps from topic to topic making the understanding of his words rather difficult.

Those who are interested in only one Seymour story should go straight to "A Perfect day for Bananafish". It is short, but you'll learn a lot about the character -- actually almost everything you need to know is there. Those who like Salinger and his Glass family, are welcome to read "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction", but be advised that it is different (not bad, just different) from what you've read from him, about them.

Truly, what a wonderful final publication for Salinger. While many might argue the point of Salinger's work being over-hyped, it is just that which makes ALL of Salinger's work really, under-estimated. Criticisms ran aloft when Carpenters/Seymour first came out (read the absolutely cruel New Yorker review) but this collection of short stories truly is wonderful art. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters is a wonderfully constructed story, with each part leading beautifully into the next. However, it reads almost like any other Salinger story (which is not by all means a bad thing). It is with Seymour: An Introduction that J.D. really mesmerizes, totally disregarding most any kind of story-telling guidelines. He rambles on and on, and never really stops, but it is within this incessant rambling that its true wonder lies. Deep with compassion, often funny and full of wisdom, I think I can safely say that it is like nothing you will ever read. Like all Salinger work, its first impact might be that of a disastrous nonlinear tale (the New Yorker review suggested the title be Seymour: A Disaster) and in a way its as if Salinger was a "seer" in that he predicted there'd be those readers who'd wish he would just "get the hell on with the story". However, those readers patient and allowing enough to let the many layers unravel themselves will be justly rewarded.

This was my first exposure to Salinger, and I was suitably impressed.
"Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" is a charming and sometimes poignant little anecdote which struck me as being a little Wodehousian in its style. The little old man alone is enough to make it a candidate for masterpiecehood.
"Seymour" is, as advertised, a "bouquet of very early-blooming parentheses," full of one after another of what could be called digressions were it not for the absence of a main point from which to digress. But, for all its rambliness and self-indulgence (something along the lines of Nabokov's "Pale Fire," I think), it's hard to put down.
If there's a weakness, it's that both stories seem to end a little prematurely. You're reading along and then suddenly the story's over, leaving you with the impression that, had you not been paying attention, you could easily have read right past the ending without noticing it.
Overall, though, this is an excellent book. I managed to escape the near-inevitable high school reading of "Catcher in the Rye," but after reading this book I've decided to go back and correct that omission.

Is this book good? Yes. Some people believe that Salinger is overrated, that he props his popularity by playing at the recluse, and that if he were to continue to write in the open, his reputation would have long since diminished. But that's forgetting about his text. Take this book, "Raise High/Seymour," as an example. Admittedly one of his lesser works, the novellas within still show unique story construction, and both create a realistic sense of emotion.
First, the emotion. Salinger had no brothers, and no one in his family committed suicide. And Salinger in no way resembles his narrator, Harry Glass, in real life. Salinger's own family was not large, nor bustling, nor eccentric like the Glass family. But the way Salinger brings such "authentic" emotion to Harry Glass, I'm sure not a few readers have scrambled around looking for a book of haikus by an author named "Salinger." That speaks to Salinger's technique and his ability to make his characters genuine.
The construction is subtler. "Raise..." is easier on the reader, has loads of dialog and a story arc. What makes "Raise..." especially cool is that it's a story about the narrator's brother, Seymour - and Seymour never appears in the story! And there's little direct exposition - that lengthy narrative discourse describing a character out of the narrative, or off-stage. The story is created in action, in plot, in character dialog. The reader is always grounded in the scene. It's classic writing, and rarely seen nowadays.
"Seymour: An Introduction" is a bit tougher to swallow. An optimist would say it's similar to Faulkner's "Absolom! Absolom!" in its frantic need to get the story out, even at the expense of flow, grammatical principles, and the reader. But Faulkner had a spooky way to get under the skin, even with two-page sentences. With "Seymour...," Salinger forces us to wade through Harry Glass' obfuscation to get to the good stuff, the little nuggets of concrete description of Seymour. At best, this style reinforces the emotional impact of the narration. It's written as if Harry Glass can't bear to dwell on his brother without doing everything possible to avoid talking about him. At worst, it's nonsensical drivel.
But let's give Salinger the benefit of the doubt and call this a great book. Not for the author's sake, of course: he's a selfish, hateful man full of demons. But let's do it for ourselves, and choose to believe in greatness.

J.D. Salinger's last published work is more than 43 years old now, and still stirs many in the same absent way Seymour Glass animates his brother Buddy in this pair of stories first published in 1963. Are both cases of delusional devotion?

In the first story, "Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters," originally published in The New Yorker in 1955, we get what amounts to Salinger's first deep-dish treatment of the Glass family saga ("Zooey" saw print later, and previous stories featuring the Glasses were far less insular) as Buddy shows up for Seymour's wedding, only to find Seymour stood up his bride. In the second piece, 1959's "Seymour: An Introduction," Buddy foregoes any semblance of plot to explain who Seymour was.

Like a lot of other people, I am put off by the convoluted nature of "Seymour," as well as the explanations of those who defend it. Actually, there could be something to the idea of writing a plotless story, using characters like the Glasses people know from other works, but this is assuredly not it. Salinger too obviously indulges himself, spouting contempt at his generation and his critics, throwing up lame jokes and referencing obscure Japanese poets as a smokescreen to conceal his literary, intellectual, and metaphysical nakedness.

"What a marvelous convenience it would be if writers could let themselves describe their characters' clothes, article by article, crease by crease," Salinger writes in the role of Buddy, pretty much summing up the approach of "Seymour" as well as its underlying failure. His interest in his subject is not only all-consuming, it is not all that deep.

"Raise High" is a better story, though that's not saying much. "Franny And Zooey," the previously published Salinger book, also combined a better story with a weaker one, but there at least you got one terrific story in "Franny," a bold, empathetic tale of power and focus. "Raise High" doesn't know where it's going, and is in no hurry to get there. You get nice asides, like when Buddy sees an old chair and remembers a beloved bulldog, long dead, who slept there and left his chewmarks. There's also some arresting ambiguity, as when Buddy reads Seymour's journal and we get maybe a suggestion of unease at some apparent insanity.

But "Roof Beam" doesn't end so much as fizzle away, with Buddy snoozing in an empty apartment after the mystery of Seymour's absence has been resolved via an unseen phone call. Emptyness is a recurrent theme in Salinger's Glass writings, here as in "Franny & Zooey," where various Glasses are often seen in isolation thinking or writing about absent kin. For such a happy family, there's an overwhelming sadness about the Glasses that suggests Salinger found himself in a bit of a dead end with them, one from which he never emerged. Further evidence of this can be found in the web-available "Hapsworth 16, 1924," Salinger's last public blast, published in The New Yorker in 1965.

Salinger was one of the most important American writers of our lifetime, not to mention a seminal figure of our culture, but his greatness lies elsewhere, not here. Read this only if you are a Salinger completist, or else interested in the price genius can extract from its recipients.