Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
and Seymour an Introduction
by J.D. Salinger
★★★★★
I will readily admit that the reason I
waited so long to read this one is because I hated the thought of no
longer having a Salinger book to look forward to. I’ve read his other
work and while I wasn’t a huge fan of The Catcher in the Rye (no more
whining!); I adore his other books, Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey.
I’ve
always been fascinated by the fictional Glass family and at least part
of the family is featured in both of those books and in Raise High.
Salinger has a unique ability to make the mundane interesting. He sucks
me in so quickly and the pages fly by. He usually writes about one short
period of time, like Holden wandering around New York for a few days in
Catcher. Throughout that time we see flashbacks and reference to things
that have already happened.
Raise High works in the same way.
The story is told from Buddy’s point-of-view. He is the second of seven
children in the Glass family. The eldest is the poetic but troubled
Seymour. Buddy finds out his older brother is about to get married and
the rest of his family can’t make it to the last minute wedding. Buddy
manages to get leave from his boot camp to head to New York City for the
ceremony. Once he arrives he finds out Seymour has stood up his
bride-to-be and Buddy ends up in a limo with the furious Matron-of-Honor
and a few other guests of the bride. As the heat rises and a parade
halts their progress across the city things become tense.
The
other Glass siblings from eldest to youngest are, Boo Boo (girl), the
twins Walt and Waker, Zooey (boy) and Franny. They are featured in
various stories, but Seymour is the most captivating of the lot. His
tale reaches its conclusion in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” one of the
chapters in Nine Stories. Seymour is brilliant, but at times he becomes
trapped inside his own head in a debilitating way.
Salinger
adds small touches to his books that never seem to leave me. I remember
reading Zooey for the first time and falling in love with the idea of
covering your bedroom walls with quotes. In this book there’s a
reference to the family’s tradition of leaving messages with soap
slivers on the bathroom mirror as they were growing up. The title of the
book actually comes from one such message left by Boo Boo for her
brother. It’s a poem, “Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares
comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.” There’s also a sweet
deaf mute man (the bride’s father’s uncle) who felt like he could have
been my own family member.
There is something so real about the
diary entries Buddy shares from Seymour’s journal. It feels as though we
are given a glimpse into the struggle of a person we all might know.
His shining optimistic exterior provides a glaze to a tumultuous
underbelly of self-doubt and critical thinking which gives him no peace.
It’s characters like Seymour, who we never completely know, that make
Salinger’s books so captivating.
“God knows it is sad. The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on earth.”
“He
would despise her for her marriage motives as I’ve put them down here.
But are they despicable? In a way, they must be, but yet they seem to me
so human-size and beautiful that I can’t think of them even now as I
write this without feeling deeply, deeply moved.”
“Marriage
partners are to serve each other. Elevate, help, teach, strengthen each
other, but above all, serve. Raise their children honorably, lovingly,
and with detachment. A child is a guest in the house, to be loved and
respected – never possessed, since he belongs to God.”
Seymour: An Introduction
by J.D. Salinger
★★★★★
These two pieces by Salinger are always published together, but their styles are incredibly different. While Raise High tells us the events of a single day, Seymour is a reflection on one man’s entire life. They pair perfectly, complementing each other and slowly peeling back the layers of both Seymour and Buddy’s lives.
Both pieces are written by Buddy Glass, the second is a reflection of who Seymour was and how his siblings and friends saw him. But because it’s written by Buddy everything is seen through the filter of his eyes and he can’t help but idolize his older brother. Buddy describes every aspect of Seymour, his looks and beliefs and talks about his collected poems, but he can’t separate how he saw his brother and who his brother truly was.
The whole book is just beautiful and it a new favorite. I particularly loved Seymour’s notes and literary criticisms to Buddy. After Buddy would read a new piece he’d written to his brother, Seymour would wait awhile and process what he thought about the work, he would then write him a response. His notes would be both challenging and uplifting. He would encourage Buddy never to settle for being a people-pleasing writer, but instead to write what mattered to him. What wonderful advice for all writers!
“…but the fact that the great Kierkegaard was never a Kierkegaardian, let alone an existentialist, cheers one bush-league intellectual’s heart no end, never fails to reaffirm his faith in a cosmic poetic justice, if not a cosmic Santa Claus.”
BOTTOM LINE: I loved it.
Salinger gets inside my head and touches my emotions in a way that few
authors can. Don’t judge his work purely by his most famous book. In my
opinion his other work far outshines Catcher in the Rye.
