Book-Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction, a combination of two novellas, by J.D. Salinger is not easy or light reading. With little of the charm of The Catcher in the Rye, and much of the heaviness, the book, though only just over 200 pages is seems somewhat ponderous.

It is probably best to discuss the two sections separately and then how they work together. But it must be pointed out, that both stories have the same main characters, two of the Glass family (who Salinger frequently writes about in other stories), both narrated by Buddy Glass talking about his older brother, Seymour Glass.

In the Carpenters, we see Buddy making a quick trip to New York out of army training camp, to see his brother get married. It is stream-of-consciousness writing, but as there are other characters, we have dialogue and other points of view interrupting Buddy's narrative. The wedding does not happen, as Seymour has backed out on the morning of the wedding, and Buddy gets stuck in a car with relatives of the bride and a really pissed off maid of honor.

This story is not too bad, with humor and some biting dialogue and narrative. Buddy's thoughts about his brother are intermingled with the maid of honor's words, and the two form an alternate running commentary on Seymour.

The second story is ostensibly an introduction written by Buddy for a volume of Seymour's poems, to be published by his wife posthumously. Seymour did end up getting married via eloping, and also ended up committing suicide. this story is very existential stream of consciousness, with paragraphs running pages long. While I don't mind that per se (I enjoy Faulkner immensely) this was not fun or really very interesting, enlightening, enjoyable, edifying or anything else for me. It was merely a character trying to work out his own feelings on a page, and not doing a damn good job at it. Maybe that is the point, but it was so ponderous that it made even that point almost a non-event.

Seymour an Introduction is the longer of the two, and I dearly wish it had been the other way around. The two pieces offer an inter sting counterpoint to each other, one with Buddy as a young man, who clearly idolizes his brother, and one as a middle aged man writing about a brother he still idolizes, but who committed suicide. And he is grappling to understand why, and why he still idolizes him. The two stories do belong together, that is true, I just wish I found the second one to be more effective.