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

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

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 23,150 ratings · 826 reviews

The author writes: The two long pieces in this book originally came out in The New Yorker ? RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS in 1955, SEYMOUR ? An Introduction in 1959. Whatever their differences in mood or effect, they are both very much concerned with Seymour Glass, who is the main character in my still-uncompleted series about the Glass family. It struck me that the...more

Paperback, 256 pages

Published January 30th 2001 by Back Bay Books (first published 1955)

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Nov 06, 2011 Jacob rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-2009, salinger-sandburg-saunders

October 2009

So basically, I’m waiting for Salinger to die.

I don’t mean that maliciously. Really. I bear no ill will towards the man, and I’d wish him a long and pleasant life as a hermit, full of good health and completely lacking in the company of stupid humans--except, well, he’s already had his. The old man is ninety, slowly doddering his way to ninety-one. Hasn’t published in decades. No one’s seen him in years; he doesn’t even yell at those durn kids to get off his lawn because then people...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: reciprocity is a pestilent compulsion to bear

Recommended to Mariel by: hold me suspended in a dream

"This is too grand to be said (so I’m just the man to say it), but I can’t be my brother’s brother for nothing, and I know – not always, but I know – there is no single thing I do that is more important than going into that awful Room 307. There isn’t one girl in there, including the Terrible Miss Zabel, who is not as much my sister as Boo Boo or Franny. They may shine with the misinformation of the ages, but they shine. This thought manages to stun me: There’s no place I’d really rather got rig...more "This is too grand to be said (so I’m just the man to say it), but I can’t be my brother’s brother for nothing, and I know – not always, but I know – there is no single thing I do that is more important than going into that awful Room 307. There isn’t one girl in there, including the Terrible Miss Zabel, who is not as much my sister as Boo Boo or Franny. They may shine with the misinformation of the ages, but they shine. This thought manages to stun me: There’s no place I’d really rather got right now than into Room 307. Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong?
Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.”

Yesterday I went to the public library after work to read. I sometimes like to read there because it is a way to be around other people and not be around other people. When I'm too socially anxious but too sad to just give up and be alone this is a good and helpful thing for me to do. I wrote about this in another review but I can't remember if it was one I ended up posting to goodreads. It is my life anyway. Open the pages and hope this time I'll fit. Anyway, I read Salinger's Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction that I hadn't read since I was a teenager (the first time I was probably locked in my room while listening to The Cure). That hadn't been the plan (I'm currently reading more than a few other books). Maybe my mind was doing something good for me because I think it helped.

Did anyone else ever get a sad out of place feeling from the Glass family? From The Catcher in the Rye, also? Now I don't care at all about the wedding party and their totally self unaware presumptions on the brother of the bridegroom they announce as a despicable human being. I am not worried that I would be as they are. I guess my library trick isn't too far away from Buddy's leaping into a car full of strangers headed to some place he doesn't belong (the apartment of his sister-in-law's parents) because he is lonely. I'm not worried about that, though. It's like when I vow to stop talking this time absolutely for good and when I forget how wretched I feel for talking I start talking again kind of impermanent damage. Those kinds of awkward experiences can be forgotten about if you go to the movies or manage to take a nap. It feels like a different day. Buddy will not be stuck in that car forever. The stage play of the wedding after party will change into another memory. I wouldn't worry about not being good enough for them, now. Muriel learned, to her fiance Seymour's dismay, to disuse her natural vocabulary of "cute". I feel closer to her estrangement when her husband cannot speak in her language, or rather she cannot trust that he does or doesn't hear her when she doesn't know what she wants. But I wasn't worried about that either. Muriel is a stranger to me and I'm not worried. I'm not worried about tanned faces and asking for your husband's mail in a vacation hotel and is that all there is to life, and if that's all they want out of life is that all there is going to be of my life. I'm not that bothered about it, anymore. Seymour knows his brother Buddy enough to know that he would despise of Muriel's reason to live. This is closer but also not it. You can't sleep away this disconnection. My anxiety and sadness about the Glass family is that there will never be another Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, Franny and Zooey. Buddy has Seymour always. He doesn't have Seymour any longer. Seymour killed himself. It was in another story. Seymour the genius and Seymour the best of them all. Seymour is the Glass sky ceiling. Seymour is the O-zone layer protection. I think about them like going into the world and you will never meet anyone you love as much. The last line in Seymour: An Introduction that I quote in the beginning of this review made me feel a lot better. I had forgotten all about that. If he meant it. I think he did. Will he continue to mean it? What if you don't have that family and you can never have that family because everyone else already has a Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, Franny and Zooey?

This is what I had remembered about this book: Seymour the poet. Of all that stayed in my mind fingertips it was Seymour writing his haiku poems. I thought some times about how the Japanese masters didn't need to use italics. I remember thinking some low self esteem thing that I'd never be able to communicate without the visual stress. I wondered how it would feel to be happy when writing as Buddy was. I remember Buddy with his shield of defense against those who would argue against their authenticity, those haiku poems of Seymour's that were all double haikus. Since reading Nabokov's Speak, Memory I'm thinking a lot about his idea that it is all positional. "The arms of consciousness reach out and grope, and the longer they are the better. Tentacles, not wings, are Apollo's natural members." Buddy writes that we only have three or four truly indispensable poets. He doesn't say which they are so no one could argue that he left so and so off. Four? Only four? I remembered how he wanted to tell the wedding party in "Raise high" that his brother could never have written a word and he would meet you with himself as the poetry. That's the positional. He is positioned in his family. It was a place anywhere else that wasn't helped. I envy Buddy for his ceiling of Seymour but it also makes me sad. Was he going to reach for anything else or would it always be the first family corner? I'm relieved that it isn't the sadness that I was afraid of having of not being good enough. Whatever he says about only four. He is a man missing his brother and he wishes that he was a man who came at you as himself as poetry.

How could I have forgotten the nine stitches? One of the women (I don't have the book with me and I have already forgotten her name) mentions that Seymour (she overhears Muriel's mother saying this) that Seymour hit Muriel and she had to get nine stitches. When they were on their child genius radio show they were on the child genius radio show with another little girl, chosen by Seymour himself, who was not to Buddy's mind all that brilliant but a fine singer. Seymour threw a rock at Charlotte Mayhew the fine singer who was good looking. She had to have nine stitches. He threw himself in the rock, is my feeling, helpless to another reaction for what he was feeling. I imagine the foot stamping delight in being on the show together, to be "on" for her, ended with the rock.

Another thing I don't care about that I imagine I probably did when I was younger was that radio program genius thing. Something about people being smarter than they should be at an age when I didn't feel up to the task of where I already was. Now I don't care about Franny feeling like she could fly. I used to jump off the tops of dressers when I was a little girl, flapping my arms in flight. No light bulb dust on my fingers. I flew when I kept believing that I could. It was a lonely feeling when Boo Boo longs to see Franny when she hears her on the radio. Someone was moved by her dreams. What was it like to have someone care about your dreams that way? That's a foreign feeling. It's kind of sad and I wish I had a rock.

Seymour left a poem before he dies about a man on a plane and across the aisle is a little girl. This little girl has a friend who is a doll. The girl turns her friend's face to look at the man.
I have this fear of not being seen, of having no response... It is an unsettling image this girl with her doll who stares. It would be bad enough to be looked at by the girl, or just the doll. The girl pointing the doll to look is upsetting. I hope that never happens to me in a wrong kind of a mood. I would have to do something to make me feel like it had never happened or it would bother my mind too much. I can see that upsetting someone like Seymour to have to write about it, if it happened or not (Buddy thinks it didn't and Boo Boo believes it did). The writing about it is making it happen and if that's the response... I wouldn't want to be Buddy even when he is helplessly happy in a sitting room with his fiance and her mother. There's something about both Buddy and Seymour that unsettled me. It's the precocious aspect that is rooted in someone very young with a promise of something that is going to happen. In For Esme, with Love and Squalor collection they both make friends with these girls. I always wondered what would happen if the pleasure wasn't in the surprise of hearing what you didn't expect to hear out of someone you didn't expect to hear it from. Seymour could be kinder, such as finding Muriel's mother brave to live in her small world without imagination, and he doesn't even mean it condescendingly to pity her. I wonder what would have happened to them if they didn't have a ceiling to meet up against? No expectation of company to expect to hear from? I hope Buddy meant it that he wanted to see those girls in his class room and find someone else to hear from that wasn't his family. It would be sad to live life like someone who stopped enjoying music past the age of seventeen. Nothing ever sounded good again, and they keep playing the same hits and each time the newness gets less. Oh yeah, I felt better because I hoped that holy ground could be found again in new experiences. That you don't have to feel sad like you can't be like family with all new people because you aren't new anymore.

I'll try to remember Seymour coming at people as a poem and those nine stitches this time because I feel helpless for the right reaction and the right words when I see something that makes me feel small. Why do I feel small? I guess I'll probably think about Muriel and Seymour together because there's a small feeling between them too. I'm a little creeped out that they would need each other's grace that way. It wasn't that way within the Glass family. At least not in the untouchable past, where they would never stop loving each other.

I looked at other reviews of this book a minute ago. I guess other people on goodreads didn't think about Seymour's poetry as much as I did. I wonder if that means that others didn't feel like throwing rocks at beauty too. I always felt ugly. If it was a game of rock, paper, scissors I'd be missing the paper and my pen would have been less mighty than my knife. I wonder if Seymour would have felt differently if he had had a Seymour like Buddy had him. Someone to look up to, maybe, so you could feel like at least someone knew what to say. (less)

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Jul 08, 2009 Ashley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own

There were times when I was reading this book that I wondered whether or not I should reconsider Salinger as my favorite author. I mean, these stories are all over the place... but then I realized why I love him so much. Salinger does not write "skim-worthy" sentences. I really feel like the depth of his writing cannot be grasped if a person is not reading them with the utmost concentration. His short stories (Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and others I have read) seem, more or less, usele...more

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Oct 06, 2008 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories-are-your-friends, to_reread

In retrospect it's a great shame The Carpenters missed their golden opportunity to release a single called "Raise High the Roof Beam".

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Mar 07, 2007 Rolls rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Salinger completists

Anyone who read my review of Salinger's "Nine Stories" knows I love this man's work to death. I've read and enjoyed "Catcher in the Rye" and "Franny and Zooey" a whole hell of a lot too. I picked this up with a heart filled with admiration and optimism. Well that optimism was dashed upon the rocks of Salinger's self-indulgence and apparent disregard for his readers.

This book compiles two short stories first published in the New Yorker and are the final two entries in Salinger's Glass family saga...more Anyone who read my review of Salinger's "Nine Stories" knows I love this man's work to death. I've read and enjoyed "Catcher in the Rye" and "Franny and Zooey" a whole hell of a lot too. I picked this up with a heart filled with admiration and optimism. Well that optimism was dashed upon the rocks of Salinger's self-indulgence and apparent disregard for his readers.

This book compiles two short stories first published in the New Yorker and are the final two entries in Salinger's Glass family saga. "Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters" focuses on Buddy Glass and his trip to his brother Seymour's wedding. "Seymour: an Introduction" again finds Buddy downstage center and is his way of coming to terms with his brother's memory through literature.

Like "Franny and Zooey" we are served up first a good story followed by a not so good story. However where "Zooey" was rambling and a tad unfocused it was at least a short story. "Seymour" on the other hand is a goddamned mess. It reads like the notes an author would take down before actually starting the job of composition. For every sentence of quality and clarity there seem to be pages upon pages of self-indulgent masturbation. This makes for an interminable and ultimately frustrating read.

It's starts off promisingly though. "Raise High the Roofbeams..." is a delight. It is a comically poignant trip into the past. Buddy Glass getting over a bout of pleurisy in the camp hospital must get to New York and be the only family member at his brother Seymour's wedding. What follows is typical Seymour not to mention Salinger. As usual the characters are so well observed and vividly presented we can practically smell them. There is the usual masterful blending of the serious and the comic. Salinger doesn't so much write a story as create a world that he allows us to visit for a spell.

The greatest reward of course is getting to spend a few more moments with a member of the Glass family. In reading over all of Salinger's writing in the last few months I've become almost as obsessed with reading about them as Salinger is writing about them. That's why I thought despite warnings that I could indeed read and enjoy "Seymour." However it's total disregard for it's readers enjoyment almost dispelled the warm glow I felt after reading "Raise High the Roofbeams..."

So unless you have absolutely nothing better to read or do and you are a completist avoid "Seymour" like grim death.

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Jun 17, 2008 Joshb rated it 4 of 5 stars

Salinger is very, very high on the sentimental favorites list, which makes this difficult to assess objectively - so let's start with the easy half of this two-novella collection.

Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters is wonderful, and while it occasionally dips a little too deeply into the preciousness well (the same well that Salinger comes oh-so-close to drowning in in Franny and Zooey), it works, and, if you've read A Perfect Day for Bananafish, serves as a pretty chilling prequel to the entir...more Salinger is very, very high on the sentimental favorites list, which makes this difficult to assess objectively - so let's start with the easy half of this two-novella collection.

Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters is wonderful, and while it occasionally dips a little too deeply into the preciousness well (the same well that Salinger comes oh-so-close to drowning in in Franny and Zooey), it works, and, if you've read A Perfect Day for Bananafish, serves as a pretty chilling prequel to the entire Glass family saga. (And if you haven't read APDFB, what are you waiting for? It's only one of the best short stories ever, and Nine Stories as a whole is indispensable.)

As for Seymour: An Introduction, well... I'm not quite sure what to say. (A well-placed "hoo, boy..." might be appropriate here.) I feel like Salinger had this point gotten himself into a holding pattern where he only knows how to end stories with sudden epiphanies, and he gives us three, all somewhat bargain-basement: 1. Seymour is, for Buddy, something to be given away to the world, to those who never had him. Well, alright. 2. That a Zen approach to writing, where one merely writes without aiming, is the only true way of hitting a target. (In some ways this story, with its tiring constant appeals for our astonished approval at Salinger's erudition, could be seen as a direct example of this theory, but I won't bite.) 3. A re-warmed-over repackaging of the essential lesson of Zooey, that the students that Buddy despises are no less his siblings than Seymour, Boo Boo, Walt, et al. Reading this story, one entirely understands the arguments that Hapworth 16, 1924 was proof of a teetering mind finally gone mad.

But if Salinger's work is as embedded into your DNA as it's become for me, you forgive these flaws for much the same reason it'd be sour and nitpickish to criticize the letter of a friend during hard times - one knows how deeply Buddy must be hurting. It's just a shame that Salinger didn't take over in the third-person, and let poor Buddy take a day off from the task of constantly recounting Seymour.

Read this one after you read the other Glass family stories - these serve as an effective (albeit uneven) coda for the entire affair.(less)

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May 24, 2008 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of Salinger

For as long as I can remember, people have told me that this was the worst of the Salinger collection. His Godfather III if you will. Having read it, I'm not sure what the hell they were thinking. For me, I enjoyed these two stories immensely. Raise High is written in the style of Franny and Zooey, though from the perspective of a different brother (Buddy). Seymour is different. I don't want to characterize it in one form or another. As a piece of background, both stories revolve around the elde...more

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Sep 19, 2012 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars

Many times I have referred in conversation to the introductory pages of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. Our narrator Buddy Glass tells about the night little sister Franny wouldn't sleep. His brother Seymour, age 17, says, "I thought maybe I'd read something to her." Buddy, age 15, says, "She's ten months old, for God's sake." Seymour: "I know. They have ears. They can hear." Seymour proceeds to read to Franny a Taoist tale. "To this day," our narrator tells us, "Franny swears that she rem...more Many times I have referred in conversation to the introductory pages of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. Our narrator Buddy Glass tells about the night little sister Franny wouldn't sleep. His brother Seymour, age 17, says, "I thought maybe I'd read something to her." Buddy, age 15, says, "She's ten months old, for God's sake." Seymour: "I know. They have ears. They can hear." Seymour proceeds to read to Franny a Taoist tale. "To this day," our narrator tells us, "Franny swears that she remembers Seymour reading it to her." I love this commentary on small children and what they can take in.

And then there's the story Seymour reads, about having someone you can send out to look for horses. "What Kao keeps in view is the spiritual mechanism. In making sure of the essential, he forgets the homely details; intent on the inward qualities, he loses sight of the external." Cool story.

On top of that we have Buddy's explanation that Seymour, who is the bridegroom in the story that is about tho follow, died some years back. Then Buddy tells us, "Since the bridegroom's permanent retirement from the scene, I haven't been able to think of anybody whom I'd care to send out to look for horses in his stead." Not sure why this line means so much to me. Maybe it's that it captures the feeling of irreplaceability as we miss the person we have lost.

p76: Title explained (sort of)--Boo Boo's poem written in soap on the bathroom mirror.

Other favorite parts: Seymour's diary. p84 He talks about his future mother-in-law: "I find her unimaginably brave." p88 "I have scars on my hands from touching certain people." He puts his hand on the top of his sister's head and it leaves a mark. (How many times in these 4 books have characters placed a hand on the top of another's head? I don't think I've ever seen that gesture in other fiction.) In contemplation of going to see an analyst just to please his fiancé: "Oh, God, if I'm anything by a clinical name, I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." p91 The cigar finally lit. Watch that cigar throughout the story.

p95-97 About meeting Charlotte and getting her on the radio show: "We didn't even know she could sing. We just wanted her because she had such a beautiful New Yorkese accent. She had a Dyckman Street accent." (Dyckman being a street up near the Cloisters in Manhattan.) In reading this passage, I'm struck by the author's wish to have Seymour both dead and alive. His brother Buddy has the same thoughts and wishes. He gets in Seymour's head when he reads the diary, but in this passage we can see that he's always there: "We didn't even know . . . We just wanted her . . . ." These stories and Franny and Zooey work by having Buddy explain Seymour. The explanation can only come after S is dead, but we need a live Buddy to explain it all to us.

p107 ". . . with a blank sheet of paper enclosed, by way of explanation." JDS was such an influence on our thinking, talking, and writing.

Seymour--An Introduction is a long rambling story that makes me think I don't much like this style any more. Yet as I rad it I see how much it has influenced my own writing style, at least in informal writing.

Like--p230-237 Story about Buddy playing marbles as a child on an evening when the light was just so and Seymour's brief Zen-like advice:"Could you try not aiming so much?" p238-246 Story about little brother Waker giving away his new bicycle, analyzing the marble story, Fastest Boy runner in the World.

p248 "Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong?" (less)

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Oct 01, 2007 Eric rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who really like J. D. Salinger.

Shelves: modern

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters is an excellent short story that follows Buddy Glass on the day of his brother Seymour's wedding. The characters are compelling, you get to know them intimately in the brief time that you have with them, and the story reveals a little more about the inner workings of the Glass family along the way.

Seymour, An Introduction is for those who take an almost voyeuristic pleasure in knowing everything there is to know about the glass family. The story is not well...more

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Jun 20, 2007 Avital rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: usa

Incredble! The way he describes the messed up wedding, the way in the taxi and then that incredible dive into his brother's soul through a page of his diary. The little old uncle! The second story seems like a powerful non-fiction.
His writing is so close to the surface-he writes about the world's reaction to his only published novel, about teaching, about fans and rude people that send him belligerent or all-knowing letters. He writes about pompous academia figures. And about isolating himself a...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Minna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

ALWAYS MORE SALINGER

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Jul 11, 2012 Eustachio rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novelle, statunitensi

L'ho amato. Mi sono costretto a finirlo ma non avrei voluto abbandonarlo, e tutto questo malgrado obiettivamente non sia all'altezza degli altri libri di Salinger. Ma giudicare questo libro obiettivamente non avrebbe senso — leggerlo senza aver letto gli altri tre (specialmente Nove racconti e Franny e Zooey, ma anche Il giovane Holden) ne avrebbe ancora meno. Da qui il mio consiglio: magari vi piace Salinger e avete letto solo Il giovane Holden; bene, se volete approfondire partire da Alzate l'...more

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Nov 26, 2011 Leonie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Two short stories/novellas about the Glass family. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters is lovely. Salinger's prose has a bounce to it; it follows the idiosyncracies of personal experience and its way of doing so means it cleaves close to the humorous and touching without quite coming out and showing that it's trying to be those things. Seymour: an Introduction is not the same kind of thing at all; it's much more a meandering, self-indulgent post-modern account of a writing process than an actua...more

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Nov 06, 2011 hirtho rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to hirtho by: Will (Todd)

Shelves: salinger

11/6 - Roofbeam - whoa, this was word-for-word/syllable-for-syllable, ridiculously amazing. And so FUNNY! My favoritest piece since falling in love at Bananafish. I'm scared of the Glass saga ending, but it seems like it could almost be endlessly cyclical (oh how Hindu! i love it... :) )

11/6 - Seymour - it doesn't have that lyrical, lubricated readability of Roofbeam or his best stories, but it's never tedious like Zooey is and in fact has a ton of proto-postmod radness going on, albeit to conti...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Robert rated it 3 of 5 stars

There are two Salinger (Catcher in the Rye) books here. One was fantastic (Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters) and one sucked (Seymour: an Introduction). Raise High is a classic Salinger. One of the Franny and Zooie family comes into town for the oldest brother's (Seymour) wedding in NYC. Seymour stands up the bride, and our author (whose name I forgot) traipses around NYC with some of the wedding party. Slowly they realize that this dweeb on leave is Seymour's brother. Just fantastic.

Seymour:...more

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Apr 07, 2011 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Officially my new favorite author. J.D. Salinger's writing is witty, funny, smart, and well rounded. The only thing preventing this book from getting a fifth star is that he is a bit...odd sometimes. The stories end with strange flops, and contain bizarre and sometimes gratuitous references. But I suppose it's part of what makes him unique. The characters are real, well-rounded people, with believable (if not slightly more eloquent) thought processes. Truth be told, I have not quite finished Sey...more

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Apr 02, 2011 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Part of the fun of reading Saligner’s short stories is piecing together the story of the Glass family. Rather than writing a single novel about the Glass family with a linear plot, told by a single narrator, he has split the story up into multiple ones, told at different times from different characters. This makes for more active and exciting reading.

"Raise High…" is hilarious. It’s the story of Buddy en route to his brother Seymour’s wedding. The plot moves faster than the plots of either Fran...more Part of the fun of reading Saligner’s short stories is piecing together the story of the Glass family. Rather than writing a single novel about the Glass family with a linear plot, told by a single narrator, he has split the story up into multiple ones, told at different times from different characters. This makes for more active and exciting reading.

"Raise High…" is hilarious. It’s the story of Buddy en route to his brother Seymour’s wedding. The plot moves faster than the plots of either Franny or Zooey, and there are great moments of comic awkwardness and tension. The characters are hyperbolic and their unlikely company makes the story. The best part is when they are caged together in taxi whose progress is halted by a parade.

Seymour is a colossal piece; Buddy’s attempt of a portrait of his brother. Seymour, of course, is the most often referred-to and enigmatic Glass sibling in the Salinger stories. “Seymour,” then, is sort of the climax of the stories. There is a lot of build-up to this story, and Buddy knows the difficult task that he’s taken up:

“And since I’m obviously going whole hog right here at the outset, I’ll further enunciate—if one can enunciate and shout at the same time—that, with or without a suicide plot in his head, he was the only person I’ve ever habitually consorted with, banged around with, who more frequently than not tallied with the classical conception, as I saw it of a mukta, a ringding enlightened man, a God-knower. At any rate, his character lends itself to no legitimate sort of narrative compactness that I know of, and I can’t conceive of anyone, least of all myself, trying to write him off in one shot or in one fairly simple series of sittings…" (106-107).

The resulting prose is dense, playful, alternately tentative and forceful, fragmented, clever, mischievous, self-conscious, and taxing to read. And hilarious:

“Many, many men my age and in my income bracket who write about their dead brothers in enchanting semi-diary form never even bother to give us dates or tell us where they are. No sense of collaboration. I’ve vowed not to let that happen to me. This is Thursday, and I’m back in my horrible chair” (192).

Truthfully, I didn’t like it at first. I thought it was pretentious and not fun. I’m not sure why, but I stuck with it, and Buddy slowly won me over until I reached the end, at which point I lamented that there wasn’t more. In fact, now that I’ve read all of Salinger stories, I miss the Glasses. So much so, that I recently re-watched "The Royal Tenenbaums."
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Jan 27, 2011 Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars

Today marks the one year anniversary of Salinger's death, and fittingly, though not purposefully, today I finished the final story of his that I had yet to read. That is to say, that he published. After reading "Seymour" I can't help but want to write long-winded parenthetical-laced (double worded singular nouns with impregnated hyphens) sentences that go on and on and force a reader to go back to the baptismal font to capture a glistening sliver of what the Hell I'm talking about.

Still, could t...more

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Jan 07, 2011 Belen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

algo que escribi cuando lo leía, en esas epocas. (2006) Hoy quiero hablar de Salinger... si, ...el escritor yankee ese TAN GROSO a mi gusto... algunos lo conoceran por haber leido "the catcher in the rye" en el colegio privado y biligue y re-cheto de zona norte, otros por la peli "descubriendo a forrester" que no vi... en fin. ya he hablado de Salinger en este blog, pero no voy a contener mis ansias de seguir explayandome... estoy leyendo "Seymour...una introduccion" y me parece bastante interes...more algo que escribi cuando lo leía, en esas epocas. (2006) Hoy quiero hablar de Salinger... si, ...el escritor yankee ese TAN GROSO a mi gusto... algunos lo conoceran por haber leido "the catcher in the rye" en el colegio privado y biligue y re-cheto de zona norte, otros por la peli "descubriendo a forrester" que no vi... en fin. ya he hablado de Salinger en este blog, pero no voy a contener mis ansias de seguir explayandome... estoy leyendo "Seymour...una introduccion" y me parece bastante interesante el modo que tiene de escribir... es impresionante como te llegan las cosas en el momento adecuado... el logra Eso que yo intento explicar, o plasmar en la escritura (nunca dije ser original en esto) logra esa mezcla de planos (o metalenguajes) de un modo prolijo y delicado. Intentare explicar esto. Consideremos un plano de realidad, al que se manifiesta como "lo que el escritor esta contando" consideremos como otro plano de realidad, al hecho de que lo cuenta en primera persona, pero como justamente "contando" al lector un "algo"... y consideremos que se agrega otro plano de realidad, que se cuela perfectamente: al mismo escritor, hablando de lo que esta escribiendo en ese mismisimo instante, y acotando pensamientos respecto de lo que esta contando. (de hecho eso podria ser dividido en dos diferentes planos). en fin... logra una unidad con multiples voces, multiples lenguajes que se vifurcan, se intersectan, juegan entre si, formando un dialogo con el mismisimo lector (esto es importante) en donde lo hace sentir participe de una charla de café, en donde el pensamiento del que cuenta, sale sin barreras, sin cortes, sin censura alguna... es puramente Él... en toda su expresión, haciendo que hablar sea lo mismo que pensar y pensar lo mismo que hablar. (o sea, no hay diferencia...el lector se "mete" en la mismisima mente del que habla (ya no podemos decir "escribe") para ser con él, en él.) Es muy interesante este modo de escribir, a mi gusto. Y me parece que no se le ha dado a Salinger mucha bola... por lo menos no toda la que se merece... en fin. una lastima que se haya desaparecido del mundo... espero que cuando fallezca algun malvado pariente o allegado publique todas sus obras (si si este es mi mas cruel deseo del universo... cuanta maldad...)(less)

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May 12, 2010 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

While Seymour did start to get a little old with the narrator, Buddy’s, description of his older suicided brother, Seymour, I love the tone, the voice, the undercurrent throughout. And what Salinger was trying to do: keep Buddy’s older role model brother young alive and still a model, someone who Buddy can continue learning from. In that way Buddy is able to deal (or not deal) with his grief. Or more accurately, he starts to reminisce and to grieve. We bear witness to this as writing about Seymo...more While Seymour did start to get a little old with the narrator, Buddy’s, description of his older suicided brother, Seymour, I love the tone, the voice, the undercurrent throughout. And what Salinger was trying to do: keep Buddy’s older role model brother young alive and still a model, someone who Buddy can continue learning from. In that way Buddy is able to deal (or not deal) with his grief. Or more accurately, he starts to reminisce and to grieve. We bear witness to this as writing about Seymour’s eyes and nose becomes excruciating reason for naps.

While the entire novella reads self-consciously as a writer writing a book, the “transcription” of Seymour’s letter to Buddy after Seymour stayed up all night reading one of Buddy’s short stories (in the story) is a beautiful collection of tips for writers. “Don’t make me proud of you,” Seymour writes. “If only you’d never keep me up again out of pride. Give me a story that makes me unreasonably vigilant. Keep me up again till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason.”

Seymour isn’t not praising the Buddy’s story. It kept him up till 5 a.m., but he’s warning him against perfection. As “trite” as it sounds, Seymour mainly wants to tell Buddy: “Please follow your heart, win or lose.” Don’t get carried away by what others want or by what you think others want. (Oh, this is so often when we miss the shot.) Essentially Seymour advises Buddy: don’t aim. Let accident happen.

This ties in with Buddy feeling it necessary to drop poetry entirely if one is to settle and stop seeking… well, perfection. I puzzled over this passage for some time. If one is able to loosen up, as it were, and accept things as they are, why is that a call to “drop poetry altogether?” I reread this passage several times, thinking what does it mean… exactly? At the end of the novella, Seymour re-utters his no-aim refrain, suggesting that Buddy stop trying so hard while playing marbles. Sure, Buddy always hits the target, but there’s no fun in it, no adventure. No serendipity. Nothing learned.

Which brings me back to what does it mean exactly…

As I write this I realize that as a reader, too, I’m shouldering my perfectionist tendencies. Part of me, what I will call my intuitive and more intelligent side, wants to accept this line of thought as somehow profound; it’s certainly interesting. Another (rational, bogarting analytical) part is saying, what the heck do you mean by that? I want an answer. I want my target to be hit. But the fact that such a passage stops me in my tracks means my target was bullseyed. Go figure. I didn’t even know I had a target. So, perfectionism aside, my target, which might not have even existed before someone struck it, was indeed struck by accident, without aiming. Aiming for what? Exactly…

It’s funny that I’ve written all about Seymour, when during the read it was Raise High that I enjoyed most....(less)

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Feb 02, 2010 Marcia rated it 5 of 5 stars

a long time ago, my friend sent me this passage from raise high and it reminded me 1) why i love salinger and 2) why we are best friends.
"...Muriel loved the kitten and wanted me to love it. Even in the dark, I could sense that she felt the usual estrangement from me when I don't automatically love what she loves. Later, when we were having a drink at the station, she asked me if I didn't think that kitten was 'rather nice.' She doesn't use the word 'cute' any more. When did I ever frighten her...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Amar rated it 2 of 5 stars

Raise High: 3 stars
Seymour: 2 stars

There's something to Salinger, there really is. I've mentioned this before in other reviews, but it's an originality--of circumstance, of characters, of humor--that makes any material of his, no matter how bad, worth reading. Which is why, despite Buddy's incessant droning (Buddy: brother of Seymour and narrator) in Seymour: An Introduction, I kept reading, knowing that little nuggets of original creation lied ahead, nuggets which, in entire books of certain au...more

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Jul 05, 2009 Brittany rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's an original collection of 2 short stories by JD Salinger. The first story tells of a twenty-something, Buddy, on the day his older brother, Seymour, is about to get married. Here you learn about the person of Buddy and hints of who Seymour really is as a person. The cast of characters are raw and remind you of people you've met before or feelings you've had before.
The second short story is less of a story with a plot or cast of characters, but more of a story about how a now forty-somethin...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Shauna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Like so many other high school students, Salinger's the one who first got me "on to" novels in the way I read them now -- feverishly, single-mindedly -- so I can't account for why it's taken me more than a decade to revisit him. Every sentence in this is glistening and polished, but for all their exactness, the overall effect is one of subtle, self-deprecating comedy. The narrator's subject in both sections is his brother, who committed suicide at 31, but there's no trace of the sinister -- in f...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Raise High:
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 abil...more

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Mar 23, 2012 Julian rated it 1 of 5 stars

My story is a classic one. Boy reads book (Catcher in the Rye). Boy likes book. A lot. Boy decides to read everything author ever wrote, discovering that some of that happens to be a rambling, unfocused mess. I have now read everything that Salinger has ever published in the Glass family saga and am beyond glad to be done with the whole mess. Seymour: An Introduction, a novella that details narrator Buddy Glass's struggle to describe his deceased brother, is a story so bad that it makes me want...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Lorelei rated it 4 of 5 stars

Salinger seems to have a knack for keeping me hooked; I finished this one in one night and Franny & Zooey the other night. I don't quite understand some readers' absolute distaste for Seymour: An Introduction; reality and realizations are often messy, disordered, and delayed. Not all art is wrapped in a bow or orderly to look at, and if one has seen any modern/post-modern art and has admired that, I don't understand not being able to at least partially admire the second part of this book.

I...more Salinger seems to have a knack for keeping me hooked; I finished this one in one night and Franny & Zooey the other night. I don't quite understand some readers' absolute distaste for Seymour: An Introduction; reality and realizations are often messy, disordered, and delayed. Not all art is wrapped in a bow or orderly to look at, and if one has seen any modern/post-modern art and has admired that, I don't understand not being able to at least partially admire the second part of this book.

I will admit I was a tad underwhelmed at the voice at times: the second guessing; the self-indulgence (which occasionally I quite enjoy - especially when it's done in a witty and intelligent manner, by an author who I find fascinating; David Foster Wallace comes to mind. Salinger didn't self-indulge quite as amusingly here, though he had his moments). But there were moments when I was all but physically transported, such as when I entered into the ten year old mind of a boy playing marbles at dusk having a surreal, yet innocent and perfectly beautiful moment, and that's art. Maybe not his finest or prettiest or most packaged work, but certainly not deserving of a flat-out condemnation or dismissal, especially since his works were groundbreaking for their time. But I can understand those who may not really like Salinger for one reason or another jumping on this one, just as I can understand myself having some positive bias when reading the second part of this book.

As for the first story, it hasn't been bashed, so I don't feel the need to defend it as much. The whole book explores topics that are relevant to the artistically bent and people in general, such as negative personality type or sexual orientation labeling, myths or perhaps near-truths about artists/poets/not-quite-typical people and their ability (or somewhat lack thereof) to fully integrate into society, related to how intensely they feel or are effected by the world around them, effective description, great dialogue, and perspectives that tend to go against the grain of society. (less)

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Oct 05, 2012 J. Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars

As the first book that I've finished since starting this account, I suppose it'll be the first that I'll review since it's all still fresh.

While reading Raise High/Seymour I had to stop myself more than once to swoon at Salinger's genius. That he was made famous by Catcher in the Rye (still a good book) rather than these Glass stories is frustrating. That said, I think Raise High and, to a greater extent, Seymour are ruined by Salinger's (or maybe Buddy's--I tend to equate the two with good rea...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Markus Molina rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First off, I loved "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters". 5/5 in my eyes. The prose is masterful. Salinger's world is alive and it was nice to visit for the 92 pages or so that it existed. I loved it from page one.

Seymour, on the other hand, is ridiculous. It's a Stream of Consciousness, I'm not entirely sure I will ever want to read. I got a few pages in and checked to see if it would ever change. It seems as though Salinger decided to be contumacious just for the hell of it. There are little...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Kapuss rated it 5 of 5 stars

Otra maravilla de Salinger, y me refiero en concreto a la primera de las historias de este volumen. Me ha parecido uno de los relatos más bonitos que he leído jamás! Y después de esto poco más puedo decir. Está un poco en la línea de "Franny y Zooey", libro que leí no hace mucho y que me dejó maravillado. Es todo tan pequeño y anecdótico y al mismo tiempo tan inmenso!! Es esto posible? Y la presencia de Seymour, que no aparece físicamente en el relato, es tan intensa. Es el prota del cuento y só...more

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About J.D. Salinger

Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he publishe...more Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he published the critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in The New Yorker magazine, which became home to much of his subsequent work. In 1951 Salinger released his novel The Catcher in the Rye, an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.

The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention and scrutiny: Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently. He followed Catcher with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953), a collection of a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961), and a collection of two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965.

Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton and the release in the late 1990s of memoirs written by two people close to him: Joyce Maynard, an ex-lover; and Margaret Salinger, his daughter. In 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish "Hapworth 16, 1924" in book form, but amid the ensuing publicity, the release was indefinitely delayed. He made headlines around the globe in June 2009, after filing a lawsuit against another writer for copyright infringement resulting from that writer's use of one of Salinger's characters from The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger died of natural causes on January 27, 2010, at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire.
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