If you asked me what my favourite movie or song was I probably couldn’t tell you. There isn’t any one movie or song that I can single out as being my absolute favourite of all time. When it comes to books on the other hand I can. My favourite book, the story I think everyone should read, is Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, by J. D. Salinger.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters takes place one hot afternoon in New York city. The story is all about a wedding, and in particular the absent groom who happens to be the narrator’s brother. It’s a simple story, much like all of Salinger’s others, but all the little details make it truly a joy to read. I was shocked to read it was received poorly when it came out in the 50s. It isn’t quite a love story, but it is very much about love. The ending is classic.

Salinger is most famous for writing Catcher in the Rye. I read that novel first during the early years of high school. In my last year, I ended up doing a ISU on Salinger (after picking and giving up on Charles Dickens). I ended up reading all his other stories published as novels: Nine Stories, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction, and Franny and Zooey. I’ve never felt more angry at someone I don’t know when I discovered that the four books I’ve mentioned are the sum total of the man’s published works. You can track down some of his other short stories printed in old magazines if you work hard enough—Tiffany found them in the Waterloo library for example. Nowadays you can also find them online, which is quite nice. Sometime in the late 60s Salinger stopped publishing. Sonuvabitch.

I reread Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters a few days back, which is why it is on my mind. I just finished reading Franny again, and am almost done with Zooey. If you are looking for some good books to read, I can’t recommend these stories enough.

-- http://funkaoshi.com/blog/raise-high-... ( )

In comparison to Salinger’s other work, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction slightly disappoints with its lackluster plot and overwrought observations. On the other hand, I relished the ubiquitous narrator Buddy Glass’ overflowing sprint down memory lane. In both stories, the eldest surviving Glass child attempts to elucidate the long departed Seymour’s quirky traits, intelligence, and his actions before almost jilting his soon to be young widow on their wedding day on a hot, sweltering New York day.

Despite a lukewarm welcome among bookworms and critics alike, this reader lovingly warmed up to Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction partly because the elusive Buddy’s narration holds such promise, providing snippets of Glass family anecdotes which almost makes the reader feel like a fly on the quasi-alienated overachieving family’s living room wall with all their dysfunctional warts itching to break free. ( )

Two novellas that expand upon Salinger's popular Glass family. "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" deals with the day of Seymour's wedding, while "Seymour - An Introduction" is Buddy's stream-of-consciousness discussion of his dead brother.

I adore Salinger's writing for many, many reasons, but my love rests most firmly on two basic elements: voice and style. His stories brim with both. They've got this wonderful elegance to them, even as they flirt with colloquial language and common speech patterns. He does some truly beautiful things with dialogue and internal monologue; however, I did find it difficult, on occasion, to really get inside Buddy's head. With another author, I would have found this intensely frustrating, but with Salinger it's all part of the game. Those brief, wonderful moments where Buddy's whole character just opens up are more than worth the moments of reticence and stylistic cover up.

Thematically, I find Salinger's work fascinating in that so much of it deals with dead brothers. I have a particular - and, admittedly, strange - fascination with the dead little brother in literature. It's a surprisingly common theme, (don't believe me? Just think about it for a bit), and one that Salinger works with in The Catcher in the Rye. Here, however, he is concerned with something similar but entirely different - namely, the dead older brother.

Though they deal with other things as well, all Salinger's Glass Family stories are influenced by Seymour's suicide. Anyone who's read Nine Stories or Franny and Zooey already knows what's happened and has seen some of the effects on the family. "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" instantly informs the uninitiated that Seymour has killed himself... then changes the game by rewinding and discussing an event in the past, when Seymour was very much alive. Though he himself makes no appearance in the story, we hear a great deal about him and cannot help but consider what we hear in light of his eventual death. The story is funny, emotional, and a true slice of human experience, but it becomes something potentially dark through our knowledge of Seymour's fate.

"Seymour - An Introduction" is much more raw. Salinger has pulled out all the stops this time around. We already know that Seymour has killed himself. Now we are invited to consider the effect his death has had on Buddy in a much more visceral way than was previously possible. Buddy tells us a great deal about Seymour without giving many concrete details. In fact, when he tries to give the reader anything substantial, he finds himself wandering off into tangents that illuminate his own character as much as Seymour's. It's a beautiful, engaging, and often frustrating look at literature, family, brotherhood and the self. There were moments when one of Salinger's images struck me so hard that I burst out laughing. There were moments when I thought I'd start sobbing wretchedly if I read another word. Like a previous reviewer, I feel that it adds a great deal to the wider Glass Family story... but I'm not sure I could return to it any time soon. I found it an emotionally draining read, but I wouldn't take it back for the world.

I highly recommend Salinger, but I'm not sure that these stories are really the best place to start. If you're new to his work, having somehow managed to avoid The Catcher in the Rye in high school and afterwards, I'd say Nine Stories is probably the best place to start. Save this one for last. It's beautiful, but it is probably the least accessible of Salinger's works. ( )

Remember this: "Seymour: an Introduction" has stopped you cold in its grace, digressions, pain, and pride.

Reading it had me spellbound, if not for its eloquence and insight, then for its difficulty that, at first, the text appears as nothing else Salinger has written, yet at the very heart is exactly how he has been striving to write in all of his other works. It reads like a diary entry on how to read and write, and I feel that all English students should study this carefully; its excessiveness is not excess at all, and for all its verbosity, it is simple, but not as Buddy detests the word. The message is clear, though I cannot quite write it out here, only that I understand it. ( )