Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #191401 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-30
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

I really wanted to like this, but...
Probably like many others I sought out Salinger's other books after enjoying Catcher In The Rye. Disappointed with Nine Stories, and totally let down by Franny & Zooey, I continued on to this book. I found the first story - Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters - an enjoyable read. There was hope yet, and Seymour seemed to be the most (only?) interesting character from the Glass family stories; so Seymour: An Introduction would probably be the best story of them all. It turned out to be a kind of pretentious ranting by the author and all the philosophy books that he had apparently read. I was really hoping to find some of the magic that was in Catcher. The first of the two stories in this book came close to offering that, but the second one was impossibly frustrating.

BUDDY GLASS AT HIS BEST
After re-reading Franny & Zooey, I tackled Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. The former is a really great story, narrated by and starring Buddy Glass. It's near the end of World War II and the Glass family is scattered all over the world, but their oldest brother Seymour is getting married in New York City and Buddy is the only one in the family who is able to attend. So Buddy is sitting there in his uniform (it's a sweltering day in the summer of '45) and after a long wait it is announced that the groom is a no-show and the bride has been stood-up at the alter.

So all the guests leave the hall and get into a series of waiting town cars which are to take them to the bride's house for the reception, and Buddy gets into one of these cars with a bunch of people who are furious at Seymour, and the angriest of the women manages to eventually figure out that Buddy is his brother. It's very claustrophobic and funny - I recommend it. Seymour: An Introduction - not so much.

Advanced Readings in Salinger's Glass family.
When I was in college, I read this book like it was the Bible. Published after his better-known novels, The Catcher in the Rye (1951) and Franny and Zooey (1961), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963) is a study in Salinger's fictional Glass family, of which Franny and Zooey are siblings. (The Glass family also appear in the short stories "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut," "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," and "Down at the Dinghy," collected in Nine Stories.)

Narrated by Franny and Zooey's older brother, Buddy Glass, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters tells the story of his older brother, Seymour's 1942 wedding, an event which foreshadows his 1948 suicide while vacationing with his wife (which is the subject of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"). Seymour, who no-shows at his own Tom-Collins-fueled wedding, is described through the eyes of Buddy. Seymour, as his name suggests ("see-more"), is the spiritual center of the Glass family. In his a stream-of-consciousness narrative, Seymour: An Introduction, Buddy struggles with the death of his spiritually enlightened brother and confidante. Whereas Catcher should be read as introductory Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction should be read as advanced studies in Salinger's Glass family.

G. Merritt