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| View Larger Image | Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction | Mass Market Paperbackby J. D. Salinger (Author)
| List Price: | $6.99 | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Mass Market Paperback | | Publisher: | Little, Brown and Company | | Page Count: | 224 Pages | | Publication Date: | May 01, 1991 | | Sales Rank: | 377,474th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780316769518
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
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 they had better be collected together, if not deliberately paired off, in something of a hurry, if I mean them to avoid unduly or undesirably close contact with new material in the series. There is only my word for it, granted, but I have several new Glass stories coming along ? waxing, dilating ? each in its own way, but I suspect the less said about them, in mixed company, the better. Oddly, the joys and satisfactions of working on the Glass family peculiarly increase and deepen for me with the years. I can't say why, though. Not, at least, outside the casino proper of my fiction. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 81 reviews)
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Salinger's Greatest Height by This be Richard (Rockville, MD USA)  5 Stars
August 11, 2009
What I'm about to say may help to clarify from where I'm coming:
Salinger is my favorite author; Catcher in the Rye is my least favorite of his works.
Obviously, I hold a great fondness for things about Salinger's writing that are not held in as great esteem by many others.
That said, in Carpenters, there is a quality of voice woefully uncommon in most literature, and less seen even in Salinger's other works. The language flows in a way that manages to be both casual and astoundingly lyrical, with subtly different tones for each character.
Seymour: an Introduction is slightly less stellar, but good all the same.
For anyone that finds the way a story is told to be a measure of its excellence, I recommend this heartily.
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Brilliant ... by Charlie Stella (Fords, New Joisey) 5 Stars
November 19, 2008
A third reading leaves me more impressed than the first two (must be my age) ... I will forever describe myself as a "chiropodist."
"Raise High ..." is brilliant writing.
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Crashing into reality... by Harkius (Laramie, WY)  2 Stars
August 24, 2008
First, let me say that I enjoyed "Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters". It was straight-forward and enjoyable. Whilst much of Salinger's writing has mystified readers and lends itself to a deeper reading, this story seems quite simple and enjoyable. It is, no more nor less, the story of Buddy Glass finding out why his brother does not get married on his Wedding Day, and beginning (ending?) to understand his brother Seymour.
The latter half of this book, "Seymour: An Introduction" is nothing more or less than maudlin tripe. I read the reviews here, and I find fault with all of them. This novella (or whatever it is) is not about mysticism. It is not about writing. It is not about art. It is merely the self-important, self-aggrandizing memories of a person who seeks to find a hero, a particularly dead and nepotistic hero, in whose shadow he can bask and feel a sense of rejection for simply not measuring up. We've all had that feeling. Sooner or later, we all grow out of it. The narrator here wants, quite simply, for us to love Seymour as he loved Seymour. In all his glory, with all his warts.
In the end, it was so maudlin that it nearly made me physically ill. I know that this review will be panned. So be it. If you like stories where the narrator is distinctly hero-worshipping his own dead brother for the simple purpose of making himself look bad, petulantly, so that we will feel more sympathy for his lack of Art or of Purpose, then read on. If you loathe this kind of manipulative kitsch, stay away.
Harkius
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I really wanted to like this, but... by C. Subaykan (Seattle, WA) 2 Stars
May 27, 2008
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.
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BUDDY GLASS AT HIS BEST by Kennedy Gammage (San Diego, CA USA)  4 Stars
May 21, 2008
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.
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Nine Stories
by J.D. Salinger (Author)
Since the publication of The Catcher in the Rye in 1951, the works of J.D. Salinger have been acclaimed for their humor, intensity, and their lack of phoniness. A collection of short fiction, Nine Stories contains works with those qualities that make Salinger such a well-loved author.
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| Franny and Zooey
by J.D. Salinger (Author)
The author writes: Franny came out in The New...
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| The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger (Author)
Ever since it was first published in 1951, this novel has been the coming-of-age story against which all others are judged. Read and cherished by generations, the story of Holden Caulfield is truly one of America's literary treasures.
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| Salinger: A Biography
by Paul Alexander (Author)
In researching Salinger: A Biography, journalist and biographer Paul Alexander conducted over forty interviews with major literary figures including George Plimpton, Gay Talese, Ian Hamilton, Harold Bloom, Roger Angell, A. Scott Berg, Robert Giroux, Ved Mehta, Gordon Lish, and Tom Wolfe. Alexander's research also took him to newly available archives at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and Columbia universities, NYU, and the New York Public Library. Response from critics has been overwhelming.
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| Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses
by Régine Pernoud (Author)
First published in the United States in 1966 by Stein and Day.
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