really enjoyed raise high the roof beam- interesting how seymour could have been the inspo for holden caulfield

The whole Glass family saga is creepy and off-putting. It’s supposed to be, I guess, but what I mean is that the hyper-intellectualized way in which they respond to their world is supposed to also be endearing, but I don’t find it endearing, just kind of sad. Like, the end of the book, where the little old man is gone, and Buddy thinks maybe he should send the cigar end to Seymour—“ Possibly with a blank sheet of paper enclosed, by way of explanation”—rings false to me. The cigar end, yes, but not the blank sheet of paper.

But what I love about this book is its picture of the way we relate to the social groups we find ourselves in, and the two groups it chooses to juxtapose: Buddy's family, and the totally random group of strangers he finds himself in the car with. So, there's this wonderful passage where the book asks why Buddy stays in the car that's taking him to the house of the bride his brother just abandoned:

"Why, then, did I go on sitting in the car? Why didn’t I get out while, say, we were stopped for a red light? And, still more salient, why had I jumped in the car in the first place? . . . There seem to me at least a dozen answers to these questions, and all of them, however dimly, valid, enough. I think, though, that I can dispense with them, and just reiterate that the year was 1942, that I was twenty-three, newly drafted, newly advised in the efficacy of keeping close to the herd—and, above all, I felt lonely. One simply jumped into loaded cars, as I see it, and stayed seated in them."

I feel like this describes a lot of moments in my life.

As for why Seymour can't participate in the marriage ceremony and whether it relates to his eventual suicide, I wasn't very interested in the mystery, except that it makes a nice background to the wonderful mystery of why Buddy gets in the car, why anybody is part of the little groups we're part of, why the little old man writes "Delighted!" and seems so thoroughly to mean it when invited to join an awful group of people on a nonsensical outing on a totally unpleasant day.

was nice to read about grief and make it through feeling slightly better about the idea of it

It seems unfair to give this three stars when I was absolutely charmed by the first part of the book. The writing in the second part annoyed me a little though I understood the point. Either way, I blame this on my love/hate relationship with Salinger where I hate him and who he was as a person and love his writing.

Raise High the Roof Beam gave me hope because I finally liked a Glass family story. That was an easy four stars. But Seymour was absolutely awful — the most pretentious drivel I've ever read in my life. I almost gave up on it more times than I could count. But I'm done with it and I'm very glad to be done with this entire family.

Genoten van het eerste deel, maar Seymour, een introductie was toch maar een lijdensweg.

— Drie jaar geleden las ik Heft hoog de nokbalk, timmerlieden en Seymour, een introductie voor het eerst en ik kon me, toen ik in april besloot het te herlezen, enkel details van Heft hoog herinneren. Ik wist van het tweede deel van dit boek alleen nog dat het stuk taaier was dan het eerste. Ik stuitte in Seymour op de volgende woorden, ik begrijp nog steeds niet dat ik me dit niet kon herinneren:

"Is de echte dichter of schilder niet een ziener? Is hij niet eigenlijk de enige ziener die we op de wereld hebben?"

En enkele regels daaronder:

".. ik zeg dat de ware kunstenaar-ziener, de hemelse dwaas die schoonheid kan voortbrengen en dat ook doet, voornamelijk doodgeduizeld wordt door zijn eigen scrupules, de verblindende vormen en kleuren van zijn eigen heilige menselijke geweten."

In feite, neem uw exemplaar van dit boek en lees de eerste tien pagina's van Seymour. Ik was zelf vooral erg onder de indruk van enkele alinea's die starten op pagina 107* met de woorden "Om te beginnen wil ik graag.." en eindigen op pagina 112* met de bovenstaande woorden over het 'heilige menselijke geweten' van 'de ware kunstenaar-ziener'.

In Heft hoog de nokbalk, timmerlieden en Seymour, een introductie leren we enkele leden van de Glass-familie beter kennen: de twee grote broers van Franny & Zoey; Buddy en Seymour. Misschien wel beter, in ieder geval minstens zo goed als Franny and Zooey. En ik kan me niet voorstellen dat iemand een hekel kan hebben aan Salingers schrijfsels. Dear Everything, hij was fantastisch.