My Review

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters as a title always frustrated me, and it is now, many years developed from where that frustration began, that I can feel the cathartic value of having that frustration appeased, accounted for and dismissed in a measly 107 pages.

Seemingly verbose and convoluted, one can't expect anything with such an impenetrable title, and perhaps, upon finishing the former part of this distinctly paired assemblies of insights into the life of the elder brothers of the Glass family - the latter being Seymour an Introduction, that I can see why this former half's universally misinterpreted and irreducible legend, must be exactly as it is, much like a blank white sheet, without a single mark against it.

A personal point of adherence for me was Seymour's mentioning (appearing to us through Buddy's reading of a disenfranchised journal whilst sitting on the edge of an unfilled bathtub) his untowardly response of wishing to become a dead cat:

"I answered that it seemed to me that the war might go on forever, and that I was only certain that if peace ever came again I would like to be a dead cat. Mrs. Fedder thought I was cracking a joke of some kind. A sophisticated joke. She thinks I'm very sophisticated, according to Muriel. She thought my deadly-serious comment was the sort of joke one ought to acknowledge with a light, musical laugh. When she laughed, I suppose it distracted me a little, and I forgot to explain to her. I told Muriel tonight that in Zen Buddhism a master was once asked what was the most valuable thing in the world, and the master answered that a dead cat was, because no one could put a price on it." Pg. 82-83 (Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters) - J.D. Salinger

Seymour an Introduction was by far the most uninhibited babbling brook of Salinger's I have ever encountered; the light stomached reader beware; English majors run for the hills - everyone else enjoy the buffet and call me on Tuesday.

"One of my great-grandfathers (and Seymour's), for an admittedly juicy example, was a quite famous Polish-Jewish carnival clown named Zozo, who had a penchant - up to the very end, one necessarily gathers - for diving from immense heights into small containers of water. Pg 168 (Seymour an Introduction) -J.D. Salinger

Continue Reading

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

A review of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle.

The Trial by Franz Kafka, Chapter 9: In the Cathedral

A 53-minute narration of Chapter 9 of Kafka’s The Trial (In the Cathedral), read by Joseph Voelbel,

39 Book Reviews

A shorthand reference to thirty-nine book reviews organized by subject covering money, consciousness