In Tribute to J. D. Salinger

Thank you to everyone who attended the Barga Book Club Meeting on Tuesday. Thank you as well, to our host for the splendid setting and delicious meal.

Margaret Moore has honored us with a perspicacious recap of the meeting below.

Although Salinger's work merits much further study we will move on to discuss Small Island by Andrea Levy at the meeting which will take place 13 April and then Book of Illusions by Paul Auster at the May meeting. We would like to encourage everyone to participate. Even if you did not like the books which were chosen, your contribution is appreciated and valuable to the discourse at hand. We look forward to hearing from any and all of you as to which books you might wish to read and discuss.

Thank you again and we look forward to seeing you on April 13th.



This month the Barga Book club was hosted for the rather reduced number of members present. There was a lively discussion of the book, ‘Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters’ by J D Salinger, led by Kerry Bell who chose the book. For some this was the re-visitation of a book read and loved in the sixties, for others it was a first time reading. Approaching the book so long after its publication, one is perhaps more of aware of the historical context. It was suggested that this book has its roots in the Jewish background of the author, who also spent some time in Vienna in 1939 where he can hardly have been unaware of the precarious situation for Jews at that time. For others the overwhelming importance of this book was that it was emblematic of the culture of youth , when for the first time the young looked objectively at adults and rejected their values as phony. Youth was speaking its own language and communication with the previous generations was often impossible. It had not as yet acquired its own identity. The War broke down many barriers; for the young who were abruptly empowered when they took on the burden of active service, and for women whose role was changing, too.
The opening page of the book, through a story from the Dao, has an Eastern Philosophical slant, and the writing throughout is permeated with this Zen-like approach to life. The scene is set in 1942. Seymour’s sister is in the navy, Buddy in the army, Seymour has seen action, another brother was killed. Salinger too saw active service during World War 11 and was present at the liberation of a concentration camp. The effects of these experiences , after which he suffered a nervous breakdown, will be evident throughout his life as he seeks in Eastern Religions a more peaceful and compassionate way of life. While many post war books dealt with the external aspects of this period, Salinger was concerned with inner emotional perception and explores relationships, through the invented Glass family, of mixed Jewish/ Catholic parentage like himself
The main character, Seymour Glass, although absent , is presented through others. He is the bridegroom who leaves his bride alone at the wedding, too overcome and almost unbalanced by his immense happiness. It is up to the narrator, Buddy, his brother, (Salinger’s alter ego) to defend his brother’s absence. Through him the reader comes to know about this intellectual, erudite, sensitive, beautiful man and poet, who seems to live on a plane that the average person cannot approach, let alone understand. The Glass family, parents Jewish/ Irish, had seven children who all took part in the radio programme ‘It’s a Wise Child’ for child prodigies. They are set apart from their peers at an early age, partly through their astonishing intelligence but also because Seymour educates them in Eastern philosophy, and preaches love and compassion. The dynamics between the family members is realistic and convincing.
After the wedding fails to take place, the guests exit and seek escape. The atmosphere is suffocating, in a limousine in the heat of New York, where a very noisy parade is taking place and effectively blocks their passage. The noise is deafening. They then proceed to an airless closed apartment where Buddy hastens to turn on the air conditioning. He is surrounded by the bride’s guests, who do not know his identity. He is further constricted by plaster round his body as the result of an injury . While the Matron of Honour is vociferous, telling everyone that Seymour needs psychiatric help and may even be ‘a latent homosexual and a schizoid personality’ , and her army officer husband subtly reinforces the concept of authority, Buddy is at first unable to be himself and avoids saying who he is. Everything is claustrophobic ad vaguely menacing. The only person with whom Buddy can communicate is the deaf-mute uncle, who theoretically is the only person who cannot express any views and remains like a smiling Buddha throughout.
The language used by Salinger is immediately identifiable, as Manhattan-ese. It is credible, and reinforces the solid reality of the situation , where ‘normal’ people are commenting, what to them is inexplicable and abhorrent behaviour, which Buddy is defending , as not only acceptable but as supremely understandable. The abyss, between their way of perceiving things and his own, is emblematic of the rift between ‘normals’ or ‘phonies’ (See the Catcher in The Rye’) and the Glass family, as it is between youth and the older generations. The Matron of honour accuses Seymour of ‘freakish behaviour’ . What does not adhere to the norm is frighteningly incomprehensible and must be labelled as abnormal.
While the guests lie around his sister’s apartment in the heat, Buddy retreats to the bathroom to read his brother’s diaries. Seymour’s somewhat inexplicable love for Muriel who is quite different to the Glass family is summed up when he says, ‘’she wants her own Christmas tree ornaments to un-box annually, not her mother’s.’ Seymour defines himself as a paranoiac in reverse, ‘I suspect people of trying to make me happy,’
There was general recognition of the importance of Salinger’s writing, not only in its historical context but today as well. His output was slim but had a massive impact. It was prophetic and is still pertinent in the 21st century. Like a Zen aphorism; either you get it or you don’t . Margaret Moore, March 4, 2010

Margaret's work can be found here.