Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters/ Seymour ~ An Introduction

There are certain books that I can steam through, creasing the spine and rolling through the pages, and these books can affect me deeply. But there are certain books that I feel the need to unpick slowly, every single sentence needs to be individually held. This was how I felt with Seymour ~ An Introduction, the second story in this book. I think I learned so much more about Salinger from this book than from The Catcher in the Rye. This story needs to be read slowly, I think, not only for the purpose of savouring it, but just so each page gets a lot of attention. Kind of like when you become obsessed with one song and listen to it about 30 times in a day, that’s the kind of attention I mean, where you learn all the words and know the starting riff. Where you realise the complexity of a perfect 3 minute song that appears so simple. This is all because what we have here is a very tuneful tale. It is all about poetry, really, with many simple but breathtaking examples of what it means to be an innate poet. It is written by Seymour’s younger brother Buddy, some ten years after Seymour’s suicide (see A Perfect Day for Bananafish, in For Esme ~ With Love and Squalor, one of the most faultless short stories ever written).

There are just such tremblingly lucid observations about Seymour. It’s so difficult to put into words how I felt when I read them. I guess I just sighed inwardly at how luminous they were but also how clean and infinitely recognisable. One demonstration of Seymour’s poetic-ness is a story from their childhood that Buddy retells, when they are allowed to come and see the very end of a party their parents are giving, at which there are about 60 guests. Seymour and Buddy watch all the guests and Seymour offers to get everyone their coats back as they leave, which have been thrown all over the apartment. Despite not seeing anyone arrive, Seymour then proceeds to find everyone their coat and doesn't make a single error, just from looking at each person in turn.

Or there is the example of a letter from Seymour to Buddy, ostensibly to comment on one of his stories, where he tells Buddy that he recently wrote a letter in which he found that he sounded like Buddy and…

‘It occurred to me that if things were switched around and you were writing a letter that sounded like me you’d be bothered… One of the few things in the world, aside from the world itself, that sadden me every day is an awareness that you get upset if Boo Boo or Walt tells you you’re saying something that sounds like me. You sort of take it as an accusation of piracy, a little slam at your individuality. Is it so bad that we sometimes sound like each other? The membrane is so thin between us. Is it so important for us to keep in mind which is whose?’

I think that wonderfully illustrates the turbulently complex relationship between siblings. A tangled, heavy concoction of awe, resentment, admiration, jealousy, respect, suspicion… the list could go on. I remember when my sister was first starting to become friends with my friends and I was really shocked by my feelings, which were totally unexpected. I expected to feel jealous of her, that she was taking away my friends, but instead I was jealous of my friends getting to know my sister, because she was My Sister and I didn’t want to share her. Weird eh?

Does anyone know of where I can get/read any of his other stories? I fear I may have read everything I can find now. Any help would be much appreciated!