Book Review: RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAM, CARPENTERS and SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION, by J.D. Salinger

More than any other author, Salinger can make me feel seconds from crying, for either hilarity or sorrow.

I do not know how he does this.

I think it has mostly to do with his sets of siblings, his large families (the Glass family, the Caulfields), his struggles between siblings to understand each other or let each other go, and the fact that, always, at least one of the siblings is Tragically Absent. If this is the case, then probably I'll have to concede that not every one will "get" Salinger--readers raised as only children, or without the tricky netting of sibling rivalry and support (or they at least won't "get" him quite like I do)--but I do hope very much that I am wrong, and that Salinger's appeal is not quite that limited. This is merely what I love Salinger for--the siblings, and the fantastic writing.

RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAM & SO ON is the very last Salinger book, the one that I'd been hoarding, hoping against hope (and the laws of the universe) that reading this one wouldn't leave me utterly without an unread Salinger novel, but now...Alas. There are no more. I'll be stuck with rereading, it seems.

RAISE HIGH is also the last, and most conclusive, book dealing with the Glass family, whose members appear in Franny & Zooey, RAISE HIGH, and at least two of Salinger's Nine Stories. Also, RAISE HIGH (joy of joys!) approaches, at last, that most elusive Glass, Seymour.

This is a good order in which to read Salinger's books (three of them, I might interject here, are not novels but collections of either two or nine short stories): The Catcher in the Rye first, then Franny & Zooey, followed by Nine Stories and, lastly, RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAM, CARPENTERS, ETC. I offer you an order which allows the great overarching Glass family story to unfold.

I will not go into it much more, I think, so as not to rob first-time readers of certain surprises which can easily be blown in a summary. For example: who is narrating. And: what he has to say. I mention only that it is a delight to be offered an unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parentheses: (((()))). For me, as a reader, that is truly a first.

(Oh, yeah, and God bless the Internet, but there's a site with tons of unpublished Salinger stories: it's not over! Hallelujah!)

RATING: 5

Book Review: THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE, by Thomas Hardy

I came across Hardy via The Catcher in the Rye:

...That doesn't happen much though...You take that book Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham. I read it last summer. It's a pretty good book and all, but I wouldn't want to call Somerset Maugham up. I don't know. He isn't the kind of guy I'd want to call up, that's all. I'd rather call old Thomas Hardy up. I like that Eustacia Vye.

This reference sent me on a mission to find this Eustacia Vye, and find her I did.

THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE is set on a heath (I had to look up what exactly a "heath" is: "...an extensive area of rather level open uncultivated land usu. with poor coarse soil, inferior drainage, and a surface rich in peat or peaty humus"), in Hardy's own little fictional Wessex.

The story goes roughly as follows: Clym Yeobright returns to the heath after several years spent in Paris, to find romance, scandal and tragedy awaiting him. His cousin, Thomasin, has been disgraced by the innkeeper, Damon Wildeve, who is in love with the aloof and haughtily romantic Eustacia Vye, who harbors certain feelings for Clym himself, whose Parisian lifestyle makes him more attractive to Eustacia than any dashing good looks or riches could do. Lurking in the wings is Diggory Venn, the mysterious reddleman who is quite taken with Thomasin but has been rebuffed--nevertheless, he makes it his mission to see her happily wed to Wildeve, if not to himself.

Whew. As you can imagine, this could be updated rather easily to a romantic comedy starring, say, Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock (though we'd have to fatten her up a bit to make a decent Eustacia Vye).

The many sets of star-crossed lovers and mistaken identities and narrowly missed opportunities make for a fantastic tale of romantic intrigue. Eustacia's lofty air, her idleness and her raven curls are a bit reminicent of Emma Bovary, but in a more frantic, funny way. Hardy uses the weather and the wildlife and the open loneliness of the heath to his story's advantage, setting the lovers' meetings against a pitchblack writhing sky, or a bare, blue one. The characters' feelings toward the landscape itself provide an interesting foundation for their actions and emotions--few things are more dramatic than Eustacia weeping on the heath at midnight, alone.

Also, THE NATIVE has the best chapter titles: "A Coalition Between Beauty and Oddness", "Sharp Words are Spoken and a Crisis Ensues", "She Goes Out to Battle Against Depression", "Rough Coercion is Employed" and more! I loved them, and took to reading them outloud, much to my husband's dismay.

I had little interest in Hardy before reading THE NATIVE, but now I shall go forth and hunt down his other novels, one by one, beginning with either Jude the Obscure (what a great title!) or Tess of D'Urbervilles (not so great--I can't spell that one). I'd rather like to call up old Thomas Hardy myself, though the fact that he's dead does present certain difficulties.

RATING: 4

Book Review: A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN, by Virginia Woolf

How is it possible that I made it through an entire English program, emerging with a degree and everything, without ever reading Virginia Woolf? And how, despite the several Women's Lit classes under my belt, did I miss A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN?

This skinny, brilliant book needs to be read, again and again, by anybody (man, woman or otherwise) who reads, writes, thinks, or imagines themselves intelligent. I honestly had no idea that Woolf was so articulate, so well-read, so...oh, such an author, and having finished ROOM, I'm now off to by anything ever written by or about her.

I read the book much too fast, and I know there's nothing for it but to come back to it again later. Woolf packs so much insight into her study of women & fiction (I repeat: everybody should read this book. It's not the feminist propaganda it's been made out to be, or I didn't think so, at least) that I don't think I could possibly understand it all, not yet. ROOM is one of those books to be read again every few years (like The Catcher in the Rye), because each year will lend a bit more color to my reading, and each reading, some different different bit of knowledge will step forward and show itself in a new brilliant light.

The conversational tone that Woolf takes (ROOM was originally given as a lecture, if I'm not mistaken) lends the book a very casual feel, as though Woolf were merely thinking out loud--in a much more articulate voice than I ever use when I'm rambling. Perhaps this is only a device she employs to put readers at ease as she explores her somewhat controversial subject, but, for whatever reason she chose, this tone enabled ROOM to come across as more a collection of musings, than as a manifesto.

But by "musings" do I in no way mean to imply that Woolf just jotted down some fluffy, inoffensive thoughts on "Women", and some on "Fiction", and left it at that. Oh, no.

There is something beautifully assertive, and not in the least bit timid, about her writing, no matter how casual she sounds. Her points ring perfectly, without ever resorting to anger or indignation--in fact, Woolf warns against the stain discontent can leave upon otherwise flawless writing:

Now, in the passages I have quoted from Jane Eyre [the scene in which Jane sits up on the roof, and gazes out over the fields, lamenting her confined life], it is clear that anger was tampering with the integrity of Charlotte Bronte the novelist. She left her story, to which her entire devotion was due, to attend to some personal grievance. She remembered that she had been starved of her proper due of experience--she had been made to stagnate in a parsonage mending stockings when she wanted to wander free over the world. Her imagination swerved, and we felt it swerve.

--p. 73

Woolf upholds this wonderfully in her own writing (which, as I've said, in my experience so far only contains this book), never swerving, never allowing herself to be diverted by bitterness or frustration, however bitter or frustrated she may have felt while writing A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN--because it would be difficult for any woman to study the condition of women throughout history without feeling at least a little angry.

The book is simply brilliant. Now I must go find Mrs. Dalloway (I keep saying that, don't I? I ought to just do it).

RATING: 5

Book Review: THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, by J.D. Salinger

I first read this book for a class ("Young Adult Literature" at WWU), and I'm not sure that's such a great way to go about Salinger. I mean, some books you can analyze right down to a pile of dust, and I don't think CATCHER is one of them. At any rate, I read the book in class a few years ago, and when a friend brought it up a few months back, I realized I'd forgotten pretty much everything about it except "...this kid named, Holden, right? Who says 'goddam' all the time?", so I figured I ought to embark upon that particular journey again. And so I did. And wow. I love J.D. Salinger.

What I realized, reading CATCHER the second time, is that this is the kind of book you must read at least twice--no doubt, CATCHER has now entered the rotation of Books I Reread Every Few Years--because in the first reading, you only get the gist of the story. You know not to expect a whole lot of plot (not much happens, okay? Now you know), you get all the way to the end and learn a few things about this Holden Caulfield kid, and then, when you go back to read CATCHER the second time, you can't help seeing Holden in a completely different light.

My second time through CATCHER, I realized that it was one of the saddest books I'd ever read--not Steel Magnolias sad or anything, but sad right down to my bones. I wanted to hug Holden and make things better somehow, because he's such a loveable kid, even though he's a little punk sometimes.

I don't want you thinking CATCHER is depressing, though, because it isn't. It's also laugh-out-loud funny, because Holden is just a riot--there's a lot in what he actually says, sure, but there's tons more in what he doesn't say. He's easily one of my favorite characters of all time. In fact, he might be the best ever. The scene where Holden dances with his kid sister Phoebe is wonderful--anybody with siblings should read this book.

Rereading CATCHER then sent me on this Salinger binge, which is a sad endeavor because Salinger only wrote four books (they're all skinny books, too, and only two of them are novels)--so I implore you to read Franny & Zooey, as well as Nine Stories. I'm sure Raise the Roofbeam High Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction is good too, but I wouldn't know: I've been putting off reading that one so that I can keep thinking that there's something by Salinger that I haven't read...

RATING: 5