11 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
11 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
# Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
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> J. D. Salinger
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Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters is a work by J. D. Salinger of Fear and Loathing/Catcher in the Rye fame. I read Fear some years ago, and appreciated its feverish waltz through something which had an urgent yet paradoxically non-specific sense of plot. Carpenters has a similar feel - the protagonist makes his way through situation quite wholly out of his control, and constantly expresses such to the reader. The general setting of wartime, midsummer New York and its oppressive heat and the protagonist's ailing cough add to the gruelling pace and tension.
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Ostensibly, the plot happens entirely elsewhere: the reader is instead presented with a single conversation discussing it, preceded and interspersed by various bits of exposition. However, the characters' world feels immeasurably larger as they discuss absent individuals and the relationships between them, and come into conflict aplenty over the behavioural nuances of those they discuss. Though there's little outright hostility between characters - they hardly have time to cover more than the basics of what seems a well-developed social drama - they are able to discuss in depth the makings and continuings of the plot and their immediate surroundings.
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Salinger's command of simile works well to rapidly convey at once the events of the story and the protagonist's feeling of them. For example, "[A] familiar voice" derisively denotes the speaking of a character the protagonist has, chronologically speaking, only just met, but has been somewhat opposed in conversation to the entire time, and is most certainly wearing thin on patience with.
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Though I think a lot of the piece's value come from the protagonist's inner monologue and absurd view on the situation, I think it would be interesting to see this presented as a short play.
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