William Faulkner

[NickAdams]

I also have found some of Bloom's ideas interesting. Pretentious, elitist, ***, etc. I enjoy reading critics who have confidence, which is interpreted as ..... .... ... .. ^.

I don't understand why people continue to read things they dislike. I didn't like Harry Potter, so I put it down. And if you haven't read Bloom, there is no validity to your argument. "Hating" is used when one lacks a real argument.

Where were we?

Faulkner anyone?

[stlukesguild]

Where were we?

Faulkner anyone?

Yes... we have gotten off task here, haven't we? Miles Davis, Harry Potter, Billy Strayhorn, Thelonious Monk, elitism, Harold Bloom... what do they all have in common?

William Faulkner?

I just recently came across Faulkner's marvelous Nobel Prize acceptance speech: a truly powerful expression of why he wrote... and not the least comment about needing to appeal to the broadest possible audience or topping the bestseller lists:

William Faulkner's speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1950



I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
....


from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/l...er-speech.html

[NickAdams]

stlukesguild,

I have this on my ipod and posted over my desk; it's a fine speech indeed. What an epitaph to place on his legacy.

[Petrarch's Love]

Thanks for getting the discussion back to the OP St. Luke's. Faulkner's the best poster we've had on the subject hands down.

[Virgil]

Thanks St Lukes. I used to have the central part of that as my signature here on lit net. Perhaps i should bring it back.

[Luce]

Has anybody read William Fawlkner? I think that Cormac Mc Carthy must have been inspired by him!
Luce

[JBI]

Faulkner, and yes, many of us here have. He is perhaps the greatest American novelist (I think) and one of the most influential writers of the modernist movement.

[B-Mental]

Faulkner is good, but I wouldn't call any individual the greatest. Sometimes I relate him to Joyce or Dostoevsky though, they all can make my head hurt.

[Ryduce]

Faulkner is not for the casual reader for sure.

I can't remember how many times I threw down The Sound and the Fury in frustration.However,once you grit your teeth and work through it,he is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers ever.He is certainly worth the anguish and patience needed to read his novels.

Since my initial frustrations,I've read maybe 5 of his novels and a few short stories.He has became one of my top 5 favorite writers.I love Light in August,but for a first timer I'd advise you to try As I Lay Dying,it seems to flow quicker than his other ones.

As for McCarthy,I really don't think they are comparable.I've only read one of McCarthy's books though,but I didn't find any similarities in thier style.

For the record,I still haven't made it through Absalom,Absalom.

[JBI]

In terms of genre, Faulkner and McCarthy book write in a Southern Gothic mode. As well, they both seem to have similar thematic elements, and similar narrative styles.

[metal134]

Faulkner is one of my favorite authors. I think McCarthy was definitley inspired by him, but I look at Cormac McCarthy as a blend of Faulkner and Hemmingway. That is, the disjointed surreal manner of Faulkner with the utter simplicity of structure (simple sentances, lack odf description, etc.) of Hemmingway.

[Kent Edwins]

I just recently read "As I Lay Dying". It was good, well worth reading. If all Faulkner's stuff is up to this level, then he is indeed a genius. And yes, my head was hurting as I read the book and tried to piece the plot together based on the difficult and sometimes seemingly meaningless first person narratives of the characters involved.

[Kafka's Crow]

I love many of the Southern writers: Tennessee Williams, John Kennedy Toole, Walker Percy, Tom Robbins etc. but I could not bring myself to like Faulkner. I 'had' to read As I Lay Dying at the university and I found it extremely boring. I hate reading about uncouth and idiotic families. Maybe if I read more of his works I might change my mind. I managed to avoid reading The Sound and the Fury back in '89.

[Oomoo]

I love As I Lay Dying. Faulkner does not have a definite magnum opus, but this is book is absolutely amazing. Pay close attention to the writing: he manages to give each character a unique voice in the way they think, the syntax, the tendency of the mind to wander, and even their psychological development as the novel progresses. I think it should have been a much longer novel because there's too much depth there waiting to be explored, but I don't know how you can The Sound and the Fury and not this one.

If you wanna start with Faulkner I suggest Light in August. It's easy to follow the plot, it's thrilling, and the style is pretty traditional.

Antiquarian: you still have to recommend me some of Faulkner's lesser known works... Have you read Requiem for a Nun, The Hamlet, Soldiers' Pay, etc?

[chasestalling]

Faulkner, and yes, many of us here have. He is perhaps the greatest American novelist (I think) and one of the most influential writers of the modernist movement.

To JBI:

The 'perhaps' is good; the (I think) even better.

Chasestalling