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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.
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?
To JBI:Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
The 'perhaps' is good; the (I think) even better. :lol:
Chasestalling
Very likely the most important American writer of the 20th Century. At least the first half of it. Ranks alongside the greatest writers of that period; Proust, Joyce, Broch, Woolf, Musil.
He is called the Southern Joyce, that was what caused me to shun him. There is only one Joyce and there is only one Proust. All the rest are cheap imitations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Morten
I have two books by Faulkner, but from the way people here talk about him, I must say that I'm quite intimidated to read him.
Hi, and hello.
I just wanted to mention, that I don't recall Faulkner ever calling himself the southern Joyce.
That would be a statement made by a critic, a teacher, or some other person who was not the man itself.
Seems unfair to judge the work of a man who was considered by many as the greatest American novelist because of an appellation laid down by a third party.
Mostly, the term cheap imitation seems terribly unfair taking into account your self proclaimed lack of experience with his work.
Note: This is my first post. Hello to all.
Note 2.0: I'm not a huge student of Faulkner's work. Loved As I lay Dying and some of his shorts, but I'm by no means an expert.
Haha, how I feel your pain, the very same thing happens to me!Quote:
Originally Posted by Nossa
Faulkner is my favorite author of all time. His works are inspiringly beautiful and incredible. I have tried to read everything by him that I can, and have two collections of his short stories. I have also read a few biographies. He is THE MAN!
McCarthy was, in fact, inspired in part by Faulkner. McCarthy borrowed Faulkner's idea of being "above grammar," and he admitted that he considers The Sound and the Fury one of the best four works in literature (his favorite being Moby Dick). McCarthy used Faulkner's idea of writing out of a single image, and allowing the image to tell the story. Has anyone read The Road? Very clearly, he studied Faulkner's form, without chapters, quotations, just dialog. Parallels Quentin's section from The Sound and the Fury. The occasionally overlap in subject matter, but McCarthy took more from Faulkner's form and style than story or plot, or even characterization. Both are incredible writers.
Faulkner's work isn't too hard, depending on what you read. The Sound and the Fury can be infuriating, especially if you are just trying to read it without any extra material. But it can be done. Books such as Sanctuary and A Light in August are a little more straightforward. Reading Faulkner is like staring at a painting really up close so you can't see the whole picture, only the brush strokes, and slowly zooming out until you get the big picture. He paints with his words, so instead of reading the words you "digest" phrases and images and you are given an image. It can be a little intimidating at first, but within 30 pages you should have the hang of it.
Faulkner the man was pretty incredible too, and drank a lot, as everyone knows. However, he was strictly against mixing drinking with writing, since he considered literature a high career. He wrote sober, which is a common misnomer--a lot of people are under the impression he drank to unleash creativity, but he adamantly rebuked this notion. Instead, he drank to escape his financial/love problems, and wrote to ease his mind. It was like another drunkenness when he was writing. But he never mixed the two.
Even though Faulkner was pretty poor (bought too much booze, and then drank because he had no money) he never wrote for money, because he thought that this would dilute the importance of his work. The only novel he ever openly admitted was a "cash-in" was Sanctuary, but it's still pretty incredible. As a result, it's a bit easier to read, though VERY CREEPY.
Ok, I'm done with my rambling, but needless to say I LOVE THIS MAN.
So, you shunned him because he was compared to Joyce? That's odd. He is nothing at all like Joyce. There are parallels in style, yes, but that's it. He is not a Joyce imitation at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow
Just a word or two Miss Moose about Faulkner's attitude towards race would be in order. I agree,Faulkner is a fine, original, endlessly readable writer, but I do have misgivings over his views and presentation of race. McCarthy's work has some similarly questionable aspects: in his presentation of Native Americans, in his utter disregard of female significance to both personal and public history; and some of his Mexicans are suspiciously near to stereotype bandidos. However, Suttree stands apart and above all else he has published, a generous and warm novel rich in thought and compassion.
You're confusing author and narrator, dangerously I'd say.Quote:
Originally Posted by nebish
Faulkner created narrators that used racial epithets for the purposes of realism and thematic issues. How could Faulkner discuss racial conflict in the south in the early twentieth century accurately and intelligently without using the language that was used in that time period. In terms of presentation of race, if you're faulting Faulkner because, normally, black people in his work are depicted as servants and as having little education, then you need to step back look at a broader context. Faulkner is not saying "All African-Americans are inferior to White Anglo-Saxons and I am depicting them as such", he is saying "Historical forces created a situation where a majority of White Anglo-Saxons erroneously believed themselves to be superior to African-Americans and this is the damage it caused." Faulkner consistently showed African-Americans as better than racist characters, such as with Dilsey at the end of The Sound and The Fury, where she is shown to be morally and ethically stronger than the Compson family.
It's the same with McCarthy. You say you have misgivings about his depiction of Native Americans in his work, but you need to see that works such as Blood Meridian were praised for depicting both White Anglo-Saxons and Native Americans as violent. McCarthy isn't criticising a specific race of people, he is criticising Humanity in general.
You're criticism of his glossing over "female significance to both personal and public history" is a bit silly. You could make the same criticism of nearly 90-95% of all the writers who have ever lived. Every writer is not obligated to discuss the role of women in human history. Some chose to do so because it interests them; others chose not to because they are interested in different themes. McCarthy's work is about violence and evil. Faulting him for not finding room to discuss the role of women more is being a bit pedantic.
In your criticism of McCarthy's supposed "stereotyping" of Mexicans, I'll again say you're confusing author and narrator.
Narrators, even if they are in the third person, can be a composite of social norms, beliefs, opinions, ideologies etc. found in the novel's setting and time period. If a narrator uses racial terms or stereotypes, that does not mean the author is inherently racist or bigoted. The author is framing an atmosphere where race is an issue and where the reader examine how it is discussed.
McCarthy constantly plays with the Western genre and with the stereotypes created as a result of it. He is trying to show us how stereotypes imprint themselves in our culture and how hollow they really are.
Faulkner did not create those racial epithets; McCarthy did not create those stereotypes: History and society did. And both these writers are not attempting to perpetuate those epithets, presentations and stereotypes. They are building a frame of commentary around these issues.