Customer Reviews (1)

Hobbes Got Most of It Right
Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan of 1651: "No arts; no letters; no society; and what is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Well now, y'all, ain't that a summary of the life of rural Southerners through most of the century after the Civil War? And ain't it exactly what William Faulkner portrayed in this 'tour de force' novella, As I Lay Dying? Except Hobbes made no explicit inclusion of "women", whose lives as depicted by Faulkner were perhaps less brutish than those of their menfolk but equally nasty and poor. Hobbes also missed the mark with "short". Addie Bundren, her husband Anse, the "pussel-gutted" 70-year-old country doctor -- central characters in As I Lay Dying -- all have occasion to lament that they've lived too long, that death comes torturously slowly when one is ripe for it.

The structure of this novella is its most remarkable quality. Addie Bundren lies dying in her mountain shack, while her son Cash meticulously builds a coffin for her outside the window. Her shiftless slovenly husband Anse has promised Addie that he will bury her with "her people" in Jefferson, several days' travel by buggy on dirt roads from the Bundren farm. Nature intervenes against the plan by flooding the land and destroying a key bridge. The story is told in chunks of reverie, inside the minds of Addie's sons and daughter, husband, neighbors, doctor, preacher, and Addie herself, whose 'thoughts' persist after she is dead and decaying in her coffin. The daughter has her own secret trouble, an unwed pregnancy. The sons are each and all "not quite right" in their heads, as there more functional neighbors perceive them. The family and the community seethes with bitter alienation from each other, living as Hobbes said, in continual fear of violence and Judgement, in despair and self-pity. The narrative structure is a marvel of psychological revelation and suspense. Each character exposes his/her existential solitude and anguish in graphic images. No question: As I Lay Dying is a glorious feat of imagination and word-craft.

It's also a profoundly dishonest book. What I can't decide is whether Faulkner's dishonesty was conscious - literary snake-oil, pandering to the market for spiritualist sensationalism on a level with Dan Brown - or unconscious, ingrained, sincere, Faulkner's actual mentality.

What's dishonest about it? Start with the various narrative "voices". Darl, the dark thoughtful probably psychotic son, is impossible to believe. He's too literately literary. His sensual perceptions are stuff from a van Gogh painting; his thoughts are right out of Kierkegaard. The same 'dissonance' crops up in the reveries of every character except the stolid plain-folk Tulls. Even the vocabulary placed in their reveries by their creator/author is false to their culture and education, or lack thereof. The melange of hill-country dialect and almost Shakespearian rhetoric is false to one side or the other. In other words, I don't believe these people could or would have these thoughts; either the characters are only antiphonal mouthpieces for the philosophical muddles of the author or else the author has deceived himself about humanity.

If I understand Faulkner's method at all, he is seeking to portray the sorts of spiritual/mental epiphanies that come to certain people without words, but he of course is using words to do so. The words on the page are not 'really' the words of Darl or his kid brother Vardaman, but rather the unspoken and unspeakable "knowledge" they carry in their blood. "Wise Blood" is Flannery O'Connor's phrase, not Faulkner's, but the concept is fundamental to Faulkner's representation of humanity. Darl has "wise blood." But that's an odious concept! Should I call it mythologizing, evasiveness, or just plain hogwash?It's Faulkner's obdurate mythologizing of the Old South that always spoils my enjoyment of his literary craft. But then, I can put up with 'magic realism' and other gimcrack nonsense from lots of other brilliant poets and novelists, so I suppose it's the pernicious history of Southern racism, reactionary politics, and stubborn contempt for the rest of the nation, all of which Faulkner enshrines in his portrayal of Southern 'virtues', that I can't ignore or appreciate.

Note please that I haven't denied Faulkner's genius as a wordsmith. I've given this book its five stars. But what I've tried to offer here is specifically an interpretation of the book's content, and of the cultural grid within which the content "makes sense." One of the embittered commenters on this review has declared that she "doesn't want an interpretation." But that's precisely what I find worth writing. I'm not an agent for the publisher. I don't choose to write a synopsis, or a paean to the author, or an endorsement. I'm interested in 'content' and context. If you want a differnt kind of review, look elsewhere! ... Read more

Product Description
William Faulkner

18 pages

William Faulkner was born in 1867. He was an author and won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1957, his wife was the victim of a possible extortion violation. She had received several phone calls requesting $500 for certain information regarding her husband.


... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Ghosts of Rowan Oak
Don't bother.
First, don't be fooled by cover--it was NOT written by Falkner, but by a desendant using his name-as "told to".
A disapointment.

William Faulkner Stories for Kids
From the cover: In the 1940s, at his home, Rowan Oak, in Oxford, Mississippi, Faulkner told ghost stories to the children in his family.One of those children, Dean Faulkner Wells, has recounted some of these stories in this book.Though the world knew Faulkner as a Nobel Prize-winning author, the children of Rowan Oak called him "Pappy." and knew him as the teller of tales that were tragic, sorrowful, funny, and sometimes terrifying.Presented here are the haunting and heartbreaking story of Judith, the chilling tale of the Werewolf, and the macabre story of the Hound. ... Read more

Product Description
Possibly best known for The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner is reviewed in this text as a writer of short stories. Examined are "A Rose for Emily," "Dry September," "That Evening Sun," and "Barn Burning."

This title also features a biography of William Faulkner, a user guide, a detailed thematic analysis of each short story, a list of characters in each story, a complete bibliography of Faulkner’s works, an index of themes and ideas, and editor’s notes and introduction by Harold Bloom.

This series, Bloom’s Major Short Story Writers, is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School; preeminent literary critic of our time. The world’s most prominent writers of short stories are covered in one series with expert analysis by Bloom and other critics. These titles contain a wealth of information on the writers and short stories that are most commonly read in high schools, colleges, and universities. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent source for students!
This book, Bloom's Short Story Writers edition on William Faulkner, was exactly what I had been looking for.I needed to write a paper comparing criticisms on one author, and this book was perfect.It contains severaldifferent critical essays centered around three of Faulkner's works, andthe essays provide drastically different types of criticisms.Some arefavorable, some are not, but all of them are well written, and excellentfor anyone looking for a greater insight into the works of WilliamFaulkner. ... Read more

Product Description
A delightful surprise, Faulkner wrote his secondnovel "for the sake of writing because itwas fun."Mosquitoes centers around a colorful assortment of passengers, out on a boating excursion from New Orleans. The rich and the aspiring, social butterflies and dissolute dilettantes are all easy game for Faulkner's barbed wit in this engaging high-spirited novel which offers a fascinating glimpse of Faulkner as a young artist."It approaches in the first half and reaches in the second half a brilliance that you can rightfully expect only in the writings of a few men. It is full of the fine kind of swift and lusty writing that comes from a healthy, fresh pen."--Lillian Hellman, New York Herald Tribune ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Drunken artists on problematic pleasure cruise
While I didn't like this novel quite as much as Soldier's Pay, Faulkner's first novel, it was consistently entertaining with many superbly crafted moments.A middle-aged, dowdy matron of the arts invites a group of intellectuals/artists (e.g., a writer, a poet, a sculptor) and assorted other hangers-on for a disastrous (at least for the matron) cruise on an inland waterway in the Deep South.Also on the cruise are the matron's highly independent, idiosyncratic niece and nephew, other friends of the matron, various crew members, and a young couple who were just passing by when the boat was leaving port.The intellectuals spend most of their time drinking heavily and engaging in hard-to-follow intellectual banter, while lusting over the two alluring, attractive, very different young women on board.When the boat breaks down because the nephew steals an important part of the engine in order to complete an invention on which he's working, the beautiful, boy-like, ultra-quirky niece and a handsome steward leave the boat without telling anyone and get lost in the swampy, mosquito-infested, steaming lowlands, trying to make their way to a town that is much farther away than they think.This was the most serious and by far the most compelling subplot in the novel to me, and it runs quite a few pages.Extremely atmospheric and very humorous, the book provided me with an enchanting reading experience, albeit most of the characters were not very admirable people and one may wonder exactly what the point of the exercise was after completing it.

Is what it is.
Mosquitoes is not what one would expect of Faulkner, which should not diminish one's enjoyment of the story.It is humorous and satirical.Absent Faulkner's typical familial, historical, and cultural baggage, his characters in Mosquitoes still agonize, which makes them interesting.Let Faulkner surprise you.Enjoy the characters he gives us here and their comedic byplay.Absorb what he has to say about art and writing, in particular.You won't get it anywhere else.Try not to compare Mosquitoes to his other work; it is what it is, a slow boat loaded with pleasure.

intellectual mosquitoes get their lives by sucking others id
A deep and continuous source. Reflects the popular misconception of what it means to live the highly creative life of an artist.Title refers to Confucious quote that intellectual mosquitoes get their lives by suckingothers ideas.

play for mosquitoes and everyone in betweena mosquitomy libido

Not Yoknapatawpha, not for me
This was not a bad not a bad book.I had to say that initially.For some other authors, this book could have been their masterpiece.The problem though, is that this is a Faulkner book.Faulkner reinvented the use of the English language in all the Yoknapatawpha books.The problem is that when you compare something as compicated as a Yoknapatawpha novel to anything else, it has to fall short.The plots of other Faulkner books are so dense and full of sybolism.Mosquitoes is not dense.It has a very mundane story about people on a boat.This, like other Faulkner novels revolves around the nature of human beings and their interactions.This novel is a more dialectical one in comparison to some of he other novels of his. We do not have the dark humor here that there is in a novel such as AsI Lay....The epilogue redeems the novel with some of the dense writingthat Faulkner is notorious for.Read this after you read several other Faulkner novels. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Unforgettable
I read this book when I was 8 (more than 20 years ago) and I've never forgotten it. It was to me a fascinating story, a fable, really. And when I look at it today, I can see how philosophical it is. Still today I remember how I should get out of bed on my birthday!

A children's book by William Faulkner (!?)
Faulkner has always been interested in the perspective of children.The Sound and the Fury and several of his short stories ("That Evening Sun", "Uncle Willy", and "That Will be Fine" come to mind) have delved into the psyche of children as they observe the adult world.However, this curious book, written in 1927 for his future step-daughter, is written expressly for a child.As would be expected, Faulkner's foray into children's literature is a marked departure from tradional books for children.In this book, a sort of cross between Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz, the reader meets not only the child protagonist and her childhood friends, but an ageing Confederate veteran, a Black nanny and her disreputable husband.Not only do the children pursue the elusive wishing tree, but get to witness marital strife and the delusional ranting from an old man.I doubt seriously if this book, replete with sexual and racial stereotypes, would ever find its way into a present day children's reading room.

To be fair to Faulkner, this was written with no idea for publication, as a present to an eight year old girl on her birthday.Regardless of its literary merit, it has come to the light of day as well as to the mention of critics, and through them, has taken on a more serious aspect, something the author could never have forecast while writing it. ... Read more

Product Description
"This is a facsimile of the First Edition." --Stated on the copyright page. ... Read more

Product Description
Hailed by critics and scholars as the most valuable study of Faulkner's fiction, Cleanth Brooks's William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country explores the Mississippi writer's fictional county and the commanding role it played in so much of his work. Brooks shows that Faulkner's strong attachment to his region, with its rich particularity and deep sense of community, gave him a special vantage point from which to view the modern world.Brooks's consideration of such novels as Light in August, The Unvanquished, As I Lay Dying, and Intruder in the Dust shows the ways in which Faulkner used Yoknapatawpha County to examine the characteristic themes of the twentieth century. Contending that a complete understanding of Faulkner's writing cannot be had without a thorough grasp of fictional detail, Brooks gives careful attention to "what happens: In the Yoknapatawpha novels. He also includes useful genealogies of Faulkner's fictional clans and a character index. ... Read more

Product Description
In a distillation of the extensive research on William Faulkner and his work, Hamblin and Peek's book is an authoritative guide to the author's life, literature, and legacy. Arranged alphabetically, the entries in this reference discuss Faulkner's works and major characters and themes, as well as the literary and cultural contexts in which his texts were conceived, written, and published. There are also entries for relatives, friends, and other persons important to Faulkner's biography; historical events, persons, and places; social and cultural developments; and literary and philosophical terms and movements. Entries are written by expert contributors and most provide bibliographic information for further study. The volume closes with a bibliography and detailed index. ... Read more

Product Description
Ever since the first furore was created on its publication in 1929, "The Sound and the Fury" has been considered one of the key novels of this century. Depicting the gradual disintegration of the Compson family through four fractured narratives, "The Sound and the Fury" explores intense, passionate family relationships where there is no love, only self-centredness. At its heart this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?' ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Sound and the Fury
All right, I'm not going to lie and say I understood this one.

It's a tough read -- the downfall of a Depression-era family in the American South, as told through three brothers: Benjy, Quentin and Jason. What makes the read tough (and absolutely fascinating) is that Faulkner flips POVs often within the novel, and writes sometimes without any punctuation.

** (SPOILER follows) **

What I find remarkably fascinating about this author's writing is the way he plays with the devices. The novel begins in 1928 in the POV of the mentally handicapped brother Benjy. I was confused and blown away (in a good way!) by the technique within the first quarter of the book. Benjy doesn't view the world or his own memories in a way that is easily translatable in writing. He can't say "I like looking at the pretty jewelry box with all the pretty sparkles. It calms me down." He can only refer to the sparkles without knowing what they are, and we the reader are left to infer what's happening based on the few hints Benjy is able to provide.

Fascinating!! And pretty ballsy, since he opens the book like this.

The writing hops all over, sometimes mid sentence/mid-paragraph, into another memory. Often the memory is instigated by something in the present scene. For example, Benjy likes watching a golf game that's played near his house because the players call out Caddy -- his beloved older sister's name. Hearing the game takes him crackling along childhood, though in his main story, he's a full-grown man.

In contrast to the rough writing within the first quarter of the book, Brother #2's section is written beautifully. Quentin's tale happens in 1910, a couple decades before the first quarter of the book, and it unfolds the day Quentin kills himself. (Though you don't find out he died until the third brother takes over the tale.)

Quentin's passages are philosophical in contrast to Benjy's patchwork sections, but mid-way through, as insanity and suicide take over, punctuation is lost altogether. Paragraphs go on for pages with no break, and stream-of-thought takes over. Confusing? Absolutely! But I just can't get over the technique. Brilliant, I think -- the contrasts.

Section Three is told in the same time frame as the first section, 1928, by Jason, the pragmatic and monstrous brother whose been left to work laboriously supporting his sister Caddy's illegitimate daughter, his mother, Benjy, and a handful of house servants. He is miserly, bitter and prone to malicious tempers. He hates Caddy as well as her daughter but is considered by his mother to be "the only good one of the batch."

Jason should have gone to Harvard, but he gave it up (under duress) so Quentin could go. When Quentin killed himself, the chance was lost. Now Jason works a dead end job, stealing money from Caddy¡¯s daughter into a private savings. Jason's passages are far more clear. (No lost punctuation!) But he's so mean and negative, by the time you finish with him, you're itching for some good news. Again, smart on Faulkner's part. I FEEl the tightness of the man; I experience it.

The final segment is told in third person in 1928 and hops viewpoints between Jason and Dilsey. The writing is beautiful again, the passages easy to follow.

What I think is remarkable about this work, beyond the symphonic quality of the "snapshot" of a fallen Southern family not long after the American Civil War -- is the writing itself. Faulkner circles his prey (the climax). He begins at the outermost point and slowly revolves (making the reader dizzy!) until he reaches the final line. And what irony in that final line. (I won't spoil it by sharing.)

Absolutely worth the read. But don't read it if you're looking for "escapism." This isn't for entertainment; it's art.

It's All Up to You, Fair Reader...
...whether you find value in this notoriously difficult novel, or whether you hurl it into the fireplace in frustration. You needn't feel ashamed of either response... assuming you're free from the bonds of high school English classes. You'll need all your resources of unflagging attention, tenacious memory, and orthographic competence with dialect just to grasp the central events of the story, but even then you may be frustrated by the realization that the story isn't the centerpiece of the book. I could give you ten reasons not to bother for every one assertion that you must sometime in your life read The Sound and the Fury... and read it intently, in a few concentrated reading sessions with absolutely no competing distractions. But as I said, it's up to you.

The title comes from Shakespeare, from Macbeth: Life "is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Really, the narrative of the novel is told by three idiots, the three Compson brothers, although only the first narrator, Benjy, is a certified 'loony' by the definitions of his community. The second narrator, brother Quentin, is usually identified as 'neurotic' but that diagnosis falls short of recognizing how desperately ill his mind is, right to the point of his suicide. The third brother, Jason, might be regarded as sane in some societies, but he too is deranged and dysfunctional. The father of these three boys is a lifelong case of clinical depression, self-medicated with booze. The mother is a monster of borderline psychotic hypochondria. Sister Caddy is described in the Clif Notes as 'beautifula and tragic, but her basic tragedy is a personality disorder. Her illegitimate daughter, from whom she is separated, may have some sparks of sanity, enough at least to escape, but she's hardly a person you'd seek out for a daughter-in-law. The Compsons are surrounded by -- kept alive by -- the descendants of their ancestors' slaves. Sorting out the generations of the black folk that share life with the Compsons is one of the ways to keep the narrative somewhat chronological; the idiot Benjy is portrayed in the care/custody of three distinct black teenagers, that is, Benjy as a child, Benjy as an adolescent, Benjy as a 33-year-old helpless bellowing hulk. I suppose the true centerpiece of the novel is Faulkner's indictment of the stagnant post-Civil War South for creating the conditions in which a family, and by implication a whole society, could degenerate into such moral and mental idiocy. All the passion and pride of the tale told by the Compson does indeed "signify nothing." They're done. Finished. Defunct, and deservedly so.

All three Compson narrators are represented by stream-of-consciousness fragments of memory, occasionally cogent but often lapsing into babble. Does any person's "consciousness" really resemble what Faulkner sets down in words? I tend to think not; what Faulkner offers is a literary convention. He brings powerful verbal energy to his fragmenting depiction of "consciousness", and that's wherein his greatness as a writer lies.

The fourth 'chapter' of narration is largely third-person, centered around the enduring ancient cook/servant Dilsey, the nurse of all the white Compsons and the mother of most of their un-slaves. Is Dilsey, with her sons, the sole anchor of order and decncy in the Compson world, or the will-less willing co-dependent of such stagnation? Dilsey says she "seen the beginning and the end." I reckon she thought so sincerely, but in retrospect she was wrong, and Faulkner was wrong with her; the worst was not over in 1928, when this book was published, and fortunately the future didn't belong to the Compsons, or the Snopeses, or to any of the baleful stock of Faulkner's vision. Amen and hallelujah.

Faulkner's portrayal of human nature, based on 'blood' (i.e. race) and inheritance of sins unto the seventh generation troubles me a lot. I've already been hammered, in other reviews, for expressing my discomfort with that perception. The Sound and the Fury is hardly free from what I dislike about Faulkner, but it's such a stark, fierce, sustained tragedy that intellectual reservations fall aside and only the shared agony remains. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Compelling read
Wonderful and compelling. Full of the magic of his creativity and it goes into depths of his pain. ... Read more

Product Description
The new Vintage edition of the corrected text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Faulner's PYLON
PYLON is adrenalin-charged; moving at the speed of the work's live-fast die-young dare devil pilots and their machines. The motion like a whirlwind, however; circular, like the airplanes around and around the pylon (pole marking boundary of a race). Dizzying. The characters talk like they're on acid. The unnamed Reporter of the novel is a complete mystery: How to account for his Christ-like devotion to the pilots? A devotion that far exceeds Good Samaritanism. He gains nothing by association. He is an oddity--like Melville's Bartleby. Maybe he is Christ. Maybe the Holy Ghost. Who knows? It is baffling.

The hand to mouth hero pilot is jipped by the rich airport owner... not news at 11
The Tarnished Angels (Pylon) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Spain ]Someone has revived this dangerous sport in my home town bay.
And the parachute jumper hit the innocent benefactor reporter for being with the rotten drunken mechanic.
Pylon racing gypsies living in their own distorted ( surreal) version of the depression world makes for a story that you have a hard time putting down: a strange two husband marriage (with 8 year old kid) by almost any standards, it appears to be more biography than than fiction.
Death of a rocket pilot in 1934 gets the "performers" a 2.5 % pay reduction for printing new programs... it is a George Bush sort of
world where the liars are winning.

Faulkner's curiously detached portrait of New Orleans andbarnstormers
Set in New Orleans (referred to as New Valois in the story), "Pylon" is a rare Faulkner work that takes place outside Mississippi. In it, an unnamed, down-on-his-luck reporter follows a small crew of barnstormers in town for an air show and is smitten by the tomboyish mechanic Laverne, who is involved in a menage a trois with the pilot and the parachute jumper. Their outmoded, ramshackle plane is held together by not much more than memory, and the pilot often has to take death-defying risks in order to win competitions for their hand-to-mouth income.

Complicating their hard existence is a fourth crew member, Jiggs, who suffers from unpredictable and terrifyingly deleterious alcohol binges. The reporter's well-meaning sociability starts Jiggs on an especially noteworthy bout of drinking and sets off a serious of events with tragic consequences.

The novel contains some of the most harrowing passages of drunkenness ever composed in English. The reporter acquires a "special" bottle of absinth (which is probably just really some bad moonshine) and ends up locking himself out of his apartment in a nightmarish sequence of blurry events. Then Jiggs starts on his bender and becomes consumed with the acquisition of just one more drink. Faulkner knows drunk: these Dantesque passages are as disturbing as anything offered later by Burroughs or by Philip K. Dick.

Less real and persuasive, however, are Faulkner's portraits of New Orleans and of the barnstormers themselves. Faulkner detested the city and especially the vulgarity of Mardi gras, and his distaste infuses his descriptions with the stance of a critical bystander rather than (as in his other works) the awareness of an understanding resident. Similarly, Faulkner spent the years 1933 and 1934 flying and participating in air shows (they were even billed as "William Faulkner's Air Circus"), and the members of the crew are based on real-life counterparts, but the novel's characters feel researched rather than lived. It's clear he both loves flying and sympathizes with the hard lives of the barnstormers, but the close-woven prose seems almost in conflict with the journalistic stance of the narrative.

Reminiscent at times of "Sanctuary" (particularly of the terrifying sections describing Temple Drake's horrifying captivity among the whiskey-runners at the Goodwin place), "Pylon" contains many memorable passages on drunken, confused, despairing lives--and these passages rescue the novel from its seemingly misplaced realism. "Pylon" is less than the sum of its parts--but some of those parts are still undeniably and uniquely Faulkner.

Unconditional
I have no excuses to give for this book. Don't read it if you don't want to. Don't read it if you want literature. Don't read it if you want prurient prose (despite the other reviewers' references to sex, there is little to find in it). Don't read it if you want Faulkner. Don't read it if you want style, or flow, or popular fiction, or innovation, or a book about racing planes, or New Orleans. Don't read it if you want a good book at all.

But if you do read it, you may find something that anchors you in the heart of the imperfect as no better work can do, a failed book about failure failed, and love it as no better love could.

For completists only
Unless you have to read everything Faulkner wrote, save your time here.It's better than Soldier's Pay, Mosquitoes, and Sanctuary, but that isn't much to aspire to.Here and there an interesting thought comes up, but if you're short on time or energy, spend it working through Absalom, Absalom!That will save your soul.You can listen to Jagger sing Parachute Woman and get the same materialin a better medium.Pylon, however, is a good word. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good criticism of a great story
Found this in my library while doing research on Faulkner. A very goodlit-crit before all the wierdness came into the field. Puts the novel andFaulkner's writing into perspective. ... Read more

Product Description
Amid all that has been published about William Faulkner, one subject—the nature of his thought—remains largely unexplored. But, as Daniel Singal's new intellectual biography reveals, we can learn much about Faulkner's art by relating it to the cultural and intellectual discourse of his era, and much about that era by coming to terms with his art.Through detailed analyses of individual texts, from the earliest poetry through Go Down, Moses, Singal traces Faulkner's attempt to liberate himself from the repressive Victorian culture in which he was raised by embracing the Modernist culture of the artistic avant-garde. To accommodate the conflicting demands of these two cultures, Singal shows, Faulkner created a complex and fluid structure of selfhood based on a set of dual identities—one, that of a Modernist author writing on the most daring and subversive issues of his day, and the other, that of a southern country gentleman loyal to the conservative mores of his community. Indeed, it is in the clash between these two selves, Singal argues, that one finds the key to making sense of Faulkner. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Disappointing and meandering
Prof. Singal has an interesting thesis here, one well worth exploring, but his book needs more focus.Singal wanders from psychobiography (including some ill-fitting speculation into Faulkner's neurological problems!) to literary analysis to critiques of other Faulkner critics.Singal ends his study when it reaches the midpoint of Faulkner's career, essentially saying that Faulkner did not write anything interesting after 1942 or so--and while this well may be a valid opinion, asserting it without substantiating it is a cop-out.At times I felt I was reading the work of a talented undergrad rather than that of a tenured professor.

Readers interested in more rigorous studies of Faulkner's life and works should stick with Blotner's *Faulkner: A Biography*, Brooks's *WF: The Yoknapatawpha Country*, and Frederick Karl's relatively recent *WF: American Writer*. ... Read more