A Day of Links

Another class (Light in August, Day 1), another rich conversation.

Today, though, I'm in more of a link-sharing frame of mind. Here are some critical and biographical works that can help unpack some of Light in August. All should be available via GoogleBooks, the library, and/or interlibrary loan:

David Minter, William Faulkner: His Life and Work, Chap. 6 pgs. 129-32
Joseph Blotner, Faulkner, Chap. 32 pgs. 299-312
Daniel Singal, William Faulkner: The Making of a Modernist, Chap. 7
Jay Parini, One Matchless Time, Chap. 6 pgs. 178-83
Michael Millgate, ed., New Essays on Light in August


Apropos of our discussion of the racial tensions and ambiguities of Light in August is this recent New York Times piece on Absalom, Absalom!:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/magazine/how-william-faulkner-tackled-race-and-freed-the-south-from-itself.html?_r=1


I'm also pleased to announce that I'll be teaching another class at Politics & Prose in the fall, beginning Thursday September 13. This one will concentrate on three later works: Go Down, Moses (1942), The Mansion (1959), and The Reivers (1962):

http://www.politics-prose.com/william-faulkner-later-works-0

I'm eager to take another trip to Yoknapatawpha with another group of students.

Round 2: The Fall

I'm very happy to announce that I'll be teaching another Faulkner class at Politics & Prose this fall, beginning Thursday September 13.

This course will look at three works spanning 1942-1962: Go Down, Moses; The Mansion; and his final novel, The Reivers.

For more information and registration, see:
http://www.politics-prose.com/william-faulkner-later-works-0


I'm looking forward to what should be another great experience.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

Day two of As I Lay Dying felt as strong and lively as the first day. We moved through the more eventful second half of the novel, reading about the flood, fire, and continued struggles and absurdity of the Bundren family—including Cash’s broken leg (fixed with cement!?), Addie's postmortem reflections, and Darl’s mental unraveling. I was again very pleased and heartened to work with engaged, intelligent adults who are eager to discuss what they’ve read.

Early on, we paid a lot of attention to the last “Darl” chapter, when he’s become fully unhinged and awaits the train ride to the mental asylum in Jackson, Mississippi. He is “Darl,” “he,” and “I” to himself at this point:

Darl has gone to Jackson. They put him on the train, laughing, down the long car laughing, the heads turning like the heads of owls when he passed. “What are you laughing at?” I said.

Moving, emotional, and a little troubling. Perhaps more so are Darl’s last words in this chapter:

Darl is our brother, our brother Darl. Our brother Darl in a cage in Jackson where, his grimed hands lying light in the quiet interstices, looking out he foams.

            “Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.”

When I read (or reread) this chapter, I’m always struck by how much Darl has unraveled here—in part because of his mother’s death, in part because of the arduous journey he’s just completed. Jewel, I think, is the most important narrator for the way he encapsulates the family’s many dysfunctions, but this final “Darl” chapter seems one of the most poignant. Is there an Early Darl and a Late Darl, or just one emotionally complex and dynamic character?

Beyond Darl: One student brought up a good point about the lack of anger/censure against the Vardaman character for (albeit unintentionally) boring holes into his dead mother’s face. In his confused grief, he thinks she's alive and needs to breathe in the coffin. This reader vocalized what many of the novel’s readers may feel—that is, why a lot of the Bundren characters seem to accept (or be silenced by) some of the more absurd events of the novel.

With many writers but especially Faulkner, treating a book as a nonlinear story to be read, reread, and reviewed is the best strategy. How, I posed to the class, can we reconsider the early Darl chapters in light of what we learn about his mental instability later? Nabokov may have said it best: "Curiously, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it." In the case of As I Lay Dying, this strong, intelligent group should gain even more by rereading our first book.

This kind of rereading strategy will help them with our next novel, the much more sweeping and complicated Light in August. 

Faulkner on Film: HBO and James Franco

This isn't really new information, but apparently Faulkner's works will be (or are being...) adapted for numerous films:

HBO (via David Milch of Deadwood and NYPD Blue fame): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/30/faulkner-hbo_n_1121501.html

James Franco: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/03/james-franco-set-to-write-and-direct-faulkners-as-i-lay-dying-direct-mccarthy-adaptation_n_803791.html

My hopes are high for both of these--although Faulkner's works can be pretty resistant to filming for a broad audience. Franco (despite being a bit quirky and "celebrity") gave a great performance in Milk and (from what I've heard) 127 Hours. I'm wondering how he'll handle the interiority and free indirect discourse of As I Lay Dying's 15 narrators. I also find myself wondering who'll be cast in the roles. Maybe Hailee Steinfeld (of the recent remake True Grit) could be Dewey Dell.

The Faulkner film I know the most is the 1969 version of The Reivers with Steve McQueen. It had flaws and strengths, as many adaptations do.

Let's think about it: What 1 Faulkner work would you most like to see adapted into a film?

Doctorow on As I Lay Dying

An excerpt from the novelist E.L. Doctorow's recent reflections on Faulkner and As I Lay Dying (NYRB, May 24, 2012):


Faulkner had never lived as rarefied an existence as Hemingway, a man who organized his life around pursuits—hunting, fishing, writing, war reporting. Faulkner’s life was messier, less focused, a struggle from the beginning to make enough money to survive: he was a school dropout, and worked at various jobs—postmaster, bookstore clerk—and he held down the midnight shift in a coal-fired power plant, where, as it happened, he wrote most of As I Lay Dying. He was an air cadet in Toronto when World War I ended and unlike Hemingway had to pretend to the combat experience that had eluded him. He wrote poetry before he ever considered fiction, fell in love with a woman who married someone else, bought a house in some disrepair and did all the renovations himself, lost his brother to an airplane accident for which he felt responsible, and became a heavy drinker presumably to deal with the intensity of his writing life.

Some of this hits home for me, because I've written a book about the relationship-rivalry between Faulkner and Hemingway. Both writers, to some degree, had lives that were messy and unfocused--though for different reasons.

Doctorow's take on As I Lay Dying is compelling. We could think a lot of how courage is explored in the novel--especially with Jewel and Addie Bundren.

The link to the full story (available only to NYRB subscribers):
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/may/24/faulkner-as-i-lay-dying/

The First Day.

It's a wonderful experience to work with a group of intelligent, intellectually curious adults in talking about a book they've all read.

Today was the first of six classes. We discussed the first half of As I Lay Dying. After a brief introduction and overview, one of the first questions I got was about Vardaman Bundren's "My mother is a fish." chapter. I expected it, but not so soon. The students (about 23-24) seem ready for the challenges Faulkner can offer, and they posed some great questions. We talked a lot about this section, which focuses on Dewey Dell and Dr. Peabody:

She was old and sick too. Suffering more than we knew. She couldn't have got well. Vardaman's getting big now, and with you to take good care of them all. I would try not to let it grieve me. I expect you'd better go and get some supper ready. It dont have to be much. But they'll need to eat, and she looking at him, saying You could do so much for me if you just would. If you just knew. I am I and you are you and I know it and you dont know it and you could do so much for me if you just would and if you just would then I could tell you and then nobody would have to know it except you and me and Darl.

Here, Darl imagines how his sister Dewey Dell is reacting to their mother's death (as well as a secret she's keeping). The more we reread and discussed, the more clear it became how creatively Faulkner overlaps the characters' emotions, personalities, and minds. One student said that we just have to trust Faulkner and we'll get it.

I'm looking forward to this experience. It's also a little strange--good strange--to be among the youngest in the group, since I'm usually almost twice my students' ages. These students are mostly adults in their 40s-50s and older, and they're already a great, engaged group. And, they now know a little more about why Addie Bundren is a fish.