William Faulkner Books

I thought that this book was very difficult to read coming from the stand point of a 9th grader. but after learning all of the symbolism in this book i learned the true meaning that Faulkner meant when writing this book

While I may be biased, since the author is a former professor and good friend, "Threads Cable Strong" presents a compelling argument that "Go Down, Moses" stands by itself as a complete novel rather then a collection of short stories. With particular attention to the sections of "The Bear" that make little sense lacking the context of the greater novel, this book is convincing, interesting, and well written.

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 several different critical essays centered around three of Faulkner's works, and the essays provide drastically different types of criticisms. Some are favorable, some are not, but all of them are well written, and excellent for anyone looking for a greater insight into the works of William Faulkner.

Enlarged and reinforced my appreciation of "Absalom, Absalom!". However, it also raised some unanswered questions. Why is Sutpen so abhorred at the taint of black blood in his line? Presumably all he wants is the big plantation, money, power, wealth. And Faulkner indicates he was raised in West Virginia with no prejudice against blacks, in a slaveless world. He of all people should stand outside this. Yet we first see him with blacks as his property.

I told my duaghter that I finished a great book, "Absalom, Absalom", and that now I was going to read a book ABOUT that book. She gave me a look, as if she never heard of anything so strange.

For literary scholars and the academic community, I'm sure this line of thinking is naive, but for many readers, a book of critcal analysis is just wierd, nerdy, or painfully boring. Well, I like reading about great books once I've read them, and I find that I get much more out of the experience. I've done this for War and Peace, Brothers Karamzov, and many others and I'm very glad I did.

It can be slow going at times, for sure, but some of the information is very brisk and enlightening, and the historical background context provided is very interesting. Another amusement for me is how "academic" and "preposterous" some of the anaysis can be; I think some of the critics are really reaching! This book is on par with the best of the ones that I have read. If you enjoy this sort of thing and have read Absalom, Absalom, I think you'd do well to check this one out.

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.

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.

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.

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 material in a better medium. Pylon, however, is a good word.

Virtually unreadable, and really not worth the effort. Certainly that designation has been applied to the entire oeuvre of this, America's poet laureate of the South, but this novel at least lends some strength to that criticism. This is Faulkner at his worst, employing his obfuscatory style to hide the fact that he has very little to say. The plot revolves around a down-and-out newspaper reporter who shows up to cover a traveling air show in the sleepy fictional southern town of New Valois in the early 20th Century. He finds himself drawn into the personal lives of a family of barnstormers (two husbands, one wife, and one son), and plenty of hard drinking, brawling and barnstorming ensues. Faulkner was always fascinated by airplanes, and readers who are old enough to remember those halcyon days might find this a fascinating reminiscence of a somewhat sordid era in aviation history. But ultimately, this story is about the culture clash between the reporter, who cares about people too much, and the aviators, who care only about the amazing machines that they daily risk their lives in. Sadly, this man vs. machine conflict is badly dated, even by 20th Century standards, and doesn't fully succeed on any level.

Of course one has to admire the sheer technical mastery of Faulkner's writing, but much of the real emotional power of his work usually comes from his use of archetypes: the Earth Mother, the Mighty Hunter, the Soulless Businessman, the Righteously Angry Negro, the Guileless Innocent, etc.., and these archetypes not only make the story more significant - mythic, even - but they often help guide us through the complexities of the plot. In this novel the characters seem not only very specific, but very small; they are neither familiar nor important. Careful readers may be able to follow the plot of this novel, but there seems little enough impetus to bother doing so. We care less about this particular group of losers than any such in Faulkner. So while this drunken tale of planes, money and desire may find favor with completists, the rest of us would do better to get our Faulkner fix by re-reading one of his magnificent Yoknapatawpha County classics.

if your not going to take the time to read the book, then do the literary community a favor and remain ignorant of the story instead of using half assed cliffnotes written by some guy/corporation hell bent on swindling dollars out of stupid clueless people.
when books are assigned to you in class your main task is clear. read the damn book! if this is too hard for you then why are you thinking reading a set outline of vague notes would be any better?
to the people that have problems reading. just practice god damnit! it doesnt take magical skills to learn how to read, some people just take longer than others (even years) but if you keep practicing you should eventually be able to read on your own without the help of some stupid douche.

I read this book for OAC english. It is very hard to understand when Darl Narrates. Other than that it is a well written novel.
Knibb high football rules

I think that if you are into literature than you might like this book but I think that it wasnt as great as my professor said it was going to be

i love the way willian faulkner wrote this book,u get each characters own thoughts, and personal expierences of the adventure this family went through. In the begining of the book, i guess it was because theyre were so many diferent nerators, it was kind of confusing, and hard to get into. But as i progressed through the book i found myself not being able to put the book down in curiosity of what would lie before me in the folowing chapters. i dont read much but i enjoyed this book.

i love the way willian faulkner wrote this book,u get each characters own thoughts, and personal expierences of the adventure this family went through. In the begining of the book, i guess it was because theyre were so many diferent nerators, it was kind of confusing, and hard to get into. But as i progressed through the book i found myself not being able to put the book down in curiosity of what would lie before me in the folowing chapters. i dont read much but i enjoyed this book.

Many people who review this book give it a bad rating because they have read Faulkner before and expect his writing to be of a certain style and intellectual caliber. Perhaps this book is not quite up to the level that people are expecting, but when you compare it with much of the other literature available dramatizing this time period (just after World War I) in a fictional manner, this book stands out as being a simply extraordinary peice of literature. While it lacks much of Faulkner's later literary intuitiveness, this book still demonstrates true Faulknerian style with its soap-opera-ish manner of storytelling and robust character development. Even this, one of Faulkner's least talked about and least admired novels, is better than the work of 99.9% of the authors writing today. What people consider "bad" as a Faulkner book is still leaps and bounds ahead of what other writers are able to produce. I found this book to be an excellent stepping-stone into Faulkner's style and literary skill from less "deep" books. I would definitely recommend reading this book first before reading other Faulkner novels. Once you finish this one, THEN try another book directly after this one - his style will be much easier to follow and understand.

Overall, a wonderful book for discussion and reflection!

This early novel by William Faulkner is interesting as an example of where his style and focus were as a very young writer, before both had settled into the predicatable Faulkner voice of his later and better known books. I enjoyed the book more when I first read it, I think, than I do now. But one thing has still not changed. I can remember having to read certain passages over and over and still not being sure what they were about. I still don't know. There are those who think this deliberate ambiguity is a plus but I prefer to be able to follow the plot of a book. I don't even mind working at it, as one must with a number of writers. But it is frustrating to come up against an impenetrable hedge of words that crowds out meaning, and this happens a lot with Faulkner.

I have read almost all of Faulkner's books and enjoyed many, if not most, of them. Frequently moving and always interesting, these books deserve a special place on the bookshelf of American literature. But admit it, often Faulkner - even in his later books - uses words the same way that Jackson Pollock used paint. He sprays, splatters and dribbles them into a squiqqly mess that might, like a good Pollock, be pleasing or meaningful in an 'abstract expressionist' way, but simply doesn't make sense on a purely cognative and narrative level. There is less of that in Soldier's Pay than one gets later, but you can sure see it coming.

In his first novel, SOLDIERS' PAY, Faulkner deals with the aftermath of World War I to illustrate the disillusionment that war inexorably brings to combtants and non-combatants alike. Whether is is the war to end all wars, the war to save humanity, the forgotten war, or the immoral war, no one who survives escapes unscathed. The narrative is more straightforward, with fewer digressions, than that of most of Faulker's later novels; but it is still difficult to follow at times. Using the shattered life of a wounded and dying war veteran as the vehicle, Faulkner weaves the lives of his characers into a revealing tapestry. In the arras he depicts fear, despair and denial; sexuality, frustration, and fulfillment; pettiness and compassion; love and hate--a range of emotions to which all mankind is subject. While many of his descriptions seem strained and burdensome, others present a blinding insight into the foibles and failings of our neighbors and of ourselves. Likewise, to the modern reader, some of the moral values and motivations of his characters may be arcane; yet, as a whole, the universal standards of human behavior still apply. All in all, I would say that if you are a fan of Faulkner, give this book a try. It hasn't the power of THE SOUND AND THE FURY or ABSALOM, ABSALOM! nor the delightful comedy of THE REIVERS, but it does give the reader a glimpse into the evolution of Faulkner's inimitable style.

This book is a piece of history, but that's all it is. This was when Faulkner was hanging out in New Orleans with Sherwood Anderson, and Anderson told Faulkner if he wrote a book, he would get his publisher to print it. This and Mosquitoes are the result. They are both terrible, and it takes longer to read them than it took Faulkner to write them.

The interesting thing here is Faulkner's obsession with the war hero and the tragedy of war cliche's. Remember also, that Faulkner was walking around in a pilot's uniform that he made himself after failing to join the air force. This book is very much the same thing, and for that point, it's interesting. It's amazing that such a dolt became one of the true voices of wisdom for the century. The upside of this book is that it lets you know you have plenty of time to develop. If you love the guy, you'll read this anyway, but you can save your time and skip Soldier's Pay and Mosquitoes. Save them for when you've already developed an obsession.

I know that Faulkner is considered a great writer, but I had not found him accessible. About forty years ago I read "Light in August", which I thought was okay. My other attempts to read his books failed. So when the Library of America recently issued his earliest works, I figured that maybe was the way I could finally access Faulkner.

And boy did I love "Soldier's Pay"! I know it was an early work, that his style was not fully developed, that it was considered a minor effort, etc.

But, first of all, I could read it and for the most part clearly understand what was happening. Second, I found what was happening was unexpected and fascinating to me, very poignant, funny, odd, involving. Thirdly, while Faulker's ways of spelling, recording people's thoughts, and richly and repeatedly describing things (like the decadent, sensuous South), the book did immerse me in the scenes at a deeper and more viceral level than a more conventional novel would. Thus, it gave me a strong feeling of presence in this oft-romanticized bygone era; it was very nostalgic -- even though I never lived in the South and was born much later.

The characters -- like the fat, odd, scholarly, obnoxious, sexually aggressive Januarius Jones -- were so unique and intriguing. They are not the kind of characters I've found in other books. The plot was similarly odd and unpredictable; with numerous bizarre scenes.

Two drunken soldiers returning from WW1 take a deeply caring interest in another passenger on their train -- a returning captain who has been horribly disfigured, mentally disabled, and reported as dead. Along with a beautiful war widow who is also on the train (and with whom the two able returning soldiers both fall in love), they help the injured officer to reach his home, and his beloved fiancee, who is shocked and horrified by his condition and can't stand to be near him. Of course, as events unfold, it isn't clear what if anything is going through the injured captain's mind.

This is the kind of book I could easily read over again, and it gives me great pleasure just to think about it. It may not be one of Faulkner's better works from a technical standpoint, but it sure hit the spot with me (unlike the next novel in the Library of America volume -- "Moquitoes"!)

I'm hoping I will now be able to enjoy some of his other efforts in the same intense way.

This book is a hoot! Or series of same, to be both brief and precise. It's been so long since I read college Faulkner that I can't remember a shred (skein?) of it, but who would be so dyspeptic as to argue that either absurdist humor or bathroom reading are unworthy literary categories -- let alone a genre that combines both?

More to the point: sure, the best single way to learn about style is to read and re-read the great stylists, and so come to grok both the breadth of their differences and the depth of their similarities, and thereby enliven a sense of the space of possibilities for human expression -- both to enhance appreciation of each writer's uniquely in-formed and informing "flavor", and to articulate within oneself a "framing space" for placing (and perchance assessing) the perspectives and technical accomplishments of future writers (yikes -- this style parody stuff is corrupting!).

But reading skillful parody *does* add an undeniable dimension to this enrichment process, by shining a light on the nature of style as such. I recently read selections from some book or other of multi-author parodies (I think it was one of those "an education in a book" titles), and was amazed at how deft they were, at how incapable I would have been to produce such eloquent verbal portraiture -- distorted as in a fun house mirror, but in spite of this (or because of it) so revealing, in terms of elements as subtle as "tone" and "voice".

Interestingly enough, I may have learned more from the parodies of the authors I hadn't read than of those I had. This says something on an intensely fashionable "meta" level about something or other involving mind, language and Being, but, existential self-referentiality being as ineffable as the ineffability of Being itself, I'll have to be excused from articulating it.

ANYway, what the heck -- why not triangulate on these fascinating aspects of literary form? Compare authors with each other, compare them with their respective parodies to sharpen your eye and ear, compare parodies with each other (and do a little theoretical reading on the subject, perhaps) to gain a sense of the stylistic (meta-stylistic?) "vocabulary" or meta-same of literary burlesque -- and by extension (or inversion, or un-perversion, or pre-version -- SOMEbody's version), of the root-level resources of language itself...

P.S. There's a whole subfield of Vedic philosophy dedicated to the analysis of modes of learning from analogies by examining where and how they fail; isn't there an analogy here to the fruits of study of parodies, precisely in terms of their failings as precise metaphors? If so, only the finest products will do for such analyses -- unless they become SO fine as expressions of the authors' sensibilities that it becomes a looking-glass proposition as to which "authorless text" be considered the "original" and which the "'parody'". Even then we might learn something, though it might well be limited to which hemisphere of our brain looks better in a mirror, versus in real life...

A splended collection of Faux Faulkner. Having lived in Oxford and passed the time of day with him in Krogers (he would always stop us to talk to our little boy)...i.e. when we had not mixed him up with Brother John...I can tell you how much he enjoyed this Faux stuff...I suggest that anyone who has grown as a result of sharing his world try their hand at faux...and read the old Oxford Eagle...If Mr. Bill puts your soul on warp speed, order this book right now.

I realize that an American tradition is mocking great writers and painters, but this is ridiculous. Why don't all these idiots go and write their own books? What did Faulkner do to deserve such a FATE? And this brings up a question: WHAT kind of PERSON would WASTE their time reading "faux" Faulkner? The only answer to that QUESTION is No one. No one who has read Faulkner would EVEN BOTHER to imitate him. The only people left to read this book are bored old ladies sipping tea in the south and amusing themselves with a little LITE SOUTHERN "LITERATURE."

Originally published in two volumes, Joseph L. Blotner's biography of the imminent writer of the American South, William Faulkner, is often touted as THE chronicle of Faulkner's life. Blotner's style is really quite readable. Indeed, this text is so accessible, one must question his accountability on some instances of Faukner's words to friends and loved ones. (Who really remembers what his wife's father said to him on a particular day--famous or not?) All in all, though, this chronicle sits on the top of the biographical heap for the time being. And it probably won't be displaced for many years to come.

This is a very long and detailed biography which tells more than most people will want to know about its subject. What disappointed me however was not the work of Blotner which was painstaking and caring, but the figure he depicted. The great writer and Faulkner truly is a great writer seems in his life much smaller than his work. It is not only his unhappy relationship with wife and family, but a general spirit of meanness which prevailed in many of his human relationships. One heartwarming element though is the recognition he received at the end of his life, and the way that seemed to transform him into being more outgoing and generous.

Blotner did a prodigious amount of research for this biography. Any later writer who wants to produce a biography of Faulkner will inevitably find himself or herself relying on much of Blotner's work. The reader, however, will not be so grateful. Blotner seems incapable of distinguishing between that which is important and that which is not. It seems as though he has dumped almost everything he learned into this book. And he learned quite a lot. Why we need, for example, to know the names of everyone Faulkner came into contact with? Finally, Blotner is not a gifted writer; his style is typical of the academic. I can only hope someone writes a shorter, more readable biography of Faulkner someday.