Faulkner Books

This is just a 5 page report. No depth. Worthless.

I wish I had read first review before I purchased it. Total waste of money.

This is just a 5 page report. It is not a book and is not worth $80 at all !
The report is also worthless.

[note: this review was originally written in June, 2005; the book was unavailable at Amazon until now.]

Donald Faulkner, The Casket and the Rose (Onyx Press, 1966)

The Casket and the Rose is proof positive that a man can reach great academic heights and still be one of the world's worst writers. Faulkner was the Vice President and Treasurer (one wonders, idly, about the conflicts of interest inherent in that title) of Western Reserve University in Cleveland when this book was published. That the University did not immediately move to suppress it in order to save their reputation astounds me. It's like the Iowa Writer's Workshop suddenly finding out that one of its board members has been publishing under the pseudonym "Helen Steiner Rice" for the past half century.

Faulkner was obviously a great fan of Elizabethan poetry. This, in itself, is not a handicap. Many fine people have been fans of Elizabethan poetry. Some of them have even attempted to imitate it, with interesting results. One of those people is not Donald Faulkner. He has tried to imitate it, but the results are not interesting. Nor, in fact, are they the least bit readable. (To clarify, since it seems to have been a point of confusion in a recent review: I would only call something "unreadable" if I had, in fact, at least attempted to read it. I do so, in this case as in others, in order to spare you the trauma of having to do so yourself.) I give you a short example from a piece whose existence may, in fact, define the word "interminable":

"The witching glass, the suasive cup's a key
To quickened pulse; if kindled eye then see
What's not, and careless lip speak foolish word,
Why worry, friend, a blithesome fool you'll be."
(--"Glass")

(The supreme irony of this seeming exercise in pacifying the Temperance League is that, after a long dissertation on the evils of the demon rum, and many other demon drinks, Faulkner compares tipping a bottle to climbing a mountain, and declares that either is possible with enough self-knowledge. One wonders if Faulkner was, in fact, aware that the concept of "social drinking" did, in fact, exist in 1966.)

While the subject matter is humorous enough, and might have made for interesting satire had Faulkner attempted to meld the form and style of the Elizabethan with the sensibility of the modern, this poem, like all the others in the book, makes plain two very ugly facts about the author's intent here: first, that he has no desire at all to marry the sensibilities of the old and the new (and, if you pause to think, one really has to work at eliminating all traces of one's own age when one is writing poetry in an earlier style), and second, and more unintentionally hilarious, is that Faulkner has not an amused bone in his body when he's writing this stuff. He really does seem to mean it as being some sort of wonderfully wise instructional manual to those silly undergrads who are going to come to college and, finally free of the yoke of parental control, drink too much. Ah, lads, here's the key to moderation, in Elizabethan stanzas!

Did anyone but Donald Faulkner take Donald Faulkner seriously? That is a question that, forty years later, is probably quite impossible to answer. The four blurbs on the book's back flap come from three professional references and a newspaper reporter for a now-defunct newspaper; no fellow poets, nor even fiction writers, stepped up to the challenge. Which may not be as telling as it sounds ("man on the street" blurbs were considered a marketing tactic back in the day, more so than being blurbed by one's peers), but one can't but relish the image of this book being sent to, say, Carson McCullers for a blurb, and her laughter pealing up from the house for at least an hour nonstop.

This book is so monstrously awful that I am almost tempted to hunt down a copy of the author's previous book, The Land Speaks, about which the back flap tells us: "A saga in verse, 'three centuries of American history.'" While The Casket and the Rose is far and away the worst book I've read so far in 2005, I have a distinct feeling that The Land Speaks might manage to make it into my personal top five worst books I've ever read. (zero)

The document is 9 pages long. When I pay for any publication that's $1 per page I expect the contents to be of the first order. This document though, has 1 page of contents, 1 of justification for BIA, and 2 of information that's easily obtainable in 5 seconds using a search engine on the web (I.E. names of DR journals and links).

So the meat of the topic is covered in 5 pages. These 5 pages are fairly high level, and give the sort of information that easily obtained from any specialist publication (the document even uses the Disaster Recovery Journal as a source).

In summary this belongs as a article in a trade magazine, and overall is poor value for money. If I could I would ask for a refund.

This e-book isn't real material. Please anybody buy this e-book.

This article AVOIDS addressing the requirements for "Developing the E-GovernmentInfrastructure". It contains phrases like "Government Relationship Management concept" and does not define them. It claims the "US lags far behind many other countries" but fails to name any or explain which countries lead, in what areas, etc. It also contains poor grammar. Don't waste your money! If all Faulkner reports are this bad, don't waste your money on them either. I would give this ZERO stars if that was an option.

To call this a high level overview would be suggesting that this document actually had content. This so called "report is only 8 pages of very cursory information and defiitely not worth the price tag. My recommendation is look else where for information.

The e-book download is a 4 page document that has nothing whatsoever that is useful for the present time. It is a basic document recommending that one patch the system - that is hardly anything new. It is copyrighted 2001 as well. Ancient history in the Computer Internet World and no one should be paying for this. So definitely not worth US $...

While studying John Steinbeck I came across this book and was glad to find a book that treats "In Doubious Battle", "Of Mice and Men", and "The Grapes of Wrath" together in one volume. I was, however, totally disappointed. The book consists of several abstracts of essays that are available elsewhere in full. The selection of essays does not seem to make any sense and the essays are not commented. The aim of author seems to be to make money out of other people's essays. If you want to learn something about John Steinbeck, do not buy this book! Look for essays elsewhere and look for other books. There are better ones!

Please do not confuse the author, Mary E. Faulkner, with Mary Faulkner. They are not the same person!

For the price ... - this is a 7 page report with no more information than can be gathered by doing a quick search on PRM on the web for Free.
Looks like the author has some good insight - but 7 pages for over $ ? I am very disappointed- I can't afford to make mistakes kike this again- the number of pages should be clearly marked on the page describing the "book"
Good info- but way overpriced to say the least.