Good Books » William Faulkner

re: "Wildcat" by Flannery O’Connor (1947)

R/T — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 17:04:00 +0000

My reading of the third story in Flannery O’Connor’s 1947 thesis collection prompts me to make the following observations:

(1) This is perhaps the weakest story in O’Connor’s thesis collection.

(2) Blind Gabriel, both as young boy and as old man in the story, with his thinly disguised fear of the wildcat, gives readers something to think about—especially in terms of his claim of a primal awareness of matters beyond normal sensibility, and in terms of his thin veneer of courage that barely covers a not-so-insensible fear of something out there (ostensibly the wildcat)—but Gabriel’s story is encumbered by the author’s attempts at dialect (not very well managed) and the characters’ dialogue and diction (also not well managed).

(3) Again, with apologies to O’Connor, the influences of William Faulkner and Erskine Cauldwell are everywhere evident in the derivative and awkward (but mercifully short) “Wildcat.”

(4) If I had been her thesis advisor (which is a fanciful time-travel imagining that is presumptuous on a variety of levels), I would say, “Ms. O’Connor, although I think I understand what you were attempting in this story, I think your strengths as a writer will be better utilized in different directions. “The Geranium” and “The Turkey” are the kinds of stories you ought to be further developing. Of course, that is simply one reader’s opinion.”

Review: Mudbound

R/T — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 14:07:00 +0000

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
Algonquin, 2008 (2008) Hardcover


A wonderful voice in southern American literature – reminiscent of the best of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty – has emerged in Hillary Jordan’s uncommonly powerful debut novel, *Mudbound. As a fiercely haunting and paradoxically beautiful tale of love, neglect, betrayal, and justice within and among families, Mudbound* introduces readers to some of the most remarkable characters to have appeared recently in American literature: In one family you have Henry McAllan (the successful engineer and wounded veteran of the Great War whose ties to southern traditions and his Mississippi farm dominate his and his family’s life); his much younger brother Jamie (an emotionally scarred veteran of World War II whose devotion to his family and friends will be sorely tested); Pappy McAllan (the ‘sour, bossy, and vain‘ family patriarch whose attitudes towards others in his family and his virulent bigotry threaten to destroy the entire family); and Laura Chappell (the Memphis-born English teacher, lover of Dickens and the Brontë sisters, and wife of Henry McAllan whose life becomes overturned by her husband’s decisions, her brother-in-law’s passion, her father-in-law’s spiteful disposition, and her adjustment to a very different way of life). In another family you have Florence and Hap Jackson (African-American tenant farmers whose reluctant relationship with and dependence upon the McAllan family will lead to strained friendships and unspeakable tragedy); and Ronsel Jackson (the World War II tank battalion veteran whose return to his family and whose friendship with Jamie McAllan will lead to consequences no one could have possibly imagined). With the Mississippi Delta dirt of the McAllan farm as the novel’s dominant symbol – an iconic allusion to the Hebrew adamah of the Old Testament Genesis – and with the author employing each of the main characters as the novel’s alternating narrators, *Mudbound, one of the best novels about the American south and American families to have appeared in the last quarter century, is an extraordinarily effective examination of the terrifying collision of values and attitudes in Mississippi in the late 1940s. So, readers of quality literature, here is the bottom line: Mudbound* is intense, beautiful, and unforgettable

Literature and Undergraduates

R/T — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:20:00 +0000

Here are questions I confront once again as I prepare for my classes in the upcoming fall semester:

Why should undergraduate university students pursuing degrees other than the ones offered in English Departments be required to study literature? Is it necessary that 21^st century students read William Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson or Anton Chekhov or William Faulkner or Flanner O’Connor or Gabriel Garcia-Marquez or Cormac McCarthy?

It must seem obvious to even the most casual observers that students addicted to texting, social networking sites, and other diversions generally have little interest in poems, short stories, novels, plays, essays, etc.

The foregoing questions relate to my annual professional crisis: Students ask (although not openly), “Why do I need to take a literature course? I suppose my answer to that student question, whenever it can be articulated, might be provoked by other people’s answers to the threshold questions above.

So, what is your opinion about the value of literature to undergraduate university students?

Why I cannot (and will not) persist in my attempt to read FINNEGAN’S WAKE

admin — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:22:00 +0000

Here is a typical “sentence” from James Joyce”s Finnegan’s Wake:

“It is the circumconversioning of antelithual paganelles by a huggerknut cramwell energuman, or the caecodedition of an absquelitteris puttagonnianne to the herreraism of a cabotinesque exploser?”

(Note: I borrow the foregoing excerpt from a recent Wall Street Journal article by the superb critic Terry Teachout; the article focuses on modernism in the arts, especially music; the article–as included at Frank Wilson’s blog [Books, Inq.]–coincides with my recent attempt to give Finnegan’s Wake another chance.)

The so-called sentence from Joyce’s novel stands as succinct, unimpeachable evidence in support of my claim that Finnegan’s Wake remains unworthy of any sensible reader’s extended expenditure of time. There are too many books, and life is too short. So, sorry Joyce, I have no more time for your bizarre linguistic contortions.

Now, with Finnegan’s Wake tossed upon the out-the-door rummage pile, it is on to more worthy authors’ works: Flannery O’Connor, William Shakespeare, William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Kazuo Ishiguro, A. S. Byatt, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Salman Rushdie, and Eudora Welty (to name only a select few of my favorites from my eclectic shelves) offer plenty to keep me busy for a lifetime. Therefore, goodbye, Finnegan’s Wake.

Book Review Revisited (Courtesy of BookLoons)

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
Algonquin, 2008 (2008) Hardcover
Reviewed by Tim Davis

A wonderful voice in southern American literature – reminiscent of the best of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty – has emerged in Hillary Jordan’s uncommonly powerful debut novel, *Mudbound. As a fiercely haunting and paradoxically beautiful tale of love, neglect, betrayal, and justice within and among families, Mudbound* introduces readers to some of the most remarkable characters to have appeared recently in American literature: In one family you have Henry McAllan (the successful engineer and wounded veteran of the Great War whose ties to southern traditions and his Mississippi farm dominate his and his family’s life); his much younger brother Jamie (an emotionally scarred veteran of World War II whose devotion to his family and friends will be sorely tested); Pappy McAllan (the ‘sour, bossy, and vain‘ family patriarch whose attitudes towards others in his family and his virulent bigotry threaten to destroy the entire family); and Laura Chappell (the Memphis-born English teacher, lover of Dickens and the Brontë sisters, and wife of Henry McAllan whose life becomes overturned by her husband’s decisions, her brother-in-law’s passion, her father-in-law’s spiteful disposition, and her adjustment to a very different way of life). In another family you have Florence and Hap Jackson (African-American tenant farmers whose reluctant relationship with and dependence upon the McAllan family will lead to strained friendships and unspeakable tragedy); and Ronsel Jackson (the World War II tank battalion veteran whose return to his family and whose friendship with Jamie McAllan will lead to consequences no one could have possibly imagined). With the Mississippi Delta dirt of the McAllan farm as the novel’s dominant symbol – an iconic allusion to the Hebrew adamah of the Old Testament Genesis – and with the author employing each of the main characters as the novel’s alternating narrators, *Mudbound, one of the best novels about the American south and American families to have appeared in the last quarter century, is an extraordinarily effective examination of the terrifying collision of values and attitudes in Mississippi in the late 1940s. So, readers of quality literature, here is the bottom line: Mudbound* is intense, beautiful, and unforgettable.

Book Review (Reprinted from BookLoons)

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:09:00 +0000

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan



A wonderful voice in southern American literature – reminiscent of the best of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty – has emerged in Hillary Jordan’s uncommonly powerful debut novel, *Mudbound. As a fiercely haunting and paradoxically beautiful tale of love, neglect, betrayal, and justice within and among families, Mudbound* introduces readers to some of the most remarkable characters to have appeared recently in American literature: In one family you have Henry McAllan (the successful engineer and wounded veteran of the Great War whose ties to southern traditions and his Mississippi farm dominate his and his family’s life); his much younger brother Jamie (an emotionally scarred veteran of World War II whose devotion to his family and friends will be sorely tested); Pappy McAllan (the ‘sour, bossy, and vain‘ family patriarch whose attitudes towards others in his family and his virulent bigotry threaten to destroy the entire family); and Laura Chappell (the Memphis-born English teacher, lover of Dickens and the Brontë sisters, and wife of Henry McAllan whose life becomes overturned by her husband’s decisions, her brother-in-law’s passion, her father-in-law’s spiteful disposition, and her adjustment to a very different way of life). In another family you have Florence and Hap Jackson (African-American tenant farmers whose reluctant relationship with and dependence upon the McAllan family will lead to strained friendships and unspeakable tragedy); and Ronsel Jackson (the World War II tank battalion veteran whose return to his family and whose friendship with Jamie McAllan will lead to consequences no one could have possibly imagined). With the Mississippi Delta dirt of the McAllan farm as the novel’s dominant symbol – an iconic allusion to the Hebrew adamah of the Old Testament Genesis – and with the author employing each of the main characters as the novel’s alternating narrators,*Mudbound, one of the best novels about the American south and American families to have appeared in the last quarter century, is an extraordinarily effective examination of the terrifying collision of values and attitudes in Mississippi in the late 1940s. So, readers of quality literature, here is the bottom line: Mudbound* is intense, beautiful, and unforgettable. Don’t miss it!

Reading “A Late Encounter with the Enemy”

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:51:00 +0000

As the eighth story in Flannery O’Connor’s first published collection, A Good Man is Hard to Find, “A Late Encounter with the Enemy” invites readers to contemplate what many have perceived as the American south’s preoccupation with the region’s defeat during the American Civil War.

First, before a more direct encounter with O’Connor’s short story, however, readers might want to consider an important moment in another story by another writer from the American south: William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily.” Near the end of Faulkner’s superb gothic tale, a story that is frequently and justifiably anthologized in college-level literature survey course textbooks, the narrator makes this perceptive observation about the old men who come to a funeral: “[A]nd the very old men—some in their brushed Confederate uniforms—on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing they that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottleneck of the most recent decade of years.” Remember the metaphor—meadow for memory—when reading “A Late Encounter with the Enemy.”

Second, further postponing our encounter with O’Connor’s story, consider first southern writer Walker Percy’s explanation for why the American south produced so many good writers: “Because we lost the War.” O’Connor, responding to Percy (in her essay entitled “The Regional Writer”), expands upon Percy’s theory by suggesting that the American Civil War had a profound effect upon the collective psyche of southerners: “What he was saying was that we have had our Fall[. . . .] We have gone into the modern world with an inburnt knowledge of human limitations and with a sense of mystery which could not have developed in our first state of innocence—as it has not sufficiently developed in the rest of the country” (Mystery and Manners 59). Elsewhere, in a letter to Cecil Dawkins (November 8, 1958), O’Connor expands on this statement: “The South in other words still believes that man has fallen and that he is only perfectable by God’s grace, not by his own unaided efforts.” Percy’s and O’Connor’s comments should also be considered when reading “A Late Encounter with the Enemy.”

Now, ready to focus specifically on “A Late Encounter with the Enemy,” the reader will notice that General Tennessee Flintrock Sash, age 104, is actually named George Poker Sash, and his role in the American Civil War was simply as a major (not a general), and even those “facts” ought to be skeptically received. Supplementing Sash’s considerable though confused ego, and supplementing his meadow-like memory, his granddaughter’s misplaced enthusiasm for her grandfather’s dubious biography remains unaffected by realities: “‘See him [she says]! My kin, all you upstarts! Glorious upright old man standing up for the old traditions! Dignity! Honor! Courage! See him!” (The Complete Stories 135). The granddaughter is not alone in her support of the aging and questionable symbol of the southern past, especially the south’s preoccupation with its understandings of dignity, honor, and courage. Moreover, at the granddaughter’s long anticipated graduation from college (at the age of sixty-two), one of the ceremony’s speakers, with the elder Sash sitting in a wheelchair on the stage, warns the audience: “‘If we forget our past [. . .] we won’t remember our future and it will be as well for we won’t have one’” (144). The paradox (or is it irony) involved in that statement deserves careful consideration.

Throughout the story, a cautionary tale much preoccupied with the thread-bare past (as represented by the decrepit man who lays claim to having been a Confederate officer, though the story reveals his considerable confusion about the actual facts of his involvement), readers will notice the conspicuous focus on personal egos, flawed memories, and—perhaps most significantly—the absence of God, except when mentioned in the old man’s complaint: “‘God damm every goddam thing to hell’” (140). The curmudgeonly veteran at the end of the story, however, has been wheeled off the stage and waits in his chair as an inert and finally silent “corpse, in the long line at the Coca-Cola machine,” somewhere at the end of a flagstone path outside the auditorium where he has had his final encounter with the enemies of time and death. Does this mean that the old traditions of Confederate recollections are now (or should be) inert and irrelevant?

So, beyond the foregoing question, what is the reader supposed to think of “A Late Encounter with Enemy,” one of O’Connor’s stories that seems simply secular—one without much references to anything either spiritual or religious? I would invited readers to consider carefully the several points previously offered: consider Faulkner’s statement about the “meadow” of memory; consider O’Connor’s development of Percy’s comment about the American southerner’s psyche after the Civil War; and consider—perhaps most carefully—everything the characters say in O’Connor’s story because, as I have elsewhere argued in a previous posting, O’Connor would remain that she, as the writer, is “speaking with character and action, not about character and action” (Mystery and Manners 75). The reader may discover that “A Late Encounter with the Enemy” is one of O’Connor’s most subtle and effective elaborations upon the theme she offers in her response to Walker Percy.

Review -Written Lives

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:55:00 +0000

Written Lives by Javier Marías (translated by Margaret Jull Costa)

New Directions

ISBN 978-0-8112-1689-0

Trade Paperback

Okay, booklovers and prolific readers, here is a great little book to carry along down to the beach on the Gulf shores, to your vacation getaway in the mountains, or to your lawn-chair in your backyard for a relaxing afternoon.

Internationally renowned Spanish author Javier Marías has served up a wonderful picnic buffet of biographical tidbits in which readers will discover strange and surprising things about some of the world’s most famous writers.

These are not typical biographical essays about literary giants: instead these 26 mini-essays (included in a 193-page book) are fresh and idiosyncratic looks at everyone from Djuna Barnes and Yukio Mishima to Giuseppe Tomas di Lampedusa and Rudyard Kipling.

Readers are invited—through anecdotal vignettes—to reconsider (among others) the single-minded and taciturn William Faulkner, the temperamental and deferential Joseph Conrad, the pompous and profane James Joyce, and the circumlocutory and urbane Henry James. Readers can also take a fresh look at (among others) the impatient champion of women (and enigmatic scoundrel) Arthur Conan Doyle, the provocative and ironic Isak Dinesen, and the arrogantly silent Emily Brontë.

There are too many other gems (and too little space here) for a full accounting. Let it be succinctly said, though, that every included writer—squirming a bit under the masterful author’s wry scrutiny—is a surprise. Never has so much wonderful entertainment been packed into such a small package. Written Lives is simply marvelous. Enjoy!

Southern Voice: Twilight by William Gay

admin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:50:00 +0000

From the Southern Voices Series

Kenneth Tyler and his sister Corrie had reason to suspect something was wrong with their father’s burial. So, by boldly wresting atrocious secrets out of ostensibly sacred graves, the teens discover that their corner of Tennessee is ripe with grotesque horrors. Early evidence of something wicked points to the town’s undertaker, Fenton Breece, and when the Tylers discover a collection of photographs trading cards from the River Styx, picture postcards mailed from Hell they are prepared to confront Breece about his perverted and twisted soul.

Breece, though, is not about to tolerate the Tylers’ excoriating accusations. To silence the meddlesome youngsters, Breece turns to Granville Sutter, a sadistic killer who has previously been indicted for murder but acquitted by frightened juries. Corrie, a believer in signs and portents, remains implacable as stone, but Kenneth worries that she may not withstand the escalating intimidations. As for Kenneth, he suddenly finds himself on the run. With the misfit Sutter on his trail, Kenneth disappears into the Harrikin, a neighboring wilderness of abandoned mines, faded roads and eccentric squatters.

As Kenneth ventures ever deeper into the Harrikin, he feels more and more removed from the presumed protection of so-called civilization and the grace of an apparently disinterested God who is busily reading an old hymnbook or maybe a seed catalog, though the boy comes closer to learning how to survive in an increasingly chaotic world. Yet the problem remains: Sutter is never far behind.

In his third novel, Twilight, Tennessee author William Gay once again delivers Southern gothic writing at its gut-wrenching, frightening best. Mythic in scope and provocative in lyrical power, the highly recommendedTwilight is one of those novels you will not soon forget, one that you will favorably compare to the very best of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and Erskine Caldwell.

Southern Voice: Mudbound

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:42:00 +0000

From the Southern Voices series Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
Algonquin, 2008
A wonderful new voice in southern American literature – reminiscent of the best of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty – has emerged in Hillary Jordan’s uncommonly powerful debut novel, *Mudbound. As a fiercely haunting and paradoxically beautiful tale of love, neglect, betrayal, and justice within and among families, Mudbound* introduces readers to some of the most remarkable characters to have appeared recently in American literature: In one family you have Henry McAllan (the successful engineer and wounded veteran of the Great War whose ties to southern traditions and his Mississippi farm dominate his and his family’s life); his much younger brother Jamie (an emotionally scarred veteran of World War II whose devotion to his family and friends will be sorely tested); Pappy McAllan (the ‘sour, bossy, and vain‘ family patriarch whose attitudes towards others in his family and his virulent bigotry threaten to destroy the entire family); and Laura Chappell (the Memphis-born English teacher, lover of Dickens and the Brontë sisters, and wife of Henry McAllan whose life becomes overturned by her husband’s decisions, her brother-in-law’s passion, her father-in-law’s spiteful disposition, and her adjustment to a very different way of life). In another family you have Florence and Hap Jackson (African-American tenant farmers whose reluctant relationship with and dependence upon the McAllan family will lead to strained friendships and unspeakable tragedy); and Ronsel Jackson (the World War II tank battalion veteran whose return to his family and whose friendship with Jamie McAllan will lead to consequences no one could have possibly imagined). With the Mississippi Delta dirt of the McAllan farm as the novel’s dominant symbol – an iconic allusion to the Hebrew adamah of the Old Testament Genesis – and with the author employing each of the main characters as the novel’s alternating narrators,*Mudbound, one of the best novels about the American south and American families to have appeared in the last quarter century, is an extraordinarily effective examination of the terrifying collision of values and attitudes in Mississippi in the late 1940s. So, readers of quality literature, here is the bottom line: Mudbound* is intense, beautiful, and unforgettable.