The Collected Stories of William Faulkner

William Faulkner is not one of our easiest writers to appreciate. I was given a Faulkner book, Light in August I believe it was, to read in college as an assignment. I am sure I did not read it. I think Cliff helped me on that one. I think today kids use some free resource called perhaps " Sparknotes" to help them in similar situations.

However, my reading list shows I am going back and reading them all. I hope that Ms. Bruer appreciates it.

Faulkner is dense. Whereas Hemingway declares and makes clear Faulkner is shady and ambiguous. Many times in these collections of stories of Faulkner's you will read well into a story assuming an assumed fact from the narrator and then find your assumption was wrong and you will have to reinterpret the whole story based off this new information.

I will confess that some of these stories found me going back and rereading after this new information came to light. Faulkner is not easy.

Faulkner is however worthwhile. Some of the stories are so dense in dialect and fuzziness and first person versus second and third that they do not stand out for me. Perhaps the fact that much of my reading is done last at night is not the best time for them. Some of the stories however are to be treasured.

For me the stories The Tall Men, Two Soldiers and it's conclusion Shall Not Perish are three standouts which measure against anything I have read. Hair, Uncle Willy, The Brooch, Beyond, and There Was a Queen stand out.

I must confess the section of the stories called The Wilderness was told in such a dialect and improbable way that I still struggle to gain any pleasure from it.

Faulkner was not easy. He was however masterful in what he did. His work I assume because of it's depiction of the South in the times he wrote is not in anyway shape or from politically correct today. It does not have merit because of some of the implied racism of the speech and culture presented but it also does not not have merit because of these issues either. If that makes sense.

The recent censoring of Twain made sense in that some said that without he would not be taught at all. If that is the case so be it. Are we really so sensitive however that we cannot read history and fiction from a historical time period and appreciate it's merits without endorsing all of its views.

It is a subject that rankles. If you find Faulkner dense, written in a way you do not like and do not wish to wade in that is a legitimate thought and decision. Some of the easy criticism that is lodged his way due to how and what he wrote would make almost any authentic writing of a time period unable to be appreciated a century later were it to be the rule.


These stories are classics.