Aftermath

[cbertsch]

I'm feeling a lot better. But the better I feel, the more I just want to laze on the sofa reading. And not just reading, reading Faulkner. What's up with that? Maybe it's because I'll be heading home to Maryland soon -- the part of Maryland where my parents live used to be very, very Southern -- or just because his sentences feel right in this prolonged altered state. Anyway, the director's cut of Sartoris calls.

Comments

[frostedfuckhead.livejournal.com]

I'm planning my first Faulkner adventure soon... maybe next month. What should I read first?

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Maybe Go Down Moses. I'm partial to Pylon, but that's more modern and about Louisiana. The Unvanquished is sentimental but good. Absalom, Absalom! is the biggest of the big in terms of rep. As I Lay Dying and Light in August are the two most common starter texts.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_luaineach/]

I get Faulkner States, too, and I've never pinned down what causes them other than they usually come on the heels of my having been out of commission with my back for some extended period of time. Maybe they do serve some transitional period, for me, between "totally out of it" and "back up to full speed".

I'm always surprised when I find myself craving Faulkner because while I own all his stuff and have read it all (well more than once even), I don't feel that I particularly *like* it. Does that make sense? Drawn to it intensely at times, to be sure, but I'm not quite sure I'd call the experience "pleasure". With, of course, the exception of As I lay dying which I love, love, *love* beyond description.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I do like it, but not in that obsessive way that the real Faulkner devotees do. The South freaks me out, for one thing. Every time I feel myself being lulled into a nostalgia that isn't my own, I end up standing naked in front of a mirror that is not flattering in the least. More often than not, of course, it's Faulkner who is holding that piece of silvered glass. His use of the word "nigger" alone has the power to undercut all the reverie that his backward-glancing characters indulge in.