While I don't believe I carry a lot of baggage about William Faulkner, I also feel like I carry a lot baggage about him, just because of what I have heard about him from various sources. I have read "A Rose for Emily" and "Barn Burning" by Faulkner, and yes they were difficult because of Faulkner's use of diction, and his stream of consciousness. Many times I find that the stories are not chronological, and they tend to follow a flow of speech. I have heard from other people, who are more familiar with his work, that they always have a dictionary on hand while reading due to the high vocabulary content.
With Faulkner being a drunk, most of his work seems to prove his literary critics wrong, or attempt to achieve some sort of revenge. He is very narcissistic.
I’m nervous, yet excited about this course for the simple fact I have not read a lot of his works, and I’m hoping that I like Faulkner as much as I like Steinbeck. Faulkner seems like a man who was possibly misunderstood, and there is a lot more too him.
I totally agree with you about how strange Faulkner's stream of consciousness is in his writing. I wonder what it was like to talk with him in real life. Maybe he would start a story from the middle and then go off into a different part of it. Or, maybe he had so many writing thoughts that he jotted them down haphazardly, but somehow made it into a story. I also think this class will be enlightening.
ReplyDeleteEsther