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Soldiers' Pay
The story of a wounded veterans homecoming, it is partly autobiographical, filled with hope, dark laughter, and despair.
Paperback
Published
December 17th 1996
by Liveright
(first published 1926)
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I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who adores powerful and poetic imagery. The plot of the story is a little bland, it's almost soap operaish, but the characters who drive the narrative are anything but your typical soap stars. They are real and engaging individuals and you find yourself amazed at how their plights tug at your heart. The skillful way in which Faulkner uses language to tell this story will impress even the least literary individual. If you are to read only one boo...more
Not a bad novel, although there is that very odd situation where the main character in the first 3rd of the novel just sort of leaves and never returns and two other characters become the leads in the last 2/3rds of the book.
The themes that dominated Faulkner's are clearly visible here and really do get a bit of a run through, so although his first novel and not up to the classics that shortly followed it is well worth a read.
But the real reason I love this book is after I read it, I approach...more
The themes that dominated Faulkner's are clearly visible here and really do get a bit of a run through, so although his first novel and not up to the classics that shortly followed it is well worth a read.
But the real reason I love this book is after I read it, I approach...more
This was Faulkner's first book and all the issues that haunted his later work were already in place. The story of a group of returning WWI warriors who encounter each other on a train heading across the State's. One is horribly scarred, listless and ill. Together with a 'long, black woman', they resolve to take him back to his home in Georgia.
So a tableaux of characters is brought together to explore the emotions of loss and decline, with the notion that 'sex and death' are the front and back do...more
So a tableaux of characters is brought together to explore the emotions of loss and decline, with the notion that 'sex and death' are the front and back do...more
Mar 18, 2013
Michael
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
william-faulkner,
read-in-2013
William Faulkner's novels have long been a serious reading gap for me, one I intended to fill as I worked my way through Time Magazine's list of the greatest 100 English-language novels published since 1923. Faulkner is represented twice on that list (The Sound and the Fury and Light in August), but of course, Faulkner comes with a reputation of being "difficult" and "intimidating." I figured it might be constructive if I just started at the beginning, with Faulkner's first novel, and work my wa...more
Though not as accomplished as his later novels, Soldiers' Pay still has moments of revelation, which reveal Faulkner willing to bend language to get at a feeling.
"They greeted him with the effusiveness of people who are brought together by invitation yet are not quite certain of themselves and of the spirit of the invitation; in this case the eternal country boys of one national mental state, lost in the comparative metropolitan atmosphere of one diametrically opposed to it. To feel provincial:...more
"They greeted him with the effusiveness of people who are brought together by invitation yet are not quite certain of themselves and of the spirit of the invitation; in this case the eternal country boys of one national mental state, lost in the comparative metropolitan atmosphere of one diametrically opposed to it. To feel provincial:...more
Faulkner's first novel is surprisingly good. It's obviously a first novel, and it has some problems (notably, some pronoun issues in the first chapter, and some unsubtle artiness), but does contain a compelling plot and some extraordinarily beautiful writing in some parts. He was obviously influenced by Pound and Eliot, and his early roots in painting show up to good effect here. Chapter Five, with its caustic response to Fitzgerald's early work is terrific. The racial element is a tad disturbin...more
This was William Faulkner's first novel. It's about a dying soldier from the First World War going home to end his days. It tells of the girl he left behind, who has now had second thoughts about him, and a woman who wants to marry him. It has echoes of the greatest of Faulkner, but it seems to me he was searching for a voice in the book and didn't quite find it. He was very much influenced by the stream of consciousness people, who were working about the time he wrote it and that takes away sli...more
This was Faulkner's first book. It does not appear to have been closely edited and overall it's too flashy in its style. At points it felt like the primary purpose was to showcase a broad range of adverbs and literary references. It has two or three too many characters, and it's at least a hundred pages too long.
The book also starts from a place of, let's generously call it historically-influenced under-estimation, with regard to women and minorities.
Buried under that mess is a good, sad, funn...more
The book also starts from a place of, let's generously call it historically-influenced under-estimation, with regard to women and minorities.
Buried under that mess is a good, sad, funn...more
Wow, two really good Faulkner books in a row (this and The Reivers) - I could get used to this! Here we find one of Faulkner's earliest books, one free of the pomposity and obscurity of his later works and also one that offers some genuinely noble and likable characters. Going into another WWI-themed novel, I admit was cringing a bit in fear that it would turn out to be another Fable, but not so. Here, he gives a compelling and touching look at the men and women whose lives were touched - and mo...more
I read this because I was compelled by my passion for Faulkner's work to begin at the beginning-- I'm as curious about an author's personal history as I am about his books. Faulkner claimed to be a fighter pilot in WWI, although historical records make it seem as if he never saw action. I think his fighter pilot fantasy was enfleshed in the Sartoris epics, while this story illuminates a war and homecoming still very fresh in young Faulkner's consciousness. His description of Donald's deteriorati...more
Jul 29, 2011
Esteban Gordon
added it
Faulkner's first novel: One star for an occasional passage of brilliance. One star for sneaking a peak at a few themes of later, greater books. Minus three stars for going absolutely nowhere, with thin characters who appear and disappear into a maze of nothingness, and a few thousand horrific similes. Maybe he was writing this while he worked at the post office, and those damned customers wouldn't leave him alone. Thankfully, he only got astronomically better.
Faulkner's first published novel showcases what is clearly a preternatural style of prose — essentially poetry. Every paragraph is a jewel, and I found myself rereading whole chunks of descriptive, atmospheric, scene-setting sentences ALOUD. That aside, his characters are less wonderfully drawn. A lot of didactic dialogue and stagy situations in a small southern town as soldiers return home from the first World War.
Faulkner. Just amazing in passages and so laborious in others. This book is about sex, death, and the idiotic lunacy of being human... in wartime, so all of the above even more than usual. I had to say I liked it, although I also REALLY liked it and I also thought it was just ok... these ratings are getting pretty meaningless as I go along, and require a lot more than a little blurb. But overall, this book is worth reading. Faulkner's view of human nature as flawed drips from every overly charac...more
Well, he got a lot better. This isn't a great book and would have been forgotten if not for Faulkner's later career. The characters are fairly well done, maybe a little flat, and there are probably two many directions that don't all get resolved. Yet the main storyline about a returning soldier is a good one.
The book pales in comparison the genius to come. It reads in many places like a movie from the period. One diminsional characters with lines and actions bordering on slapstick. It does offer glimpses of what would come later. Only those most dedicated of Faulkner-philes should feel any inclination to read it.
The book doesn't open so well with a train ride and the soldiers hanging out with some fairly hard characters. But once they are in town, there is a very long, weirdness in the story of the girl engaged to a soldier who has been destroyed by the great war.
rounded up from 2.5 stars. wasn't really into this - faulkner's writing style at this point was really tedious and overdramatic. constant use of pronouns at the beginning of chapters made it difficult to tell what was going on as far as what characters were involved in the scene. this 'experimental' writing style works in the sound and the fury or as i lay dying when the format is a first person narrative with someone with either severe mental problems or mental retardation, but when its a third...more
Most of my Faulkner books are catalogued over at LibraryThing at the moment; so only the dregs are getting listed here. And SOLDIER'S PAY really is the dregs. Sorry, Uncle Billy.
Early Faulkner, interesting in many parts - you can see glimpses of his unique writing style. strange, wandering plot.
Baah
Time lost
First book, ok, but compare this with The Bundenbrook (first book of mann)
Poor, confuse, pretentious
Time lost
First book, ok, but compare this with The Bundenbrook (first book of mann)
Poor, confuse, pretentious
Obviously an early Faulkner novel. He got much better at the disjointed narrative in his later novels. Here, it's just disjointed. A few good passages, but a lot of confusion and conversation.
I got a few pages in, and shelved it.... early Faulkner maybe isn't as interesting as early Munro?
Faulkner's first published work written from New Orkeans. Not as fluid as some of his later works!
It's hit or miss with this, Faulkner's first novel. It's a slow build toward the middle sections, and then quickly begins fading, only to be rescued by the final few chapters.
amazing that he could write this novel so quickly -- his first
I bought Soldier's Pay in New Orleans at the Faulkner House bookstore located in the charming old building where Faulkner wrote this book, his first. Set at the conclusion of WWI it bring home that war is always a miserable unhappy affair.
Ah, Faulkner! It's been a while since I read a book by Faulkner just for enjoyment. What a master! This is not one of his most well known books--it reads more like popular fiction, with characters not quite as well drawn as some of his other works. But there's the drama of the wounded hero, but beautiful woman who can't make up her mind, the loyal friends. Though this isn't strictly a "war novel," there are glimpses of war scenes and some about the effects of the war both on soldiers and on thos...more
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Faulkner's first and worst novel!
Aug 22, 2012
Mike
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
faulkner fans, those interested in the time setting
At its best when Faulkner is just himself, but much of the time it tries too hard to resonate. The dialogue is often particularly uncomfortable. Felt more like an old movie screenplay than anything else and it’s more interesting as Faulkner’s first novel than as a novel in itself. 2.75 stars.
2 likes · like · see review
It's Faulkner, what more needs to be said? Ok, its soldiers returning from war on a train.
"What can equal a mother’s love? Except a good drink of whiskey"
Thats bourbon, by the way not scotch or irish whisky.
"The saddest thing about love too is that not only the love cannot last for ever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten."
"What can equal a mother’s love? Except a good drink of whiskey"
Thats bourbon, by the way not scotch or irish whisky.
"The saddest thing about love too is that not only the love cannot last for ever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten."
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| The Bookhouse Boys: Soldiers' Pay | 65 | 11 | Nov 30, 2011 05:43pm |
William Cuthbert Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. One of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, his reputation is based mostly on his novels, novellas, and short stories. He was also a published poet and an occasional screenwriter.
The majority of his works are based in his native state of Mississippi. Though his work was published as earl...more
More about William Faulkner...
The majority of his works are based in his native state of Mississippi. Though his work was published as earl...more
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“Who gathers the withered rose?”
—
12 people liked it
“About women? When I say soldiers I don't mean me. I wasn't no soldier anymore than a man that fixes watches is a watchmaker. And when I say women I don't mean you.”
—
4 people liked it
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