Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Bonitaj wrote: "That juxtaposed to the kids' babbling away was noteworthy. I think you made a valid point, that because they spent so much time hanging out with the servants - they spoke like them.."

Hmm, I suppose you could be right that that could be the reason (despite them going to school), that it's yet another way to highlight the parent's carelessness and neglect of the children - the father was always drinking and the mother was always in bed, complaining.

So what do you think of Jason as a person? This chapter reminded me even more of Nabokov's skill in exposing a sociopathic character via his own speech and thoughts.

I meant all the bad grammar; yes, people do speak like that, of course, but mainly uneducated people. My point was that the mother makes such a big deal about how upper class the Bascombes and the Compsons are, but nothing about them seems upper class to me, to be honest, besides that they think they need to have servants working for them and seem to have owned a bit of land at some point.
But any low-class farmer can also own land, I don't see how that makes you so upper class just to own land and have servants, while in the meantime you behave like a hooligan and speak like one.

Jason thinks he's very smart, but he's not as smart as he thinks - I love how you read between the lines when other people are messing with him. He's such a d_ck.
What a cad and a cheat, and rude as hell.

Benjy still goes to the gate every evening to wait for Caddy to come home from school, even so many years later.

Ok, I have a copy with notes that I'll share with you guys; when Jason goes to the telegram place, he is finding out about the stock price of cotton, because he speculates on cotton. so, where it says:
"It was up two points. They were all buying ",
this refers to the fact that Jason has on the previous day "sold short" some cotton futures: that is, he has borrowed from his brokerage futures that he doesn't own. Unlike his fellow-investing townspeople, he therefore wants the stock to go down, to a price below what he sold the borrowed shares for, and wants to buy at the absolute rock-bottom price in order to increase his own profits. If the price goes below what he has borrowed, he repays his broker the original loan plus interest, and pockets the difference; if the price goes above what he has borrowed, he loses that much (Morrison 467). Thus he notes that the market is up two points, which his fellow investors take as a favorable sign and begin buying, hoping to buy low and sell high later in the day or in the week. Jason, however, has a telegram from "some people who're right there on the ground" in New York (192:10), some investment professionals he is paying $10 per month for advice (192:32); the telegram tells him to ignore a "deceptively positive" market opening and not buy. Fifteen minutes later he receives the news that the market has gone "up two points more. Four points" and although he is nervous, he decides for now to stick to the advice that he is paying for.

- from: Reading Faulkner. The Sound and the Fury : Glossary and Commentary. Reading Faulkner Series. by Ross, Stephen M. and Polk, Noel (1996)

In case any of you wanted to move on, thread for the next section (Jason) is here :
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

"I never had time to go to Harvard or drink myself into the ground"
At first I wondered if this meant that Quentin drank, but Jason is referring to Quentin re Harvard, and to his father re the father's drinking.

NOTE: This narration takes place one day after the Benjy narration.

Faulkner's tenses are all over the place; the one moment it's in the present tense, and the very next moment it's in the past tense. And where is there ever a world where it will be correct to say: "I says"? It can only be "I say; I said; or I am saying, or I will say. It can never be "I says", yet that is what Jason says all the time... It drives the bit of OCD part in me nuts.

Bonitaj wrote: "Morning everyone! Traveller thanks for the update and new insights.
To me, the incident with the little girl spoke volumes.
a) her only means of communication was with her eyes. Her compliance to..."

Thanks for that, Bonitaj! You are right about the little girl's silence being symbolic there, I think - she is reminiscent of the Caddy character in that they are both voiceless, yet stubborn eh? ..and perhaps speaking for how often societies relegate women to a 'voiceless' role - btw terrible about that new Afghan law that prohibits women's voices from being heard in public....

She also seems to me to be a symbol of innocence - the character of Caddy also started off as being innocent, and I feel that Quentin feels drawn to innocence, hence his initial warm feelings towards the little girl.

However, innocent little girls can also be a source of trouble, and here I'm still struggling to formulate my thoughts, but as to Quentin's intentions, I think he instinctively felt protective towards the little girl, just as he felt protective towards Caddy. (Note that he keeps calling the little girl "sista") These protective feelings are then mirrored by her brother, who attacks Quentin as a potential defiler, in order to protect his little sister, the Italian girl.
I think there is a lot to say about the little Italian girl, which I am going to mull over for perhaps a later thread such as the ending spoiler thread or the themes thread.

In Jason's defence, I suppose he never thought that she would follow him so tenaciously, and of course tries his best to 'get rid' of her, and I think there might be symbolism in that as well.

Just btw, regarding whether incest took place or not: (view spoiler)[ Apparently Faulkner himself insisted that it never happened, that it was something that Quentin tried to convince his father happened, so that he (Quentin) could take the blame and have Caddy to himself; he really found her being married off a very traumatic event. Yeah, talk about obsession - he really wasn't quite a well puppy. (hide spoiler)]

I was very puzzled starting off with this section, thinking it was a negro servant talking, because of the bad grammar, and wondering when Jason is going to start talking, but apparently this IS Jason!
I thought the Compsons were so high and mighty and educated, at least....

Linda wrote: "This "shadow"....predates Churchill's "black dog", doesn't it?.."

It does, and I think you're right, it does seem to be an apt metaphor for Quentin's black thoughts and state of depression.

Linda wrote: "They named their cats Chuck and Bubba.."

I've often heard the epithet 'bubba' being used, but I never made the link to brother, dense that I am, 🤦‍♀️ I just always thought it was just an affectionate little name which sounded more like a grown-up (as opposed to infantilising) version of "baby", I guess... 🙈 and now that you mention it, I can see how "brotha" can easily turn into "bubba"

Linda wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Linda wrote: "One thing that has hit me, although I still have to finish Quentin's part (because I have another interlibrary loan book overdue): None of these characters have been..."

If you've read up to the point where Quentin attacks Gerald Bland for saying, among other things: "Talking about the body’s beauty and the sorry ends thereof and how tough women have it, without anything else they can do except lie on their backs. Leda lurking in the bushes, whimpering and moaning for the swan, see.",
then you should be good to go checking the second spoiler, because at this point the chapter starts to gradually draw to its conclusion and we don't have any new revelations about the past as far as I can see.

Bonitaj wrote: "I have to confess I went for investigative back surgery today and although I had my book with me for the waiting period, I didn't have the wherewithal to tackle Faulkner!
Traveller you've given a ..."

I am sorry to hear about your medical problems Bonitaj, and wish you all the best for a good outcome.

I think one must relax with the Quentin part and not struggle too hard about trying to figure out who said what - just let the emotional content of it wash over you, and then when you get to the end, have a look at all the notes and spoilers and perhaps in that light, then re-read the parts that didn't make sense to you.

What I did was I would read a few pages of those jumbled memories, and then consult notes and then read it again for an aha moment.

There are of course parts in his present that are straightforward and easy to follow, such as his adventures with the three fishing boys and the little Italian girl. Those I would just read through as if it were a normal novel.

And yet, there again, we have the trout, which to me was symbolic of something untouchable, and as such probably represents being in a place Quentin himself would like to be :

The trout hung, delicate and motionless among the wavering shadows.

The whole episode with the little Italian girl is of course also symbolic, but I'm still trying to decide exactly how she fits into the symbolic scheme of things.

Suggestions from you guys will be very welcome. :)

Linda wrote: "One thing that has hit me, although I still have to finish Quentin's part (because I have another interlibrary loan book overdue): None of these characters have been developed to the point where I'..."

At first I just felt Quentin was a neurotic weirdo, but as the narration becomes more emotional, I couldn't help starting to feel a lot of empathy for him, especially since he seems to have a good heart basically, just very unlucky in how his emotional attachments played out, and unlucky to have such bad parents. You really do see the effect of the mother's bad mothering as well, because he often says: "if only I had a mother". 😥

Hmm, I understand what happened, but it was very difficult to tease out who said what in Quentin's thoughts - you guys complained about Benjy being hard to decipher, but I actually find Quentin harder.
What most certainly doesn't help in either Benjy or Quentin, is that something that happens in their present reminds them of a past event, and then present and past gets jumbled up.

Strictly speaking this is a bit of a spoiler, but I'm going to mention it because you'll only know what I mean if you've reached that part of the narrative; Quentin basically "fights" as in a physical altercation, 3 people; Dalton Ames (who pulls a gun on him) and Caddy in the past, and Gerald Bland in the present. At the point where Caddy was seeing Dalton and Quentin was trying to stop her, I got so confused with who was saying what that I started to consult notes after every few pages for clarity. I will hint at the things I managed to figure out under a spoiler tag, but don't reply to it in this thread, I think once you get the whole picture, let's talk about that in the next thread, the Jason thread, so that we can relax about throwing out spoilers.:

(view spoiler)[ Ok, it should be obvious what Caddy and Dalton is doing, and why that upsets Quinton so much, since he wants to keep Caddy to himself. He fights her because he tries to stop her from going to see Dalton in the woods. A few days later he confronts Dalton and asks him to leave town, which is when Dalton pulls the gun on him. Then, remember, later on in time (though it's not quite obvious that it was a few months later on in time) Caddy complains that she is "sick" and that she has to find a husband because she is "sick". Then her mother takes her to that French Lick place, and she meets Hadley Head there, (the guy who had cheated at exams and at cards, which Quentin confronted him with) and because Hadley is well-established financially, obviously between Caddy and their mother they decided that he is a suitable husband for Caddy and she marries him. (hide spoiler)]

There were some other things I wanted to post, but if you're not finished with the chapter yet, I think I'll post those in the Jason thread to be discussed once you're done.

I will throw out a few general comments in the meantime:

One major theme that we forgot to mention is the river and water theme – lots of goings-on in water, especially considering that "the branch" was also water.

Non fui. Sum. Fui. Non sum. translates to: I wasn't. I am. I was. I am not.

"dolls stuffed with sawdust" sounds like a nod to T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men.

"watching against red eyelids the swine untethered in pairs rushing coupled into the sea" - another reference to Euboeleus; I wonder what the connection is – does he feel that Caddy is similar to Persephone?

Perhaps another quick spoiler tag:

(view spoiler)["I held the point of the knife at her throat it wont take but a second just a second then I can do mine I can do mine then "'

This guy is not a well puppy...

That Caddy's heart pounds for Dalton, but does not pound when Quentin threatens to kill her, and perhaps to have sex with her, emphasizes Quentin's impotence to affect his sister.

Dropping his knife is a good metaphor for how ineffective Quentin is, both in influencing Caddy as well as Dalton Ames in his altercation with the latter, and probably contributed to his feelings of personal powerlessness, helplessness and inefficacy.

At first I thought honeysuckle is like the leitmotif that signifies sexual arousal per se for Quentin, but the smell of it didn't overwhelm him when he was with Natalie – it only overwhelms him when he has to deal with the fact of Caddy's sexuality, so it's more a smell associated with Caddy, it seems, when she's engaging with other boys. (hide spoiler)]

Linda wrote: ""Bubba" is just a southern standard for one's brother; I've bever heard that it had to be derogatory."

Sure, I'll take your word for it, though condescending doesn't quite mean the same as derogatory, but I suppose also not quite the same as regular.

Bonitaj wrote: "Way to go Traveller! glad you picked up on my misreading it the other day. I totally got that wrong. Remember I had asked at the outset, who was staying what? I couldn't determine if it was Quentin..."

Hi, Bonitaj, I'm not saying there's not misogyny; I mean there definitely are instances of the denigration of women, and women generally seem to be portrayed in a negative light; there's not a single accomplished woman that I've come across so far in the novel at this point where I'm only towards the end of the Quentin section.

However I did want to clear that little point up, because it further illustrates something that I wanted to comment on, being that I do think that Quentin and Caddy had an unusually intense, even unhealthy preoccupation with one another, not just from Quentin's side, but from Caddy's side as well- although granted she is the more normal sibling of the two.

This is why I looked up whether Faulkner had any sisters or not, because some pretty darn strong feelings are expressed in the Quentin section, and I was wondering where all of that was coming from.

In any case, you might recall that Caddy's husband, Herbert Head commented on how much Caddy talked about Quentin and how he also found it a bit disconcerting how intense the two's feelings towards one another seemed to be.

Of course the Compson parents had their heads stuck up their own behinds too much to see what was going on right under their eyes.

Bonitaj wrote:"I didn't kiss a dirty girl like Natalie anyway."

Hmm, though keep in mind this is what Caddy said to Quentin when they were still pretty young, when Quentin was making romantic/sexual advances to the girl called Natalie in the barn.
Natalie might actually have been physically dirty, or Caddy is saying it out of jealousy.

..so.. about the misogyny so far:
I feel that the parts about women being evil, might be more an echo of the father Jason's cynical remarks than Quentin's true feelings - Quentin's thoughts aren't exactly what I would call normal, in any case.

And then there's the fact that Quentin tried beating up Gerald Bland for making a misogynistic remark, so it's not really misogyny unchecked, I would say - Spoade and Shreve are even on Quentin's side about this.

Some thoughts:
Father damn that horse damn that horse. Wait it's my fault Quentin is trying to take the blame for being thrown by the horse, an event which broke his (Quentin's) leg.

It was the custom of the time to call older male black people "uncle" and older female black people "auntie".

The Quentin section contains quite a lot of religious references- some to evil and sin, the mention of St Francis, and Quentin thinks a lot about hell.

It seems to me that Quentin is the apple of his father's eye, and Jason the apple of his mother's eye.

Very interesting is that Faulkner himself never had a sister.

pro•gen•i•tive. - : tending to or able to reproduce itself
philoprogenitive. fertile, fruitful, tending to produce offspring; of, relating to, or characterized by love of offspring. well, of course the "philo" part is "love of"", so..

"Father will be dead in a year they say if he doesn’t stop drinking and he wont stop he cant stop" Is Jason the father molded on Faulkner himself?

Much as I wouldn't like to let an instance of misogyny get away, it was of course Caddy who said to Quentin: "I didn’t kiss a dirty girl like Natalie anyway", after she had pushed the girl out of jealousy when Quentin and Natalie were, er... doing some horseplay in the barn.

Euboeleus was the guy with the pigs when Persephone was kidnapped by Hades.

Saski wrote: "I agree. I don't see how he could not, being that racism is engrained in the 'system' and Faulkner being born into an upper-middle class Southern family in 1897......."

It's extremely hard not to absorb the cultural, social and value trends of the society one finds yourself in, and although people like Victor Hugo and Thomas Hardy managed to transcend these to some extent, usually it requires some kind of "shock" to open your eyes. I have personally had such shocks, and they open your eyes to the multi-layered quality of social realities.

"...tramping my shadow into the dust.." seems to be a recurring phrase, along with other mentions of shadows, so yes, Bonitaj and Linda, definitely a kind of obsession, along with the "time" theme.

"dont let them send him to Jackson promise" Jackson is some sort of mental asylum,
" bubber" is apparently a condescending form of "brother." "You're meddling in my business again didn't you get enough of that last summer" Caddy has now joined Quentin and Herbert's conversation and that is her speaking.

Ok, so the "Bland" person that Quentin sees rowing on the river is the son of Mrs Bland who is some kind of housemother at Quentin's residence; this Bland fellow (Gerald Bland) is apparently a rake among the women with his mother's full approval.