Flags in the Dust - discussion

[Matt, I am the Great Went.]

Got kind of a late start on this one. About 75 pp in and feel like I'm just getting a sense of the family trees. Love Faulkner, but the man makes you work for it: no pain, no gain.

I feel a little better after seeing this:
http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/fa...

[Dave Alluisi, Evolution of the Arm]

Yeah, it doesn't help that every single Sartoris in the family for four or five generations is either named Bayard or John. This has always been the thing I have to work hardest at with Faulkner because I'm crap with names anyway, so keeping three or four different Bayards straight can be a challenge. There are only two very significant Bayards and Johns in the narrative, though, and both Johns are deceased, so this one became clear for me a lot more quickly than some of the later stuff.

[Jason, Walking Allergen]

What really doesn't help is that Faulkner doesn't enjoy that whole linear time thing, and so you have to work extra hard to figure out which Bayard or John he's talking about at any given moment.

After about 10 pages, I searched for "Sartoris family tree" on my phone, and ended up with the same image Matt posted above. Very helpful.

[Dave Alluisi, Evolution of the Arm]

Fortunately, the family tree in this novel isn't terribly important except to provide historical context to the Sartoris family. One of the major differences I've noticed between the edited version and this one (other than quite a bit of cut text revolving around non-Sartorises) is that much of the set-up in the beginning is relocated to later in the novel, after the reader already has a fairly firm grasp on the character lineage. (Another effect of this is that the reader isn't immediately presented with a couple of anecdotes that paint the Sartorises in a (by modern standards) wholly unsympathetic, even villainous and cowardly, light.) I go back and forth on this decision; I appreciate it for the reasons listed above, while at the same time lamenting the warmth of Old Man Falls' language at the start of the novel rather than what we do get in the edited version, which is several pages' worth of a far more dry presentation of this context.

The family tree is definitely a good companion for the novel, and I wish more of Faulkner's texts were printed with these sorts of diagrams to help readers keep track of who's who.

[Jason, Walking Allergen]

Very interesting. I wasn't up to doing it, but I was excited that you were reading both versions for just such insights.

[Dave Alluisi, Evolution of the Arm]

So, Jason and I got into it a little bit over this book the other night concerning race. He said this was "probably the most racist book I've ever read," and I got a little defensive, because I love Faulkner in general and this book in particular. The more I've thought about our discussion, though, the more valuable I've found Jason's perspective, because, let's face it, this book absolutely has racist passages, and Faulkner never takes the time to moralistically downplay this so much as to present it, warts and all, and even to, let's be honest, tacitly endorse this way of life throughout the novel.

Though I still plan to argue the overwhelming merits of this book, I again want to reiterate the importance of Jason's perspective, because not even a hundred years removed the culture presented in this novel is frankly horrifying, and Faulkner unabashedly laments the passing of said culture. As a caveat, this book is a step in Faulkner's growth as a human (much less an author), and this book is very culturally autobiographical. But I don't want to make excuses for Faulkner's apologetic view of the Reconstructionist South.

So, I'll put the question out to our fellow readers: Is the racism in this book too thick to cut through before you can become sufficiently absorbed in the plot? Is Faulkner, genius wordsmith though he was, doomed to disregard because the society he upheld represented an ugly and embarrassing chapter in America's history? Do Simon, Isom, Caspey, Elnora, and the other black characters in the novel merit actual "character" status, or are they offensive stereotypes?

For those who haven't noticed, claiming Faulkner as a favorite author can be...problematic. ;)

[Robert]

I can't speak to how offensive they are as stereotypes, as I'm not reading this selection, (sorry, boys) but to squelch this part of history is an egregious error, in my opinion.

This opinion is probably easier to eschew as I am a middle-age white guy, but to erase or ignore any part of history, no matter how tragic or heinous, would be a catastrophic step towards hateful repetition.

I believe it was Dave who noted in episode 100; there is no way in hell that he would travel back to the 19c. Why? Because of the horrors that have been recorded in literature. How is a society going to learn from its mistakes if there isn't a reference from which to gauge said mistakes?

This is no way an apology to past deeds, rather an optimistic vision of the present and future.

[Dave Alluisi, Evolution of the Arm]

I found a wonderful, wonderful resource (quite by accident) this morning that I think will help clear some of this up and will in general provide invaluable insight into Faulkner's work, life, and views.

Selected audio clips (also transcribed) of William Faulkner recorded during his two-year stint as author-in-residence at the University of Virginia

The clips are organized largely by novel, so I'm very much looking forward to dipping into the Sartoris section (the novel hadn't yet been published as Flags in the Dust when this was recorded). At the bottom of the page there are also a number of clips in which Faulkner discusses the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. As is noted on the page, "Rosa Parks’ refusal to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, occurred fourteen months before Faulkner took up his residency at UVA," so there was a lot of frank discussion going on concerning race in the South. Granted, these were recorded some 25 to 30 years following the publication of Sartoris, but I don't think Faulkner's views in 1929 were as far removed from his views in 1957 and 1958 as one might initially expect.

Yep, this page is gonna stay bookmarked in my browser for a loooong time. :)

[Jason, Walking Allergen]

Da show.

Dave, Matt and Jason tackle Flags in the Dust, the book that fans, scholars, and the author himself attest to be the arrival of the "true" William Faulkner, its convoluted publishing history, its treatment of race, and more.

OUTRO: "Wolf Among Wolves" by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

http://bookhouseboyspodcast.podomatic...