fiction files redux discussion
Group Reads
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The Light in August in 2010
Shelby wrote: "Ry, exactly! In every presentation we get of Joe, there are reasons to believe he is one thing or another -- dichotomies abound. And so we are left - in a way - to choose the pieces of the descript..."Haha, that was a great reference with the "parchment," Shel! And what you said about the dichotomies is something I love about Faulkner, which is the fact that he is so adept at presenting us with ambiguities. As in "Absalom, Absalom!", we are only presented with pieces, never the whole thing, so that we are left to project our own subjectivity onto the story along with those of the characters to make the meaning. As with Christmas's heritage, there is also the subtle subjectivity inherent even in the story of Joe Brown told by Byron Bunch...when we are given the story that Joe Brown told the police about Joe Christmas, it's not really Joe Brown's story, but Byron Bunch's story told to Hightower. So we are not actually given the story through the obviously shady second-hand subjectivity of Joe Brown, but rather through the third-hand account of Byron Bunch.
One of the things that makes me love Faulkner so much is the respect that he has for his readers--moments like this kaleidoscopic narrative bear witness to how much faith Faulkner must have in his readers to figure things out for themselves.
Mod
Even more to the visual... the angle is arrogant and baleful. I was struck by how many times folks just didn't like how he "looked" -- his expression... isn't it the foreman who suggests putting his "face through a planer" to change how he looks. There's something here about the reality we give to how someone is looking at us, sussing us up.
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Ry -- Yes! spiraling is a constant theme in Faulkner's work (and he was a big admirer of Joyce who used a similar technique in storytelling. In many ways in this first Part (the first five chapters) you GET the story, but it's how each character tells it that reveals more and more detail. And what I love about Faulkner is that this is the way we learn many stories in our lives... the accretion of details that fill out a story.
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continue... now... please... with the discussions.
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I think I have a crush on Byron Bunch.
Hugh wrote: "Ry wrote: "All right, as we've started to discuss the book in earnest, I would like to say something that I read about Faulkner's style ..."Ry -- Yes! spiraling is a constant theme in Faulkner's ..."
Good point, Hugh. And the accretion of details is something that happens in every person's life--as we accumulate more details, the more meaning we are able to construct regarding what we are learning. This theme also appears in "Absalom, Absalom!," particularly when Shreve and Quentin are trying to reconstruct the story of Thomas Sutpen.
In my opinion, the gathering of details, especially regarding the enigmatic Christmas, is what builds the story into what it is. At the moment we know hardly anything about Christmas, except for what Joe Brown claims...it's not until later that we get enough (or maybe not enough) details to truly decide what we think about Christmas.
Mod
Or is it about a town that possesses this inertia, or maybe even force, for keeping things the same, maintaining a small town uneventful, righteous status quo:
“Because the town believed that the ladies knew the truth, since they knew that bad women can be fooled by badness, since they have to spend some of their time not being suspicious. But that no good woman can be fooled by it because, by being good herself, she does not need to worry anymore about hers or anybody else’s goodness; hence she has plenty of time to smell out sin. … that good can fool her almost any time into believing that it is evil, but that evil itself can never fool her.” (p 68 of Vintage Int’l edition, Chapter 3).
This is one of those passages Faulkner’s treatment of men vs. women can be drawn out. In contrast with the men talking at the mill -- Bunch and his cohorts seem always to be predicting what kind of a man someone else is from afar– what that man will do, what he’s like, what he’s good for.
So the men live in this world of see what a man does, and that’s who he is; the women in this chapter see some of what another woman does, guess the rest, decide who’s good and who’s bad.
So is this about the visible and the invisible? The known/unknown, things we can know and things we can’t? Or is this about men and women?
Shelby wrote: "Watching Hightower’s story unfold, I wondered what its purpose was in the novel… to portray woman’s inhumanity to woman? Or what happens when a community’s pillar falls from grace? What happens to ..."I think I lot of the Hightower story it is concerned with the idea of what happens to the nail that sticks up--it gets hammered down. This might even be a for Faulkner a reminiscence on his position in his own community. For example, in Oxford Faulkner was seen as a layabout who did nothing useful before his Nobel. They even had a nickname for him in Oxford--Count No 'Count, because he was seen as being worthless. Also, Faulkner was asked to give up his post as a boy scout master because of the rumors around town about his drinking.
With Hightower, he is unusual, as he tells everyone how he got his post in Jefferson and why. And he is seen as crazy because of his method for giving a sermon...it seems to me that Faulkner puts it in hyperbolic terms to make us feel what the parish was feeling about his style of preaching, not necessarily how Hightower was actually preaching. My feeling is that Hightower was a man who liked to preach by metaphor rather than speaking straight to people about this virtue or that sin, which unnerved them. Because in addition to being people who probably took the Bible literally, they were probably not used to speaking in metaphor (or listening), so for people not used to listening and taking meaning from metaphor, Hightower probably seemed insane.
Also, the Hightower story strikes me as how a lot of the world operates like a small town. Even the name "Hightower" gives the idea of being above or apart, somehow separate from the rest. As Byron Bunch thinks, "people forget a lot in twenty years...folks dont seem to forget much longer than they remember." Here of course, Byron is referring to how fickle the mob is, how quickly their opinion can turn on the person they just forgave for being outside the fold and brought into the fold because that person did something else to place themselves outside the fold. This attitude toward the outsider seems to be very prevalent in this novel--we will like you as long as you do what we want; if not, get ready for a world of pain.
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Ry, I think you're right about the name and the reaction to him. It reminded me a bit about how the men at the mill reacted to Joe Christmas' "look" -- not whether he was black or white (interestingly, Joe is the one who speaks most often of "having black blood"; it's largely a non-issue for other folks until Joe makes it one!)... but rather this perception that one has placed themselves "above" other folks. The sense of withdrawal too brings with it all kinds of emotional reactions about what the community "doesn't know."
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continue... now... please... with the discussions."
Brian, although you're not reading the book right now, you're past readings and overall Faulkner-philia gives you all the rights and privileges of any other poster! I recall you providing some great "Southern perspectives" that might help us distinguish between what we might think of a Faulkner "quirks" and are more cultural differences for Yankees like me.
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The men at the mill talk about the work he does as being only for black people but no one actually accuses him of having the blood he believes he has.
I think that's all about adding to the mystery, the spiraling of perception of Joe, how identity ties to action, how his attitude generates a response from people around him.
My grandfather, from a very small agrarian town in southern Illinois, would have called it "being too big for his britches" which was generally considered worse than being a layabout or a drunk, but not quite as bad as being a man who didn't "take care" of his children.
Shelby wrote: "What I'm beginning to think is that Joe is not black. I was on the fence, could go either way, on my initial reading, but I'm thinking on the second time around... nope. He's not. The men at the ..."
I think you're right about Joe's ethnicity Shel, but I also think that the most important thing to focus on regarding the issue of Joe's race is the inability to know. Not only for the reader, but especially for Joe. His lack of ability to know himself is what I think causes this intense conflict in his being. This work, I think, is extremely existential. Faulkner himself said that the most tragic thing about Joe was that he had no way to know, to find out who he really was, which meant that he was never able to understand anything about himself because he had no context, no identity to call his own. He existed in a state of perpetual angst regarding who he was.
An interesting thing about the notion of race in the books is how quickly the townspeople turn on Christmas when Joe Brown mentions that Christmas is black--suddenly all suspicion is lifted from Brown once he says the N-word. This seems to confirm their suspicions that Christmas is different and therefore, more likely to have done the deed than Brown.
I'd like to say more, but I have to go to class. Cheerio!
the more I read the better I like the book I wasn't so sure at the beginning of the read but do like how Faulkner weaves back and forth between the characters
also although I don't think what Faulkner writes is the way people behave/interact to a large extent in real life , there is a great intensity that is appealing to me and I do think that Faulkner does describe how people really think/feel about themselves and others even if they don't act out those thoughts/feelings that much
Mod
An interesting thing about the notion of race in the books is how quickly the townspeople turn on Christmas when Joe Brown mentions that Christmas is black--suddenly all suspicion is lifted from Brown once he says the N-word. This seems to confirm their suspicions that Christmas is different and therefore, more likely to have done the deed than Brown.
Agreed, Ry, it's not the most important question, but it is what I boil it down to because of the region and the time in which the book was written - just the differences in the ways people are perceived is so stratified that it makes a difference to me as a reader... and to the plot, which you mention here.
His inability to know = our inability to ... give him a locus, a starting point, as a character. The relentless rhythm at which he does things - whether he's shoveling sawdust, beating Brown or the horse later on, says more to me about who he is than most details I get about him.
I think it's brilliant in execution... since this is so much a novel of perception.
For me, that posed interesting questions about my own identity... the role of the perception of others... etc. etc. What would we be, what could we be, if we could never know who we were?
Shelby wrote: "I think you're right about Joe's ethnicity Shel, but I also think that the most important thing to focus on regarding the issue of Joe's race is the inability to know. Not only for the reader, but ..."for me what a person chooses to hang there identity on given there choices is crucial in how their life plays out
Joe Christmas had the people who adopted him, the people who took care of him at the orphange and even the choice of choosing his own heritage from which to choose what identity he adopted
also once a person is an adult and out in the world, they can choose to base their identity on what they do, what they accumulate, who they associate with etc
so to me Christmas tried to avoid choosing a basis for his identity other than opposing what others wanted him to be without having an alternative for what identity he wanted to adopt
Mod
And no -- I'm not trying to perform armchair psychology here (though I think Faulkner is amazingly astute in how people react to one another in this book), it isn't so much "blaming" the past, but wondering what in the past ever made him believe in any positive outcome?
If I remember correctly, Michael and Brian fueled a great conversation about all the "doublings" back in Absalom Absalom! Faulkner often presents contrasts in this way... I'd suggest contrasting the scene where Lena Grove is shown a bit of mercy by Mrs. Armstid and how Joe reacts when shown a bit of mercy by Mrs. McEachern. Their "choices" seem more natural outgrowths of their character; and (to me) Faulkner seems to be saying something about men and women -- and the choices they make when they lack knowledge... There's the great line from page 38 of the Vintage edition when Byron is thinking about Brown:
Because wherever he came from and wherever he had been, a man knew that he was just living on the country, like a locust. It was was though he had been doing it for so long now that all of him had become scattered and diffused and now there was nothing left but the transparent and weightless shell blown oblivious and without destination upon whatever wind.
Mod
Yes, it's almost as if Faulkner is saying "Race" isn't the issue -- difference, attempting to live outside our community, is the sin. And because Joe Christmas seems to embrace this aloneness, race becomes an convenient "reason" for what was in their hearts all along.
Hugh wrote: "Jim, I'm not sure how far ahead to move into Joe's biography here in Part I but I'm intrigued by your use of the word "choice" -- most especially in light of both the orphanage and the people who a..."This was a great post, Hugh.
And Jim, I liked your way of thinking...especially since I approach this work very much from an existential angle...if Joe Christmas could simply choose his identity, then he would be given a path to go on. However, like Hugh said, coming from his background, what kind of identity would he take (trying to avoid spoilers here) given the kinds of options Christmas has in experience to choose from?
*POSSIBLE SPOILERS HERE* And in a way, it seems like Joe actually DID choose his identity...remember the back-alley tavern that McEachern took Christmas to? Christmas chose to identify with those people, I think, because McEachern told him that they were bad. Why not identify with the people who are seen to be bad by someone who has tried to beat the Bible into you ever since you lived with him? If you want to say it, that might be when Christmas "chose to be an outsider". *END OF SPOILERS*
One of the great scenes from the book, I think, is when Christmas is walking along the road and he sees a group of black people. When he gets closer, they think that Christmas is a white man--they don't identify with him any more than he seems to identify with them.
Mod
It's so strange but seems to be a very distinct style. I don't know any other writer who does this. Does Faulkner use this technique in his other books?
My point is that Christmas had a number of alternatives to choose from as to what his identity would be - he lived in a number of different environments and he could see different people react in different ways to the same environment/stimulus/life situation
to me it's not what a person is exposed to that is important but how they react
also there is nothing preventing Christmas from rejecting the cruelty of the adoptive father and deciding that his life would be better if he forged his identity and consequently his behavior around a different polestar - kindness and understanding rather than cruelty and blind denial of the OTHER's reality
He had a number of alternatives to choose from as to what his identity would be?I have to think on this one... Unlike most people, I don't know my family history beyond my parents and one maternal grandfather. For all I know, I have a great aunt in China with the same color eyes as me and a strange fear of letting people into her house. Abandonment or adoption can lead to "lost" children with no roots to provide a foundation. It makes for some awkward footing through life - when you don't know who you are or who you're supposed to be.
I keep thinking of this tree, full of plump, juicy fruit, beautiful to the eyes and and to the taste. But without strong roots, the tree will topple over and the fruits will spill onto the ground and eventually rot...
I don't have this book yet, and all I know about Joe Christmas is what I've read in this thread. But I have the feeling I understand his frustration.
Jim wrote: "My point is that Christmas had a number of alternatives to choose from as to what his identity would be - he lived in a number of different environments and he could see different people react..."
Don't you think though, that what we are exposed to for the most part determines how we react? Consider all the things that seem to stack themselves against Christmas--lack of knowledge about his origins, abandonment, alienation, abuse, shelter from the world.
These are some pretty extreme happenings that make the chance for a happy ending remarkably slim, and I don't agree that this was a person whose life was still very open for good decisions or self-determination. In order for this to happen, he would have had to be exposed to someone who was with him long enough and told him it was okay to not know who he was at a very early age. In Faulkner you will not find many characters who are capable of self-determination and Joe Christmas I do not believe to be one of that rare order.
Mod
Kerry, I can't find my AA! book where there's a quote I remember about a shuttered room that had those great Faulknerisms.... I love how clear and descriptive many are.... I could use some help from my Southern friends on this one, but I seem to recall conversations where I've learned great neologisms like the ones you point.... Knowing Faulkner's love of Joyce and that he, too, originally wanted to be a poet, he definitely loves language and it helps him shape his worlds.
Mod
"
Here's my one request for the
"free will and choice vs. destiny" discussion. (Of which I include myself a participant....) Given how slippery Faulkner can be about the interiority of his characters thoughts (and their actions) vs. what he might explicitly be "telling us" -- I'd recommend we use the text as an anchor.
For example, I probably should have offered up an example when I said: "...it's almost as if Faulkner is saying "Race" isn't the issue..." (Certainly, it seems his description gives us no real indicate of Christmas' ethnic heritage: "His face was gaunt, the flesh a level dead parchment color." (p. 34 Vintage ed.))
I think by cleaving closer to the text our conversation can avoid some of the interpretations and readings that can lead to: "Oh, yeah? Joe and what army?!"
Mod
Kerry wrote: "I skimmed most of these recent posts because I'm only barely past chapter 5. I have a question for you Faulknerphiles: what is going on with the way he smashes words together: sobereyed, womanroom,..."The way Faulkner smashes words together is one of my favorite things about his style. I definitely think it was partly out of admiration for Joyce in the way he put those words together, attempting to flaunt the "rules" of writing just a bit and totally pulling it off. But also, I think that in putting those words together, Faulkner is able to give us a sense of what one word can do to a person's imagination...almost like word association or subconscious linkage of terms. Pinkwomansmelling actually makes sense to me and I'm not sure why--maybe its the subconscious association of pink with women and the scent of women.
Frictionsmooth is one of my favorites, because it sounds like a much better choice than saying "this thing that was worn smooth by years of treading."
Mod
One of my favorite sentences in this first part of LiA is so full of information and strong imagery and a great mash-up of a word:
When she was twelve years old her father and mother died in the same summer, in a long house of three rooms and a hall, without screens, in a room lighted by a bugswirled kerosene lamp, the naked floor worn smooth as silver by naked feet.
"smooth as silver" contrasting with the image of poverty.
Mod
When I've read this book earlier, I've always thought of it as ultimately the story of Joe Christmas but this time through I think I need to amend that. In part because of the doublings with Hightower's character. Earlier I took his story as a kind of sidebar of a significant player in the drama, but as I made my way through Chapter 3 again, I was struck by:
a) the way he is ostracized from the moment of his arrival by the town (like Christmas) because of his attitude. (page 61) "[T:]hey listened to him with something cold and astonished and dubious, since he sounded like it was the town he desired to live in and not the church and the people who composed the church".
b) the way his past plagues him (that story of his grandfather he can't shake -- and I love how Faulkner uses "galloping" as he tells the story 7 times in the course of five pages.
c) and the issues of race that come up -- first his "high brown" maid, then the brick through the window with KKK on it after he hires the "negro cook". He's ultimately taken out into the woods and beaten by men he will not name.
And then there's what the townspeople tell Byron D.D. stands for:
Done Damned.
Mod
There are elements of their behavior/personalities that are the same - proud, oblivious to the response of others, Hightower's ignorance of his wife's pain and Christmas' inability to receive any affection...
BUT one is a preacher and one is a moonshiner.
//SPOILER//
One is eventually left alone while the other is (SPOILER) hunted down.
There's a lot to it when you start stacking them against one another.
Mod
There are elements of their behavior/personalities that are the same - proud, oblivious to the response of others, Hightower's ..."
Do you see Byron then as Hightower's Brown? The younger inquisitor who brings him in touch with (or in conflict with) the rest of the town? (Not sure I agree Hightower is "left alone" -- he's been beaten down pretty good by the town.)
Mod
"I find there's this sense in Shepard that there's this violence coming out of the men and the struggle of the women is figuring out how to live in relation to the violence."
Mod
//possible spoiler//
There has to be a person who draws the outside world in for both Christmas and Hightower. If Brown weren't around to shoot his mouth off, Christmas would have quietly run his moonshine business in perpetuity (maybe). If Bunch had not been there to draw the outside in, Hightower would have been left alone for at least a bit longer (maybe).
In comparison to Christmas? Hightower is not hunted down the same way. Although - there is a lot to contrast between being physically run out of town on a rail, and the psychological warfare waged on Hightower. Perhaps better for later conversation.
As to that quote ... there is some of that, but there is also quite a bit of men trying to figure out how to live in relation to women, I think. We're a perplexing bunch.
Mod
Christmas' racial identity (or at least the notion that he could be black) seems to originate from the dietitian's yelling at him when he throws up the toothpaste. This seems to be confirmed when the janitor tries to save him, but it doesn't necessarily make it so.
This notion of blackness seems to aid Christmas in remaining outside of society. Why mention it to Bobbie otherwise?
Even his name, which I find comical, seems to be a mechanism for keeping himself outside of the norm. Isn't it mentioned somewhere that he was presumed to be foreign because of the name? Maybe I am just making that part up.
Mod
In Part 1, we get the skeletal outline of the story. The 5th Chapter ends after a feverish 24 hours in which Christmas strips naked and rushes out to the road, then returns and dresses and goes down to Freedman Town where the blacks who live there challenge him: "What you want, whitefolks? You looking for somebody?" (p. 117/Vintage) Then, unable -- or unwilling -- to enact the violence that bubbles in him, he returns to the Burden house....
And then, in Chapter 6, the next 100 pages -- we shift back to the child in the orphanage who is first described to us as a "shadow" lurking in the hall:
In the quiet and empty corridor, during the quiet hour of early afternoon, he was like a shadow, small even for five years, sober and quiet as a shadow. Another in the corridor could not have said just when and where he vanished, into what door, what room. But there was no one else in the corridor at this hour. He knew that.
So he begins as a shadow until he's thrown into the light -- until he's revealed -- and what does the nurse say to him? (She who is described as "pinkwomansmelling" one minute... and is transformed the next.)
"You little rat!" the thin, furious voice hissed; "you little rat! Spying on me! You little nigger bastard!"
So here we have a man who knows he can pass for white, but when it comes to dealing with men AND women, there is something about who he believes he truly is deep down when he steps out of the shadows. Who does he believe he really is? And might this question of identity be something that haunts all of us on some level? Who we are?
(And for a sense of just how important this "identity" is: I'd refer back to the otherwise hilarious scene in Chapter 4 when Brown is interrogated: "'You better be careful what you are saying, if it is a white man you're talking about,' the marshall says. 'I don't care if he is a murderer or not.'" (p. 98)
Better to be a murderer than not-white. Then there's what Hightower says upon hearing this tale:
"Is it certain, proved, that he has negro blood? Think, Byron; what it will mean when the people -- if they catch..... Poor man. Poor mankind.")
[And I think the passage you refer to is when he shows up at the mill:
"His name is what?" one said.
"Christmas."
"Is he a foreigner?"
"Did you ever hear of a white man named Christmas?" the foreman said.
"I never heard of nobody a-tall named it," the other said. (p. 33/Vintage)]
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MEDIC!!!
Well, I do declare, Mistuh Evison... glad to hear you're enjoying it! Looking forward to your insights -- and agree about lovely Lena. Faulkner's got a way of making you completely get why Byron is smitten and yet there's not a hint of sentimentality surrounding her. In her own quiet, personal way, she's this unstoppable force of nature making her way to Bunch/Burch/Brown.
Mod
I do declare Mr. Evison, how you do go on and on about little ol' Bill Faulkner. Of course he is just about the best writer this country has ever seen, and I am just perplexed as a bug on a barn door that you have not seen this up until now.
(Welcome Jonathan, and all y'all, to 2010 and another year of reading large. mm)
Mod
Pops! It's good to see you in these parts again! I do hope you stick around for a while.
I just read my favorite Faulkner Light in August sentence (so far). It's from page 186 in the Modern Library 1950 edition:
It was only as he put his hand on the door that he became aware of the complete silence beyond it, a silence which he at eighteen knew that it would take more than one person to make.
Dan wrote: "Michael wrote: "I do declare Mr. Evison, how you do go on ..."Pops! It's good to see you in these parts again! I do hope you stick around for a while.
I just read my favorite Faulkner Light in A..."
that is a great sentence and perfectly describes how silence between 2 people can be so much of a different experience than the silence experienced by a person alone
Jonathan wrote: " . . . i'm 90 pages in, and . . . and . . . and . . . i'm liking it better than anything i've ever read by faulkner!!!! . . . hooray! this is the skipper eating a little crow! . . . the narrative h..."This is the best thing I've read so far this year! I'm glad to see that this experience with Faulkner is turning out better for you, JE!
Mod
One might be tempted to say Faulkner shows a bit of misogyny with some of his characterizations of women -- though my own argument is that it's more often a kind of overwhelming misanthropy, Bill can seem like an awfully ornery cuss.... But at the very least he sees men and women nearly as different races.
Most specifically, I'm thinking about the pairings in Joe's life and how those seeming opposing forces tug at him:
Most notably (for me), when the Dietician plots to have him sent to a negro foster home, the janitor literally kidnaps him to take him to another white foster home. The tragic irony is the way Joe sees himself reflected in their eyes:
To the Dietician: Joe is spying on her. (p. 122)"[Y:]ou little rat! Spying on me! You little n****r bastard!"
But Joe has spent his time under the constant gaze (Godlike in it's omnipresence) of the janitor:
He did not know the man's name and in the three years since he had been a sentient creature they had not spoken a hundred words. But the man was a more definite person than anyone else in his life, not excepting the girl Alice. Even at three years of age the child knew that there was something between them that did not need to be spoken. He knew that he was never on the playground for an instant that the man was not watching him from the chair in the furnace room door, and the man was watching him with a profound and unflagging attention. If the child had been older he would perhaps have thought He hates me and fears me. So much so that he cannot let me out of his sight. With more vocabulary but no more age he might have thought That is why I am different from the others; because he is watching me all the time.... He hates me enough even to try to prevent something that is about to happen to me coming to pass
And what was it that was coming to pass? If the Dietician's plan moved forward, he would have been sent to the orphanage for black children and have his identity/destiny defined/sealed. (though this would not necessarily be the "truth.")
There are other pairings but what is it about this tug-of-war between men and women?
Mod
Jonathan wrote: " . . . yeah, i'm getting the misogyny, too . . . we know he likes him some bible--i'd say maybe he's got a little bit of the old whore/madonna syndrome, perhaps . . . but then again: it's her fault..."Yeah, you're right about the madonna/whore thing going on JE...Faulkner himself had that little hurdle going on his whole life, if you read the biographies on him. That makes me wonder what Lena Grove is supposed to represent...
Mod
. . . this is a huge issue in modern fiction-- creating relate-able female characters . . .because that's pretty much the audience for literary fiction at this point . . . alienate women, and you're toast . . .
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I'm sure there are feminist readings out there on Faulkner that would confirm what you guys are saying about this fear of women.
And I've only ever read LiA, of Faulkner's work.
So while I can say that most male writers I've read appear to be creating caricatures of women instead of characters, that they don't really seem to "get" how the female operates in the world, by that same token, Faulkner's eye - as acidic as it may be - isn't totally inaccurate either.
And have you read how most women write men?! Even I know much of that is just ... off.
Lena and the woman at the very end are pretty much the only female characters he's what I would call "generous" with (Byron being the male on that side), and Lena... I can't decide if she's supposed to be delusional, or maybe slightly mentally disabled, but there is something *so* different about her that she seems to not-fit *and* tie everything together.
If we're getting biblical, I'd suggest that Lena and Byron make an Adam and Eve kind of couple.
Shelby wrote: "I never know how far to take these man-woman things because I feel like I'm talking out of school... mostly because I'm an individual woman of my own place and time with my own perceptions of men a..."*******POSSIBLE SPOILER!!******
I like a lot of what you said, Shel, but I think that a more appropriate biblical allusion would be that Lena is Mary and Byron is Joseph. Though that would make Lucas Burch out to be God (or the holy spirit), which is kind of interesting.
That being said, I do agree with the difficulty in identifying with the "other" for authors, be they male or female. I guess a lot of the problem could be what JE mentioned when he said that Faulkner (and probably others) see the other sex as nearly a different species. If we simply considered all our characters as people and nothing less, we could probably get a lot further.
I think that the female easiest to relate to in the book is Joanna Burden, perhaps because we get more of her story than any other female in the book. And in true Faulkner fashion, what we learn about her is her past and her past, in turn pretty much dictates her future.
Mod
I've tried to write men before and pretty quickly come up against a brick wall. It never feels genuine. It's not action, it's the moment to moment internal stuff.
How does he position himself in relation to the world. How does he view himself in relation to others, how does he see others. There are a few men I could draw fairly well, but they'd end up pretty Faulknerian because it would end up not-so-generous.
So I understand the problem. I think Faulkner handles it as well as Joyce, all things considered.
Mod
I dunno, in this particular story though, I think there's a link to this supposed "misogyny" of -- "she shouldn't have prayed over me" -- with the earlier "praying over him" that McEachern did.
The reason I think this link is so critical is that after McEachern attacks him at the dance and he grabs the chair. (Who is the violent one in this scene?) He swings the chair saying (p. 206/Vintage): "Stand back! I said I would kill him some day! I told him so!" It's a variation on what he'll say after killing Burden (after all, he thought he HAD killed McEachern!)
I don't think there is a misogyny here because he hates McEachern as much as (perhaps more than) Burden for praying over him and relentlessly trying to "change" him. He seems to be practicing a fairly ecumenical (gender neutral?) form of misanthropy. [I'm not rejecting, this issue of Faulkner's writing (along with many other white 20th century males) having elements of misogyny -- I'm just saying that in this story, Joe's as likely to beat a guy to death as a woman.:]
[I really struggle with the flip side Joe's violence: this kind of abomination of "love" ("parental" in the case of McEachern; "sexual" in the case of Burden) that seems more directed on control of Joe which pokes his old wounds of self-loathing.]
For me one of the saddest scenes immediately follows the confrontation with McEachern and Bobbie: when he is riding the white horse (anyone have any thoughts on this horse/rider imagery that goes back to Hightower's grandfather?)... There in the middle of the night, Joe tries to beat the old white horse to ride faster, but it slowly canters along, until it just finally stops. He continues to beat it until the stick itself breaks (in the same way McEachern tried to beat him into reading the Bible):
He beat it steadily until the stick broke. He continued to strike it with a fragment not much longer than his hand. But perhaps he realized that he was inflicting no pain, or perhaps his arm grew tired at last, because he threw the stick away and turned, whirled, already in full stride. He did not look back. Diminishing, his white shirt pulsing and facing in the moonshadows, he ran as completely out of the life of the horse as if it had never existed.
Interesting to me that McEachern and Joanna Burden just kept after Joe and never -- as he does with this horse -- turn away.
Mod
Although, in a whole other way, Joe may represent the horse itself, standing there, beaten and bloodied, left to make sense of what happened and somehow get on with life.
Joe is endlessly complex (Faulkner makes him so, with assertions like ... maybe he realized he was causing pain, or maybe his arm was just tired), at times clearly abhorrent, at times saddening from the simple perspective of being a fellow human, because it's clear that he didn't "have" to turn out this way - but in Joe, Faulkner seems to be providing us with an example of what can happen when unending cruelty/misunderstanding/terrible circumstances are used to raise a boy into a man.
Joe is a special case all his own in terms of his separateness from others borne of his interminable self loathing; I think if you're looking at the other characters in the book, a more "traditional" lack of understanding between the genders exists.
Parchment! And that's ALL I'm gonna say. For now. :)