Faulkner – Snopes

Blog Editor’s Discussion: March Madness Revisited

Nick Smith

It is once again, dear readers, the time of year when ESPN neglects all other sports to show you basketball replays, and people can think of nothing other than their brackets and their Cinderella team. As a lapsed fan of basketball, especially on the collegiate level, I confess that the tournament really doesn’t excite me very much. If I hadn’t researched it for this blog, that would probably have remained the case. After looking it over in writing this post, I gained a new respect for March Madness, not just as an event, but as a cultural ritual with a connection to history.

The beauty of sports is that they connect people from different eras and geographical locations. Modern sports are geared more towards exciting displays of athletic ability and physicality, but the more ancient ones were a product of practicality. Sports such as boxing, wrestling, fencing, kendo, archery, target shooting, and jousting, amidst a horde of others, served in both idealistic and pragmatic capacities. All of them began life as martial arts, designed to make someone more formidable in combat, whether it be at Agincourt or in a back alley. The evolution from national longbow training to the modern basketball championship was not simple, but it is explicable.

One of the most difficult aspects of training is motivation. When a population turns a violent art into a sport, they provide one of the oldest forms of motivation known to man: competition. The simple notion of competition is profound in its reach. Human beings love to compete, to show that they are the best. As a result of this, sports have grown far beyond their initial role as a motivational tool. Competition is an important thing, nationally and internationally. The Olympics is (largely) a show of goodwill and trust in the international community, and March Madness is an opportunity for old traditions and rivalries to carry on in the United States in a healthy way.

In pondering the idea of competition, I turned to famous examples in literature. William Faulkner understood the instinctive urge to compete better than most, and his writing reflects that. In Flags in the Dust, he writes of the Sartoris family following World War I, specifically Young Bayard. The heir to the family, he went to war with his twin brother and came back alone. Young Bayard proceeds to drink excessively, drive recklessly, and generally try his hand at any highly dangerous activity he can. He was plagued not just by survivor’s guilt, but by an unshakeable feeling that he was not truly a man unless he died in action, which he did while test-piloting a plane. That ideal was a product of his proud upbringing, and is indicative of Faulkner’s argument. Competition, as Faulkner views it, is good and proper, but it cannot be allowed to overcome everything else, or it will extinguish our species. He wrote many books about the flagging, destructive nature of honor in the dying South, and the effects it has upon its misguided disciples. I think he would be very receptive to the idea of sports as a regional, national, and international method of competition, one which doesn’t end in self-destruction.

So in retrospect, I have become a fan of March Madness, and I hope it continues to promote competition and greatness between athletes and fans for generations to come. What do you think of that, dear reader? Can you come up with any other famous examples of competition in literature?

Nick Smith is a senior English and History Major and Creative Writing minor from Alexandria, Virginia. Nick loves all flavors of literature, but he has always had a fondness for science fiction and fantasy, especially when paired with comedy.

Reading Actively

Eleanor Haeg

I’m not sure if it’s weird to have a favorite essay, but mine has been “How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer J. Adler since I first read it in 9^th grade. I had a high school English teacher who had a genius way of pushing his students to understand and analyze what they read without them ever knowing. I remember the first time I ever made a real connection in a book. It was in my 9^th grade English class and we had just finished reading Falkner’s As I Lay Dying. I struggled to get through the book, as many people do, getting lost in the ambiguous sentences and strange perspective-shifting structure. The day after we finished reading, my teacher assigned our class to read Adler’s essay. His aim was to teach us the importance of reading actively. He explained to the class that we could simply go through the rest of high school reading and writing without ever understanding what we read. The gravity of the books we read and their significance in our own life would never been fully realized unless we learned to read actively. Adler writes:

There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it…I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your bloodstream to do you any good.

Like my teacher, Adler wanted to impress upon his readers that there is nothing delicate about a book. A book is a living and breathing creature that changes every time you open it. You cannot have full ownership over anything until you make it your own, and books are no exception.

After reading this essay, my teacher assigned the class to read As I Lay Dying again. He said that he would be checking for book notes every day until we finished the book and that he expected to see colors, scratches, doodles, notes, lists, underlines and circles. We all complied, unaware of the gift he was giving us with this assignment.

It only took me about 50 pages to realize how powerful Adler’s advice was. By marking and draining my brain onto the page I was able to make connections that I had completely missed the first time.

Adler wrote, “marking up a book is not an act of mutilation but of love.” I want to challenge all of you to make this act of love. You will enrich not only your own experience as a reader, but you will give your books the attention that they deserve.

Eleanor Haeg is an English major and Creative Writing minor at Washington and Lee but hails from Minneapolis.

Putting Recreational Reading to “The Flannery O’Connor Test”

Timothy McAleenan

Flannery O’Connor once said that she stops reading a book the moment that she “would not feel a sense of loss if she were to quit reading.” Professor Smith has mentioned that he regularly reads a twenty to thirty page story and thinks something to the effect of, “This story really begins on page eight.” For the past four years, the English majors have been living in a bubble in the sense that we do not get to decide whether we want to continue reading the work or not—if a teacher assigns a work, we’re obligated to finish it.

But what happens when you enter the realm of recreational reading? If the book isn’t interesting, should we stop reading and turn on Mad Men, or should we work our way through it, and earn our way to the meat of the novel, as if we’re eating lobster? In my personal experience, I feel that way about William Faulkner’s work. I really like the idea of William Faulkner, and I have a great interest in many of the themes, motifs, and sense of nostalgia that animates his texts. But with the exceptions of the short story A Rose for Emily and The Sound and the Fury, I haven’t particularly enjoyed the experience of reading a William Faulkner work—getting through Flags in the Dust felt more like a chore to me than an exhilarating reading experience. Yet, once I was done with the work, I was glad that I read it.

I was willing to slog through Flags in the Dust because I was aware of Faulkner’s reputation and I had a good idea of the subject matter at hand before I even read it. But what happens when we’re dealing with no-named authors writing on topics we’re not familiar with? At that point, it’s like picking a piece in the box of chocolates, but some of the options…aren’t chocolate.

If you’re fifty pages into a novel that’s yet to impress you, what do you do? Do you work your way through it, hoping to find the nugget that makes the experience worthwhile, or do you adopt the “life’s too short mentality” and simply give up on it? My attitude on the matter is this: if the author has a well-earned reputation for quality, I’m going to be charitable and give the book a couple chances to capture my interest. But if I’m doing the equivalent of perusing a book on the rack at a bookstore by some Johnny Come Lately, then I’m much more inclined to move on to the next option, as if I’m cable surfing on the television.

Five Books that Will Change the Way You Read

Lauren Starnes

There are few things more fulfilling than reading a truly great novel. Often these rich and complex works do not make for the easiest reading, but the rewards make it a worthwhile endeavor. In these works, everything from the plot to the characters and language draws the reader in and beckons him to read on. During my lifetime I have come across several of these thought provoking novels that completely changed the way I approach literature. These life-changing books are packed with intricate language, motifs, characters, and provocative themes. After much thought, I have compiled a list of the top five works that changed the way I read. Enjoy!

1. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

I read this novel when I was a senior in high school and again in college. Each time I study this book I am in awe of Hemingway’s bare, yet incredibly poignant style. Through his usage of his own Hemingway Code the author creates nuanced shifts in tone, character, and setting. This novel alerted me to the power of motifs and symbols in literature.

2. All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren

It only took about one chapter in this wonderful novel for me to fall in love with it. Warren’s depiction of Willie Stark is at times beautiful and sympathetic, but at other instances damning and critical. Warren’s language and character development in All the King’s Men is unparalleled. I particularly love the foil created by Stark and the narrator, Jack Burden.

3. The Optimist’s Daughter, Eudora Welty

On the surface, Welty’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book seems simple and conservative. However as Welty herself once said in One Writer’s Beginnings, “I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.” The Optimist’s Daughter is clearly a testament to this idea. Welty’s seemingly traditional story explores such complex and provocative themes as love, death, truth, and relationships. Finally, she ventures to ask what happens when we realize our parent’s marriage was not what we originally thought it was.

4. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner

In this dense and intricate work, Faulkner tells the story of the decaying Compson family. This unsettling story is unlike any other novel I have ever encountered. Faulkner experiments with time, psychology, sexuality, and conscious through the guise of various narrators. Reading and studying The Sound and the Fury taught me about new approaches to style, language, and character in literature.

5. Persuasion, Jane Austen

I’m sure most male readers are rolling their eyes at the inclusion of Austen on this list. As a woman, my affinity for Ms. Austen is probably coded into my DNA. Nevertheless, Persuasion is arguably the author’s best and often most under-appreciated work. This novel is darker than her previous books and represents a shift towards Romantic style and sensibilities. Austen is a master of dialogue and character development. If you can’t stand the love story, at least read and admire Austen for her wit, writing, and satire.

Senior at Washington and Lee University. Originally from Chattanooga, TN. Majoring in English.

Snooping out the Snopes

skitskoc12

If you aren’t familiar with the works of William Faulkner, you might be wondering about where the name of the blog originated. Prepare yourselves for enlightenment. The Snopes are a fictional Southern family from Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. They are at the roots of Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy that includes The Hamlet, The Mansion, and The Town. Faulkner presents these characters that dwell in Frenchmen’s Bend as crafty beyond belief. He begins in The Hamlet by illustrating in a rather ironic way the arrival of Flem Snopes into town. This memorable scapegrace will do anything to make a buck – be it working hard or letting others do the hard work for him. For example, after marrying the grocer’s daughter he then manages to extract a preposterous price for her mansion amidst a fog of rumors about buried gold coins. Each relative, whether closely or minutely related, has his or her own adventure (or misadventure as the case may be) adding up to a boisterous if somewhat chaotic compilation of tales.
Why use this unlikely band of characters as a muse for our blog? Perhaps it is because we wish to emulate their cleverness in order to obtain success. Perhaps it is because of our own motley ensemble of bloggers. Or maybe the title serves as a warning, a reminder not to be taken in by all of our words (though I must admit that they are wise ones) and to disagree with us every now and then.

What are your thoughts?

Faulkner and the Necessity of Change

hornea13

What would? It’s one of our favorite questions as a society. What would some dead celebrity, great thinker, or important figure think or do in a contemporary situation? What would George Washington do about moon walks? What would my grandmother think of hybrid cars? Speculation is half the fun, of course, as these types of situations are never ones in which the great figure could possibly have encountered. It’s all conjecture, and no one walks away worse for wear, because the things they’re postulating didn’t happen.

To wit: What would William Faulkner think about Shenandoah going online? Surprisingly, he left evidence on a very similar topic that I think applies here.

During his time as the writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia, Faulkner gave a large number of lectures and talks. Many were recorded and now reside online through UVA’s library. The one linked here is from this series, recorded at Lee Chapel, Washington and Lee University, on May 15, 1958. This session took the format of a reading and discussion, with Faulkner giving a short reading followed by a long question and answer session. His answers, delivered in his slow, rich, Mississippi farmer’s voice, move between everything from hunting in the Blue Ridge Mountains to his opinions on contemporary literature. For the purposes of this entry, the most important section is his rumination on the future of the novel.

http://faulkner.lib.virginia.edu/display/wfaudio31

For those who don’t want to listen, here’s the transcript:

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Unidentified participant: Do you think the novel […]?

William Faulkner: I would say it—it would go through phases like any other form of life or motion. It’s got to be in motion. It’s got to change. The only alternative to change is stasis, which is death. And it—it will change, yes. It may go into another medium. The novel may go into something visual, into—to moving pictures. But the novel as a—a—a quality will not change as long as—as people are trying to record man’s victories and defeats, in terms of the recognizable human heart. Let’s say that, as I put it, the highest form of writing is the—the poem. The poet has taken that—that tragic, beautiful moment of man’s struggle within his dilemma and put it into fourteen lines. The second highest is the short story writer, who has been able to do it in ten pages. The novelist is the failure. He’s a failed poet. It took him three hundred pages to isolate that tragic, beautiful, moving dilemma, victory or defeat, of fragile, invincible man in his dilemma. So the novel may change, but its—it will never vanish as a quality in culture.

So, what would Faulkner think of Shenandoah going online? I say he’d approve. Half a century ago, he saw that literature would probably move into another medium. He wrote screenplays in Hollywood for a time, furthering this very same end. Did he foresee his last novel, The Reivers, becoming a Steve McQueen movie in 1969? Maybe not. But he did recognize change as necessary- “it’s got to be in motion.” Culture is a constantly shifting thing. “To record man’s victories and defeats…,” as Faulkner says, literature has to shift too. Faulkner’s literary world was moving toward movies; ours is running headlong toward the internet. By moving into an online format, Shenandoah is keeping pace with culture. The audience is online. Their lives, their victories and defeats, are increasingly online. The best place to contain a record of these victories and defeats, to record the central impetus of writing, is to be where your audience is. The pulse of modernity is electronic, and the best method of keeping the heart of Shenandoah beating in time with it is to become electronic ourselves.

The next question is: what if we didn’t? What if Shenandoah had remained in print? Faulkner says in the clip that, “the only alternative to change is stasis, which is death.” To stay in print, in stasis, would have brought eventual death. The means and ways by which people access the written word have changed, and physical journals are no longer the dominant source in the marketplace. I cannot say stasis would have brought immediate death. As of right now, there are many literary journals still adamantly in print and apparently thriving. Maybe their funding and readership will remain sufficiently stable that they can continue. However, this vehement refusal to acknowledge online readers will kill them in the end. I love the physical feel of a book in hand as much as the next bibliophile. However, from a purely economic standpoint, I can afford more visits to an online journal and e-books than I can copies of the latest print journals.

Change is the evasion of stasis. In this sense, the migration of Shenandoah from the printed page to the world wide web is just the next step in the road. We are where the readers are now. We continue to record man’s victories and defeats, albeit in another format. Faulkner saw the change coming in 1958; we’re just riding the train toward the next destination.