Snooping out the Snopes

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?