Resources

There are some interesting websites to be explored on the subject of Faulkner and his work. I'll post a couple I like to visit. Maybe we can also use this thread as a place to share any critical works we find useful as we go through the group reads.

The Mississippi Writers' Page

William Faulkner on the Web

Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society

Great idea!

I always like to get a sense, if I can, of an author's voice -- the actual voice, I mean, not the "literary" voice.

Fortunately, Faulkner is out there on the web -- at
William Faulkner reading aloud .

Extended selections from: Old Man, As I Lay Dying, A Fable, and the Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.

Thanks, John. I have those on tape (yes, good old cassettes), but didn't think of hunting for them on the webs.

Here's the text version of Faulkner's brilliant Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech mentioned above by jburlinson. Take it in through the ears, or take it in through the eyes; either way it is edifying stuff.

While William Faulkner was UVA's Writer-in-Residence during the Spring terms, 1957 and 1958, he was put in front of over thirty-five different audiences, ranging from English department classes at both the undergraduate and graduate level to people from Charlottesville and the surrounding area. Here are the audio clips of Faulkner's answers during those Q and As.

http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/FAULKNER/wfatuvahp.html

Faulkner's lectures at the University of Virginia, while he was writer-in-residence there, have now been fully digitized from the original reel-to-reel recordings. These are the full sessions previously excerpted as noted by Teresa in the post above.

How cool is that! The brief test clip they feature is him explaining to the students how to pronounce that county he sets his novels in. I can't even spell it.

As I Sat Writing
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2010/9/8wood.html

In his Collected Non-fictions, Borges has a wonderful and concise book review for Absalom, Absalom

I just finished reading Absalom, Absalom!. When I got to the end, I wanted to go back and take the book apart in order to understand the narrators better--who knows what, how did they know it, who is speculating about what, is their speculation reasonable, how reliable/unreliable is each narrator and why? etc.

If any of that interests you after you've read the book, I found a book that will help you to engage with those kinds of questions, highly recommended: Absalom, Absalom!: Reading Faulkner, by Joseph Urgo and Noel Polk. I know Urgo personally from a Willa Cather group that I belong to. He's a very nice guy and a "big gun" in Faulkner studies (Cather as well, of course). Urgo encourages readers to use this book only after they've read Absalom for themselves: "come here after your are comfortable in your own sense of the novel so that you can judge our commentary by what you know of Absalom: we believe our commentary will be more valuable to you if you know the novel well enough to argue with us, to disagree on large and small points, rather than allowing this commentary, or any other criticism, to dominate your understanding of Absalom."

Thanks for that recommendation, Becky. I'm not familiar with Urgo, but you can't do much better than Noel Polk, who has edited the Library of America editions of Faulkner, and has the added credit of being way up on Eudora Welty too.

Here's two unlikely sources:

The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz It charts the rise of representative, participatory democracy from the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln.

Master of the Senate by Robert Caro It's the last installment of Caro's monumental biography of LBJ.

Both books show how race has warped the democratic processes and what has been done to combat them. Good resources, especially in light of Faulkner's comments about Civil Rights, the Lost Cause, and Southern Culture (on and off the skids).

>12 kswolff:. I love Caro's work. I guess he's working on one last volume of LBJ. He's getting up there in years, though (born 1935).

13: Can't wait for that last volume. Caro somehow made legislative minutiae in the Old White Guys Club aka the US Senate with the same excitement and energy of a legal thriller. At least now I know what "cloture" is. With all the dullards, sock puppets, and moral hypocrites occupying that most august body, it makes me yearn for the days of LBJ. Despite his numerous flaws, the man was a legislative genius and a charismatic force. Can't say the same for John Boehner (R-British Petroleum).

>14 kswolff:. Agree!

Shelby Foote talking about William Faulkner in 2002 interview.

Sadly, a living resource has left us.

Dean Faulkner Wells has died.

I have a very usefully print resource called A Faulkner Glossary, by Harry Runyan. It's out of print, but I just looked and there are several cheap copies available on Amazon. I think I found mine at a used bookstore many years ago. I'm at work right now, so it's not in front of me, but I remember finding it very useful, especially for determining the family relationships of characters.

Preliminary information and call for papers for next year's Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference at Ole Miss. If only July in Mississippi wasn't so terrible to contemplate...

If only July in Mississippi wasn't so terrible to contemplate...

The weather's bad too ;)

William Faulkner audio library to go online:

http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/william_faulkner_audio_archive_goes_online.ht...

Outstanding! Wonderful link. Thanks.

That's really great, Karl. Thanks.

It is something to actually hear Faulkner speak. And such a unique accent.

Issues of "Southern Cultures" academic journal:

http://www.southerncultures.org/content/read/read_by_subject/

Can't forget the massive Faulkner biography by Joseph Blotner

I have just finished a most hilarious mystery in which Billy Faulkner is a main character. J. J. Murphy uses an authors license to plot her novel in the Algonquin Hotel with Dorothey Parker and her gang. Billy was a young aspiring author, visiting NY for the first time. So many puns bantered about, I laughed my way through Murder your Darlings. I know this is off topic, but couldn`t resist.

Hi,

I just joined this group and I saw your recommendation for A Faulkner Glossary, by Harry Runyan. I read Faulkner in college a very long time ago, and I was always lost on who was who, etc. I looked here in Resources for something to give me a hand and saw your recommendation. I ordered a used copy of the Glossary tonight. I am looking forward to using it a lot! Thanks for the tip.

Come on back and share what you're reading when you get into it, please!

Recently got my hands on William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country by Cleanth Brooks Looks like a promising critical introduction to Faulkner's works.

>30 kswolff:
Brooks has long been one of my favorite Faulkner critics....he is very readable, and not overly academic in his approach. Enjoy!

31: I read his analysis of As I Lay Dying I had in another critical anthology and enjoyed it immensely. I had read AILD years before and was left utterly baffled and confused. My basic reaction was, "Wait, what's going on?" Cleanth Brooks cleared it up, along with giving the novel his own personal perspective.

Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies:

http://www.librarything.com/series/Fred+W.+Morrison+Series+in+Southern+Studies

An embarrassment of riches.

>33 kswolff: Wow. A couple of those were already on my wish list, but I hadn't realized they were all part of the same series.

Another Faulkner-related series on LT
http://www.librarything.com/series/Faulkner+and+Yoknapatawpha