William Faulkner Forum

William Faulkner

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Anyone available to help me characterize Pap from the book Sanctuary?

>>By s_hunold (Wednesday, 12 Mar 2003 20:57)

has anyone read As i Lay Dying? tis weird...

>>By ania (Friday, 2 Apr 2004 15:55)

yeah, I've read as I lay dying, and have some good insight if you'd like. ask away. remember its a book about mourning the loss of a loved one, and its really funny.

>>By litnerd (Tuesday, 13 Apr 2004 10:41)

oh the irony of it all ! :)

>>By ania (Tuesday, 13 Apr 2004 15:13)

I have only read three of Faulkner's novels, the 'potboiler' Sanctuary, As I Lay Dying and The Sound and The Fury. If anyone has any questions about any of these novels, then please do not hesitate to ask. My essay for As I Lay Dying is now used at my old college as a teaching tool, so if it is structure you want help with, then I am your gal!

And Litnerd - I would not class As I Lay Dying as funny, it is dark, terrifying and tragic. It shows how humans who are utterly selfish can put aside their needs and unify themselves for the sake of a mother's dying wish. Where is the humour in that?

>>By Mme Bovary (Wednesday, 25 Aug 2004 14:39)

William Faulkner, yet another great writer from the town of Oxford, Miss., wrote of what he knew. And stories which had been told to him. When William Faulkner accepted the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950, he said "I decline to accept the end of man." He said he believed man would not merely endure, he would prevail."He is immortal, not because he among creatures has an in-
exhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and
endurance. The poet's, the writer's duty is to write about these things. It is his priviledge to help man endure by lifting his heart., by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride
and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past." Now, allow your mind, if it can, to imagine lying in bed listening to the sound of your casket being built. Go back,
reread the book, not in Cliff's notes, and form your own opinions of the books and the man who wrote them. This website appears more and more like the unprepared student's way out. Why don't all of you use your valuable education as a opportunity to grow and develop as humans?

>>By willwrite (Thursday, 26 Aug 2004 04:33)

Ok willwrite, I guess that I was extending the hand of educator, rather than academic or spiritual guide. As I Lay Dying taught me as much about myself as it did about Faulkner's characters, and for this I will always be grateful. I think that that is the joy that I obtain from literature - that it teaches me about myself and helps me to grow.

I wouldn't have gone back to 'school' if I did not feel that in immersing myself in study that I would also enrich my life. (very badly put - but I think you get the message).

I am never ever an unprepared student - but, I would always extend whatever hand I could to assist those in need.

>>By Mme Bovary (Thursday, 26 Aug 2004 10:28)

You are truly noble, so noble, in fact, I think I shall resign from this website and find one where
perphaps people are less educated in school, and a bit more educated in life. I am so very impressed by your intellect, and schooling, and verbosity and feel that I must drop out as a failure and perhaps attempt to finish my own book, which I'm sure would receive scathing reviews. By the way, what does such intellect as yours find to write about, other than yourself?

>>By willwrite (Tuesday, 31 Aug 2004 06:55)

Ah Willwrite, what can I say? (A little bio may be needed here - forgive the indulgence on a page which should be reserved for the lofty genius of Faulkner). I shall endeavour to be brief. I am Scottish, and was intended for university to study journalism, however, my parents moved south when I was 17 and it was too expensive in England to allow for my university education. 20 years pass - in the intervening time, I am married, have two children and get divorced. Happily ensconced with my children in a new home, I am then made redundant (after Sept 11th bombings).

Being of a literary bent, I immerse myself in reading - what we in the UK call chicklit - being romantically dissolusioned and in need of solace (well that's my excuse and I am sticking to it!) Latterly I begin to think, hold on, perhaps catharsis can come if I write my own story. I begin to write, and soon I am writing every day for 5-6 hours, feeling a surge of euphoria at the end of each session. I show my first 100 pages to some friends - some of whom criticise, some praise. The criticism wins. I decide to go back to college and take an 'access' course which rekindles the love for academia within me and propells me on to Royal Holloway university.

My first year is over (I relished every second) and I am about to begin my second year (no Fitzgerald on the curriculum is my soul angst - but give me time!) I love to write - emails, this kind of thing (how would one describe it - academic correspondence?), short stories, essays/dissertations and (not very well) poetry.

So there you have it - as I said to the stunned access course English teacher when he asked me why I was there - I have a deep and abiding love for literature and the English language.

Lesley

>>By Mme Bovary (Thursday, 2 Sep 2004 17:57)

What a wonderful, sweet story. Now would this catharsis be of the type Dorothy Parker spoke of when she said:
"There's little in taking or giving
there's little in water or wine
This living, this living, this living,
was never a project of mine.
For harsh is the struggle and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top
And art is a form of CARTHARSIS
And love is a permanent flop
and work is a province of cattle,.
and rest for a clam in a shell,
I'm thinking of throwing the battle,
Would you kindly direct me to hell???

>>By willwrite (Friday, 3 Sep 2004 05:58)

I wasn't familiar with this poem, but it is lovely. I closely identify with the Poem called 'change' by Robert Graves:

'This year she has changed greatly' - meaning you -
My sanguine freinds agree,
And hope thereby to reassure me.

No, child, you never change; neither do I.
Indeed all our lives long
We are still fated to do wrong,

To fast caught by care of humankind,
Easily vexed and grieved,
Foolishly flattered and deceived;

And yet each knows that the changeless other
Must love and pardon still,
Be the new error what it will:

Assured by that same glint of deathlessness
Which neither can surprise
In any other pair of eyes.

I discovered this poem 14 years ago and it means as much to me today as it did then. I have also been told by that self same English tutor that this section from Tennyson's Ulysses closely relates to my current goals:

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

Somewhere in between these two, my existence lies. I think of myself as a flower in an academic field, whose petals open in ecstacy when the sunshine of knowledge beams down upon me.

>>By Mme Bovary (Friday, 3 Sep 2004 09:01)

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