Word: absalom
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...head parliamentary debates, some of which are now nationally broadcast on BBC radio, the Prime Minister has consistently outpointed his Tory challenger. As if in recognition of a tough election fight ahead, Callaghan has begun to launch a few harpoons at his rival. Borrowing from Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, for example, the Prime Minister has scoffed at Thatcher in the Commons as "Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong; Was every thing by starts, and nothing long." Thatcher, who can indeed be starchy at times, gave an uninspired response to that pointed sally, in which she dismissed...
Master of Ceremonies Archibald Absalom Wellington, smooth as a dagger and just as menacing, introduces his sullen, smoke-eyed cast. Deodatus Village is a half-dressed epitome of black buckdom. The strumpet he struts for is whore-cum-ballet-dancer Stephanie Virtue Secret-rose Diop--"Virtue" for short, which neatly sums up the situation. The curate Diouf pleads for passive religious acceptance; Felicity Trollop Pardon shrieks "Dahomey!" and "Africa!" with an epileptic frenzy; Augusta Snow says little and wears anger like a nimbus round her pout-mouthed head. Genet further burlesque's white perceptions of black names by dubbing...
...JUNE 2 of my sophomore year, the 62nd anniversary of Quentin Compson III's putting flatirons in his shoes and jumping off of the Anderson bridge, I spent the evening with a girl, who was then a close friend and was then from the South, reading Absalom, Absalom! for our English 700 exam (back then it was and it deserved to be called 700). We read to each other by the light of a street lamp on the bridge next to the secret plaque marking the spot from which Quentin was said to have jumped. Such dedication to Faulknerian trivia...
Blotner's dedication to trivia, however, has unearthed information that sheds light on Faulkner's fiction. An early jotting regarding Absalom, Absalom! reveals that Faulkner was concerned more with the way his different narrators--especially Quentin--obtain their information about Colonel Sutpen than he was with the Sutpen story itself. The young Faulkner's correspondence with Sherwood Anderson records an amusing fantasy world of swamp animals they created...
...chronological ordering is at times confusing as well as ridiculous. For example, Blotner opens the description of the writing of Absalom, Absalom! in 1935 in his usual meticulous way: "On March 30 he had taken a sheet of paper with printed margins and written at the top, in blue ink, the title Absalom, Absalom!. He underlined it twice and dated the sheet in the upper left hand corner." He then describes two false starts set at Harvard. So far, very interesting. After a plot analysis of the first chapter, Blotner breaks to tell us about a three-hour flying practice...