Word: blotner
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UNCOLLECTED STORIES OF WILLIAM FAULKNER Edited by Joseph Blotner; Random House; 716 pages...
...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...
Faulkner's life exudes a mysterious aura which the pedestrian and meticulous treatment by Blotner fails to convey. Those cherished myths--the rum runs in the Gulf of Mexico, Sherwood Anderson's promise to get Soldier's Pay published if he did not have to read it--are set straight as if "for the record." Pleasant Sunday picnics come across as only data...
...most disgraceful part of this biography, because Blotner is no Boswell and could not pull it off, is the final section on the period in which Blotner knew Faulkner. The absurdity begins with "I had glimpsed him for a moment from the other end of the long, dimly lit corridor," and continues for 230 pages until Blotner's tasteless discussion of his realization that his would be the last hand to touch Faulkner's coffin as it was laid into the ground. Having suffered through these maudlin worshippings, it would be embarrassing to look Mr. Blotner...
...Blotner. BlotnerBlotnerBlotner Blotner. We could have guessed just from the sound of the name of the biographer that the approach would be neither magical nor mysterious. It's good, it's all there, but it's Blotner. Why not Carvel Collins, Cleanth Brooks, Malcolm Cowley? These names (and writings) ring, echo Quentin Compson, promise a more magical treatment--a story told worthy of the great story-teller. But Collins fought with the Faulkner family a while back--sin number one for a megabiographer--and his biography had to wait for Blotner's. Cleanth Brooks will eventually come out, I hope...