Word: faulknerisms
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PSYCHOLOGY IS NOT the only way to have better approached the facts. Malcolm Cowley, the critic most responsible for Faulkner's reputation, would have had Blotner use synecdoche--the detailing of a minor incident as an illustration of a larger idea. But rather than use synecdoche, psychology or any other method, Blotner includes trivial facts whenever his copious research uncovers them...
...book to analyze chapter two, switches back to the real world for a discussion of Oxford politics and two hours of flying, then back to the typing of chapter two and an analysis of chapter three. The only value of such adherence to chronology is that it makes Faulkner's antichronological depiction of the Sutpen and Compson stories seem logical by comparison...
...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...
...total result is that we know more about Faulkner than we can justify by healthy curiosity: reading this biography with relish would be like watching more than one episode of the PBS saga of the Loud family...