Word: faulkners
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Paul Sartre went on grubbing for the sources of France's moral decay in Troubled Sleep, while Marcel Aymé took a tolerant satirist's view of that same decay in The Miraculous Barber. Sweden's Pär Lagerkvist won the Nobel Prize (he was Faulkner's runner-up last year) soon after his Barabbas was published in the U.S. It was the story of a brutish man, spared from crucifixion in place of Jesus, who carried the memory of Golgotha through the rest of his life. Only a brief sample of Lagerkvist, it nevertheless...
...terms of abstract standards of readability without asking what it means to the writer himself. He condemns the critical attitude "intent on getting the audience to understand quickly, rather than on encouraging the writer to have his full say." Kazin argues that to ban, by rule-of-thumb, Faulkner's "overblown" words and rhetorical phrasing would be to purge his writing of those elements most essential to his way of looking on the world. Faulkner could not write differently without thinking differently; therefore his words and ideas must be criticized as a whole. Faulkner's readers are privileged listeners...
These two approaches are, to some extent, mutually exclusive. Kazin stresses the subjective elements, those that seem necessary to Faulkner, while Aiken looks for conscious technical choices, presumably changeable. Aiken's critique is surely relevent to many passages in Faulkner's work, passages that could be made more intelligible and still no less satisfactory to the writer. But those inspired by Kazin to look with greater tolerance and sympathy on a writer's inclinations will find their eyes opened to unsuspected values in Faulkner's art. Kazin writes out of a powerful enthusiasm that compels a like excitement...
Least satisfying is a section of an honors thesis by Leonard Doran, who sets up some worn categories and proceeds to classify Faulkner's output in a notably uninspired way. Again, the omission of several type-slugs is inconvenient. A section of Jerome Gavin's Summa thesis on "Light in August" seems at first glance more sophisticated, but fails to follow through any one interpretation consistently. It suffers from lack of organization and a profusion of ideas that do not seem entirely clear in Gavin's mind. The weakness of these two contributions suggests that it was wise...
...such special editions, to fill the coffers and enhance the prestige of the organization. A question remains: is it worth one dollar to non-subscribers? On the basis of the Kazin and Aiken contributions alone, I would say that it is--to all those who are interested in Faulkner and many, as well, who think they...