Word: novelness
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Humor transforms Jason from a cruel antagonist into the tragic yet triumphant epicenter of the novel. In the novel’s appendix Faulkner writes that Jason “assumed the entire burden of the rotting family in the rotting house” before he “was able to free himself forever [from] the idiot brother and the house.” Faulkner reveals that Jason sells the Compson estate and puts his brother in an insane asylum—effectively dismantling his family’s history. Some might view this ending as tragic...
...humor in “The Sound and the Fury” articulates the roles of the three Compson brothers in the family’s decline. The comedic power of the novel is most evident in the third section, narrated in the bitterly sardonic voice of Jason. The tone abruptly changes with the first sentence of the section when Jason announces, “Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say.” The fatalistic overtones of this decree permeate Jason’s narration as he mocks almost every character he meets. Faulkner uses Jason?...
...happens, this scene is also the one that unfolds in the first two chapters of Simon Lelic’s new novel, “A Thousand Cuts.” Lelic has mastered the tropes of the police drama. The book follows an order predictable to any viewer of such programs: exposition followed by introduction of law enforcement officials, whose own battles are then interspersed with testimony. Each witness’s deposition is even separated into a new chapter, much in the same way that “Law and Order” introduces a new witness...
These shows may be wildly popular, but they don’t aspire to much more than a standard formula. If Lelic is to be successful, he must rise above the inherent constraints in such a form. However, unless his novel is intentionally commenting on society’s desire for an easy arc from obscene murder to thrilling conviction, it never rises above a simple copy of a tried and true blueprint...
...When I met Erling, he told me he wanted to write a Danish Western novel. And of course, the story turns more into a drama, or noir, so at last it ended up kind of a mixture of different genres...