A one-inch sliver of sulpher-tipped wood is longer than memory or grief; a flame no longer than a sixpence is fiercer than courage or despair.
Perhaps Faulkner imagines his short stories as precisely this; seemingly insignificant snapshots loaded with the power of human experiences and feelings. I don’t find him arrogant. I find him purposeful.
Consider these three forms of literary fiction: poetry, short stories, and long-form novels. I’ve learned how artists refine the form of poetry as a means to articulate a feeling, an essence; uncover truths sometimes without their physical manifestations. Of course, poets experiment and infuse new purpose into this form with an impressive speed because the form itself demands it. When we think about prose – in either the short story or novel form – we often find ourselves grounded in the manifestations of those same truths. We ask ourselves how truths become manifest based on the insights from the writer and the events of the plot, the composition of character. I believe Faulkner approached his short stories with the mechanations of prose with the purpose of poetry.
When reading a story, one immediately feels a bit jarred; plunged into a scene without preparation or context, without knowing the characters, their passions, beliefs, or histories. With a philosophy not unlike Hemingway’s, Faulkner seems to expect the reader to the fit the puzzle pieces together into a picture that represents Truth. In a way, his stories transplant our American reality into the realm of myth; with characters like Sartoris acting out scenes which the reader must study in order to extrapolate any meaning. I admit I found this challenging. Faulkner, like Hemingway, commits to what he knows. He knows the vernacular of Mississippi, the places, the habits of the people, and course of its history. I do not come from this world. I fail to relate which, in turn, results in a failure to decipher a grand Truth from them. Though I have an immense respect for the approach and, if studied, his stories and world might showcase the universality of myth.
Within his world, he does pose challenging ideas and perspectives. From politics, concepts of victory and honor, racism, individualism and community, Faulkner presents how people in his world adapt.
So getting lightning-struck is a mistake that might happen to any man. The mistake I seem to made is, I never realized in time that what I was looking at was a cloud. – “Shingles for the Lord”
The trouble is, we done got into the habit of confusing the situations with the folks. – “The Tall Men”
Are you going to let the black sons get away with it until one really does it? – “Dry September”
…no man has courage but that any man may blunder blindly into valor as one stumbles into an open manhole in the street. – “Victory”
That’s why this story is composite: a series of brief glares in which, instantaneous and without depth or perspective, there stood into sight the portent and the threat of what the race could bear and become, in an instant between dark and dark. – “All The Dead Pilots”
I was a little crazy. You know hot it is, how you want to rush into something ou know is going to happen, no matter what it is. I guess lovers and suicides both know that feeling. – “Honor”
And here we are again: the bald husband, the rural plute, and this dashing blade, this home-wrecking poet. Both gentlemen, being artists: the one that doesn’t want the other to get wet; the other whose conscience won’t let him wreck the house from inside. – “Artist at Home”
I’m just afraid. I think my luck has given out. I know that it has lasted too long; I am afraid that I shall find that I have forgot how to be afraid. So I cant risk it. I cant risk finding that I have lost touch with truth. – “Mountain Victory”
As a literary study, an academic treatise on writing as a craft, this collection staggers the mind. However, one must approach it with that purpose; as study. Unfortunately, I read through the collection with no different approach than I would a novel. This is a mistake. One does not read these stories for a perseon’s perspective on Truth and the human condition, a speculated meaning of life. One studies these stories as a universe in which the creator plants seeds that culminate into a garden of intricate and complex reality. These stories live autonomously from their creator, as Hemingway would applaud, allowing the reality to speak for itself and articulate an essence, a truth, as a poem would.
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